Who framed David? Harlan Coben’s Netflix show I Will Find You’s twist ending explained
This story contains spoilers for 'I Will Find You.'
Netflix's latest Harlan Coben adaptation, 'I Will Find You,' is an eight-part thriller series starring Sam Worthington as David Burroughs. In the series, David's worst nightmare is realized after he's wrongfully convicted of murdering his own son, Matthew, and sentenced to life in prison. Five years after his conviction, David is informed by his ex-sister-in-law, Rachel, played by Britt Lower, that Matthew has been spotted at Six Flags in Springfield, suggesting that he has been alive all these years. However, there's not much David can do about it while he's trapped inside prison walls.
The prison's warden, Phillip Mackenzie, and his acting police sergeant son, Adam, hatch a plan to help David escape. The plan succeeds, and once outside, Rachel and David delve deep into their investigation, which soon leads them to Rachel's ex-boyfriend, the wealthy heir of the Payne Foundation, Hayden Payne. As Hayden still has feelings for Rachel, he helps her and David in their search for Matthew. It is soon discovered that the chief witness at David's trial was paid to testify that she saw David burying a bloody baseball bat. The DNA evidence was rendered untrue as well, and it actually belonged to a dying orphan child known as Martin, whose disappearance had something to do with the Payne Foundation.
Years earlier, when David and Cheryl first struggled to conceive, Cheryl looked into using donor sperm behind his back. The fertility clinic she was in talks with, Berg Reproductive, was part of Payne Medical Group. However, this step soon became redundant when Cheryl conceived Matthew naturally. She had used her sister Rachel's name at Berg so that David wouldn't suspect her. Rachel and David eventually discover that Hayden had interfered with the sperm donation procedure and donated his own sperm in the hopes that Rachel would conceive their child and the two would get to live together again. This further led him to believe that the sperm donation had been successful, since Cheryl had given birth to Matthew by then. Hayden subsequently tried to get Matthew back, with serious repercussions.
Ultimately, Hayden kidnapped Matthew and staged the crime to make it appear as though he had been murdered and raised him after renaming him Theo, alongside his wealthy mother, Gertrude, at their sprawling estate. Towards the end, FBI Fugitive Task Force agent Sarah Greer arrives with David at the estate, where Rachel soon informs Hayden that Matthew wasn't his biological son. This truth had been kept from him by his own mother. A delirious Hayden ended up shooting his mother, Gertrude, and also shot David before trying to escape with Matthew. Sarah saved the day by shooting Hayden right in front of Matthew. In the aftermath of the shocking finale, Matthew is reunited with David. Elsewhere, Rachel wrote a book about David and Matthew, while Adam became a private investigator after losing his job as a policeman.
