Beneath Devil's Bridge

In the small Pacific Northwest mill town of Twin Falls, 14-year-old Leena Rai stumbles drunkenly across Devil's Bridge at 2:04 a.m. on November 15, 1997. An outsider bullied at school and desperate to belong, she wears an oversize military surplus jacket belonging to someone else and carries a nearly empty bottle of vodka. Drawn by an invitation to meet someone, she descends the steep trail beneath the bridge. A voice calls her name from behind. The blows come fast: strikes to her face, neck, back, and head.

Twenty-four years later, true crime podcaster Trinity Scott, host of It's Criminal, travels from Toronto with her assistant producer, Gio Rossi, to investigate Leena's murder. She corners Rachel Walczak (now Rachel Hart), the retired lead detective, at Rachel's organic farm outside Twin Falls. Rachel's partner, Granger Forbes, a psychologist specializing in addiction treatment through hypnotherapy, has already turned Trinity away without telling Rachel. Trinity reveals that Detective Luke O'Leary, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigator who worked the case, is dying in hospice, and that Clayton Jay Pelley, the teacher convicted of Leena's murder, has broken his 24-year silence, promising in recorded prison interviews to explain why he killed Leena.

Rachel refuses to participate but takes Trinity's card. That night she confronts Granger, who admits he listened to the podcast and knew about Luke's condition but withheld both facts. After he leaves, Rachel listens alone and hears Clay's recorded voice claiming he did not assault or kill Leena and that the real killer is still free.

The narrative alternates between past and present timelines. In 1997, Rachel describes the eight-day search for Leena after the girl vanishes from a secret Ullr bonfire, a banned Norse-inspired celebration in the mountains. Police divers pull her body from the eelgrass beneath Devil's Bridge, her face destroyed beyond recognition. The autopsy reveals cigarette burns, vaginal tearing, a size-11 boot imprint on her back and skull, and catastrophic organ damage. The cause of death is drowning: Someone knelt on Leena's shoulders and held her face into the riverbed. A Celtic knot locket with a purple amethyst stone, tangled in her hair, becomes key evidence. Her parents insist it is not hers. Leena's mother, Pratima Rai, privately reveals that Leena had a shoplifting habit, suggesting the locket may have been stolen.

Interviews with students yield suspiciously identical stories: Everyone saw Leena at the bonfire with an unidentified male, but no one can name him. School photographer Liam Parks claims his camera and film were stolen. Then Rachel's own daughter, Maddy, delivers a bombshell: She tells Luke she witnessed their teacher, Clay Pelley, having sex with Leena in the bushes near the bonfire. Maddy says she told her friend Beth Galloway immediately, and they both saw Clay helping Leena to his car. The other students kept silent to protect a teacher they liked.

The detectives confront Clay, who admits attending the bonfire but denies intercourse. His wife, Lacey Pelley, reveals he came home at 3:42 a.m. that night, drunk and smelling of sex, and his boot soles match the imprints on Leena's body. Days later, Lacey brings the police Clay's military surplus jacket, still showing stains, and a photograph depicting child sexual abuse found in his locked shed alongside hundreds of similar images. Clay is arrested. During interrogation, confronted with the images and Lacey's testimony, he breaks down and delivers a detailed confession matching the autopsy precisely: He describes raping Leena, chasing her across the bridge, and drowning her.

In the present, the podcast ripples through the community. Liam Parks retrieves old negatives and notices something troubling in a bonfire photo. Rachel visits Luke at the hospice, where he urges her to follow the truth even where it hurts. Luke dies shortly after. Back at Green Acres, Rachel catalogs inconsistencies she previously overlooked: Clay did not smoke, yet Leena had cigarette burns; the jacket was laundered and returned to Clay's office in a way that makes no sense if he was the killer. She calls Liam, who confesses that Maddy asked him to pretend his camera was stolen. He still has the negatives.

Rachel's private investigator uncovers that Lacey Pelley changed her name to Lacey Ann Scott after the conviction, and her daughter's legal name is Trinity Jane Scott. Trinity is Clay Pelley's daughter. Before Rachel can question Clay directly, he is stabbed to death in prison by a fellow inmate. At a diner, Rachel confronts Trinity, who confirms her identity: She discovered the truth three years ago when she recognized Clay's face in old newspaper photos. Trinity plays Rachel the audio of Clay's final interview, in which Clay states he was having sex in the clearing that night not with Leena but with Maddy, with whom he had an ongoing sexually abusive relationship. Leena stumbled upon them, and Maddy lied to protect herself. Clay also names his therapist as Granger Forbes.

Rachel demands Trinity hold the episode, but it has already aired. The fallout is immediate. Darren Jankowski, Maddy's husband, locks the family inside their house and sets it on fire, intending to kill them all. Maddy breaks a rear window and pushes her daughters out before a falling beam knocks her unconscious. Neighbors rescue Maddy and the girls moments before a gas line explodes. Darren does not survive.

At the hospital, Maddy calls Rachel "Mom" for the first time in years and tells the full truth. Beth organized a group attack on Leena beneath Devil's Bridge, luring her with a fake after-party invitation. Maddy, Beth, Darren, and three other classmates beat Leena, with Darren stomping on her in his size-11 work boots while others burned her with cigarettes. Maddy's locket was torn off during the struggle and tangled in Leena's hair. Maddy walked away, believing the beating was all that happened. But Darren later confessed that he and Beth went back. Earlier that evening, Darren and Granger's son, Johnny Forbes, had coerced the intoxicated Leena into sex. Overwhelmed by disgust and bloodlust, Darren returned with Beth, bashed Leena's head against a tree, stomped on her, and drowned her.

Rachel uncovers how Clay's false confession was manufactured. Granger had obtained precise autopsy and crime scene details from the wife of another detective, a hypnotherapy patient who heard the details from her husband. Granger seeded those forensic specifics into Clay's unconscious during addiction therapy sessions, so that when Clay was interrogated, the planted details surfaced as if from memory. Granger's motive was to protect Johnny, whom he had found washing a blood-stained jacket the Monday after the bonfire.

Beth flees with her children but is apprehended at the Victoria ferry terminal. A truck driver contacts Trinity's tip line, reporting that he saw Leena on Devil's Bridge that night followed by two figures, one matching Beth. Rachel ends her relationship with Granger, unable to forgive his role in enabling the real killers to go free for 24 years. Maddy gives a full statement to the RCMP.

In the final podcast episode, Maddy speaks openly about the group attack, Clay's sexual abuse of her, and the decades of lies. She describes partnering with Leena's father, Jaswinder Rai, along with Leena's cousin Darsh and brother Ganesh, to speak at Twin Falls Secondary about bullying and accountability. Donations pour into the new Leena Rai Scholarship Foundation. The following summer, Trinity visits Green Acres, where Maddy and her daughters now live with Rachel. Walking along the river, Rachel tells Trinity she cannot fully forgive herself but is committed to being present for her family. She thanks Trinity for forcing a reckoning no one wanted but everyone needed.