The Top 5 Suspects in AMC’s ‘The Killing’

All we have are hunches. There may be an educated guess or two out there as to who killed Rosie Larsen, but in this spread out game of Ten Little Indians, hard evidence linking a single suspect is as rare as a smile from Linden. So if guesses are all we have, let me offer up mine. Please feel free to disagree. After all, I can’t prove any of it.

5. Lesley Adams — The Mayor

This guy is just a grade A sleaze ball. He paid off his mistress to keep quiet about a child he fathered with her. He pushed a city council into taking funds away from an after-school program. He’s the antithesis of Darren Richmond’s moral-based candidate and a stereotype of the corrupt politician.

So, he has to be a suspect. At the same time, though, he can’t be the one. Involved? Maybe. He seems to have links to the most atrocious aspects of the city; making it likely he’s linked to this, too. I’m willing to bet he even planted the Richmond campaign car where Rosie was found. But the killer? No. It’s too predictable for this slow burn of a murder mystery.

4. Rick Felder — The Fiance

Rick is the wild card here. So far, there’s nothing other than his seemingly doomed relationship with the lead investigator to even relate him to the killing. Still, everyone on the show has secrets and Rick’s have yet to be uncovered. With every passing episode, those who aren’t lead suspects become more and more likely to be the one who did it.

More circumstantial evidence includes the casting of Callum Rennie, a veteran TV actor with substantial roles in Californication and Battlestar Galactica. Would they really use someone with this kind of talent for a throwaway role? I doubt it. Plus, if I was the killer, I would not stick around Seattle. Maybe I’d have an escape plan…perhaps to Sonoma, California… with a cop fiancé for cover.

3. Tom Drexler — The Billionaire

Money gives its possessor power. Power corrupts. Therfore, by the transitive property, Tom Drexler is corrupted. He may not be as corrupted as the current mayor, but I’m sure he’s got some skeletons in his closet. Just like Rick (and the rest of this list, really), Tom’s character hasn’t been thoroughly explored yet. He may just be the moneyman, but I’ve got a hunch there’s more here.

Plus, Drexler holds a huge grudge against Adams and may have tried to tie him into the mess before the mayor flipped it on Richmond. Those two are always trying to one up each other, perhaps ending in an unfortunate disaster and a dead girl. Ok, I’m just making wild guesses now, but I stand by him as a suspect. It’s going to be the last person you think…

2. Terry Marek — The Aunt

Hence the aunt is suspect #2. Though she’s #1 on AMC’s Suspect Tracker, a site where fans can vote for who they think did it, I knocked her down a peg due to sheer hesitancy. How can Rosie’s aunt be the killer? She’s clearly close with the family. She seems great with her two nephews. Could she really have offed her niece?

Maybe. She’s smart, quiet, and a little too ready to lend a hand and point the finger. She started the ongoing fight between Stan and Mitch (an odd name for a mother…) when she ratted out her own sister. She may not have ice in her veins, but the bio on her is too short to be sure.

Terry may be Mitch’s sister, but she’s clearly close with her mob-tied brother-in-law. Could she have dabbled in the family business herself in the past? Or did she take over for Stan when he backed out? There’s no evidence of it yet, but the hard-partying sister must have learned a few things from her late nights out in the blue-collar neighborhoods of Seattle.

1. Darren Richmond — The Candidate

Let me first say I hope I’m wrong about this pick. I want Darren Richmond to win this election more than I want the Cubs to win a World Series before I die. Ok, not that much, but the writers of The Killing obviously have me highly invested in a fictitious mayoral election when I didn’t even vote in the last real one (I forgot!).

That being said, he’s too clean not to be dirty. The only solid piece of evidence is the Richmond campaign car Rosie was found in, even if the police have stopped investigating Darren’s staff after the car was reported stolen. Nevertheless, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop on the moral candidate all season, especially considering every other character on the show has their fair share of flaws while Darren does no wrong. It seems likely the most wholesome of the bunch would have the darkest, most significant secret (and don’t try to tell me Linden is chaste — she’s the world’s worst fiancé and almost as poor of a mother).

Darren also has a bit of an anger issue. He punched that mirror with some ferocity and slung some mud when pushed to the brink. Could he have made a horrible decision before his wife died and straightened him out? Or perhaps he turned to the dark side shortly after she passed? Either way, the last clue from the latest episode feels like a politician’s kind of move — making Rosie ride the ferry out to a distant casino for a late night meeting in seclusion.

Again, I hope it’s not him, but I wouldn’t put it past the show’s writers to break all our hearts right after Richmond wins the mayor’s chair. Oh, what a season two that would make.