I Will Find You Ending Explained: Why Did Hayden Kidnap Matthew?

‘I Will Find You’ charts the course of a gripping mystery centering around a father and his son, who has been long presumed to be dead. Five years ago, David Burroughs was falsely convicted of the murder of his son, Matthew. Even though no one believed him back then, everything changes when his sister-in-law, Rachel, finds a boy, identical to her nephew, down to a facial birthmark, in the background of a nondescript photograph.

When she shares her findings with the imprisoned father, he becomes hellbent on finding his son again and discovering the truth about what happened that night five years ago. Consequently, in the course of a few hours, David goes from a pile of grief to a jailbreak and a fugitive. While the cops, helmed by Detective Williams and his daughter, Greer, chase after his hot trail, David and Rachel search for answers of their own. SPOILERS AHEAD!

I Will Find You Recap

David Burroughs has been in Briggs Penitentiary for the past five years, serving time for the horrid crime of killing his own son, Matthew. During the trial, a retrieved murder weapon and an eyewitness statement incriminate him for the crime. Even though the father knows he’s innocent, he takes the punishment since he already blames himself for failing to protect his son. Therefore, his world is turned upside down when Rachel comes to visit him in prison with a photograph that suggests his son might still be alive. However, little does he know, there are eyes on him even inside the high-security prison. Once he begins looking into the case from the inside, thanks to a favor from Phillip, the warden who also happens to be a family friend, one of the guards, Wesson, attempts to kill him.

Fortunately, Phillips quickly realizes that David is being targeted by someone powerful and outside of the legal system. As his belief in the man’s innocence grows, he employs the help of his son, Adam, to break the falsely convicted father out of prison. Unsurprisingly, his tame plan devolves into something much more chaotic, resulting in car chases and national news headlines. Still, David manages to escape the police’s scrutiny thanks to Rachel’s help. Initially, the two try to find answers by visiting Wesson. When that fails, they set their sights on New York, where Hilde Winslow, the eyewitness who testified against David, lives. Meanwhile, a group of detectives, including father-daughter duo Williams and Greer, begin tracking the fugitive and his accomplice journalist.

Although David’s encounter with Hilde bears some promising results, pointing him in the direction of crime boss Nicky Fisher, it also leads to Rachel’s arrest. Fortunately, for her, this doesn’t last long as her ex-boyfriend-turned-friend, Hayden, who happens to be ridiculously wealthy, bails her out. After David learns that his own father, Lenny, might have a connection to Fisher, he and Rachel return to Boston to look for answers. Back home, the fugitive finds out that his father is missing, likely kidnapped by Fisher and his men. A few bad choices later, David finds himself face-to-face with the crime boss. Yet, this encounter only confirms that Nicky had bribed the witness to tilt the trial in the accused father’s favor as a result of a longstanding feud. Nevertheless, he never kidnapped Matthew.

This forces David to view the entire puzzle from a new perspective. When he and his ex-wife, Cheryl, were trying to start a family, they faced some fertility issues. As a result, the latter secretly booked a sperm donation consultation. Thus, the father concludes that Matthew must have a different biological father, who is most likely to have kidnapped him and staged his death. This takes David and Rachel to Berg Reproductive, the clinic Cheryl visited. They conclude that a doctor with an immoral streak, Heller, must have inseminated her with his own sperm. Yet, once Cheryl becomes a part of this conversation, she assures David that Matthew was conceived prior to her consultation visit and that she never went through with the procedure. Somehow, amidst the confusion, the pieces fall into place for Rachel, who discovers the kidnapper is actually Hayden.

I Will Find You Ending: Why Did Hayden Kidnap Matthew? Does Matthew Return Home?

By the end, David and Rachel discover that it’s Hayden who has had Matthew this entire time. The journalist is tipped off about this unexpected truth with one simple piece of information: Cheryl had used her sister’s name during her visit to Berg Reproductive instead of her own. The Payne Foundation owns the clinic. As a result, when a patient by the name of Rachel Mills was entered into the system, the company’s heir, Hayden, was alerted to the same. Even though he was the one who ended their relationship, the multi-millionaire heir remained obsessed with his ex-girlfriend. Nonetheless, by the time he got around to trying to win her back, Rachel had settled into their safe and easy friendship. Therefore, even though he continued to stay by her side as a friend, his obsession with her simultaneously grew.

For the same reason, Hayden came up with the plan to have Rachel impregnated with his sperm donation at the clinic. By the time he realized it was his ex-girlfriend’s sister, Cheryl, who was actually taking the appointment, it was already too late. At first, he decided to leave the problem be and continue living his life. However, things took a turn when Rachel innocently invited him to her family’s Fourth of July party, where he met David, Cheryl, and their son, Matthew. After meeting the kid, whom Hayden believes to be his biological, he became obsessed with taking on a real paternal role in the kid’s life. Thus, he kidnapped Matthew from his home, staged a murder, and left David to be the presumed killer.

While Matthew’s family mourned his death and David served time for a crime he did not commit, Hayden renamed him Theo and raised the young child as his own son. It was a sheer twist of fate that he ended up in the background of photographs from Six Flags that ended up on Rachel’s radar. After the discovery, the journalist uses her own relationship with Hayden and his evident feelings for her to momentarily halt his escape overseas. She convinces him that David has been arrested and she’s looking for a fresh start. Fortunately, by then, she and the others had acquired Greer as an ally. In the end, it comes down to an armed showdown in the woods. Greer shoots down Hayden, sealing his fate. David, who sustains a gunshot wound at the hands of the kidnapper, survives. Ultimately, Matthew returns home to his family.

Whose Body Was Found on the Night of David’s Arrest?

In order to properly fake Matthew’s death, Hayden had to ensure that a body was discovered at the crime scene. On the night of the presumed murderer, David found a kid, nearly identical to his son, beaten to death inside the house. Furthermore, after the authorities took over, the same murdered child was identified and confirmed to be Matthew Burroughs. It isn’t difficult to imagine that the wealthy heir could have bribed his way into ensuring that test results and DNA samples confirm the dead body found on the night of the murder matches the Burroughs kid.

Still, he would need to acquire an actual dead body as a stand-in for Matthew in order to accurately sell the lie. David and everyone else have to believe the kid is dead. This means a dead body is necessary. As it turns out, Hayden found the solution to this through his family’s wealth and influence as well. As a part of its various philanthropic efforts, the Payne Foundation had an orphanage in Geneva. Shortly before Matthew’s kidnapping, the local authorities found a young kid, Martin, at a crime scene. His parents had been brutally murdered, leaving him an orphan, thus landing him in the orphanage. While planning his crime, Hayden likely looked for kids who could pass as Matthew’s body doubles.

Tragically, Martin just so happened to be the perfect match. In the blink of an eye, the Swiss child had disappeared from the orphanage, which soon shut down, leaving his missing persons case cold and unsolved. However, once Greer begins to put the pieces together, she teams up with Detective Muller, who handled Martin’s case. Even though Hayden kills the Swiss detective, Cheryl manages to get the DNA testing required to prove that the body found in the Burroughs’ house that night was Martin’s. Ultimately, the kid became a victim in Hayden’s brutal game of conquest. Although the system could never do much for him, the truth about his death at least came out in the open in the end.

Why Did Gertrude Cover For Heller?

Early on during David and Rachel’s investigation, they suspect a doctor named Heller to be the one behind Matthew’s kidnapping. He was a morally bankrupt medical professional who worked at the Berg Reproductive Fertility Clinic. An internal investigation revealed that he had a history of inseminating his patients with his own sperm donations to impregnate them with his child without their consent or knowledge. Naturally, this kind of scandal had the power to discredit and destroy the clinic’s reputation. Gertrude Payne, the owner of the Payne Foundation, couldn’t let this happen. Thus, she covered up the entire thing and relocated Heller to a different medical center.

However, this isn’t the entire truth. In exchange for saving Heller’s career and keeping him out of prison, Gertrude reaped a favor of her own. When Hayden came up with the plan to non-consensually impregnate Rachel with his own sperm, he employed Heller’s help in the endeavor. Yet, Cheryl never actually went to the clinic for insemination. Shortly after her consultation, she learned that she was pregnant. This means that the conception must have happened earlier, naturally during intercourse with her husband, David. However, Hayden is oblivious to all this when he makes the rash decision to kidnap Matthew. Consequently, Gertrude realizes she has to keep the entire thing a secret from her son. Thus, she paid off Heller and continued covering for him in the future.

Who is Matthew’s Biological Father?

After David’s encounter with Nicky Fisher, the idea that Matthew might not be his own biological child takes hold. Once revenge and any other kind of punishment are taken away from the equation, this is the only explanation that makes sense. Moreover, Cheryl’s secret visit to the fertility clinic leads him to believe she might have kept the truth about something like this from him. Afterward, Hayden’s involvement and his belief that Matthew, whom he renamed Theo, is his son, further deepens this suspicion. While the Payne heir truly does believe the kid is his, he is actually wrong in his conviction.

After Hayden kidnapped Matthew, Gertrude specifically ordered a paternity test to ensure the child was a real Payne. This test, carried out by Heller, confirmed a different truth: Matthew is truly David’s son. Cheryl had already fallen pregnant when she visited the clinic. Yet, it is still too soon for anyone to be able to tell. Eventually, once she finds out, she realizes that she and her husband don’t need to rely on sperm donation to become parents. Heller’s test revealed the same. Yet, Gertrude intentionally buries this result and manipulates her son into believing Matthew is his son. This way, Hayden’s rash choices at least give him a tether in life, even if it is a fabricated one.