Sumith Prasad
The sixth and final episode of Apple TV+’s crime series ‘Black Bird’ depicts the final phase of James “Jimmy” Keene’s undercover mission to discover the location of Tricia Reitler’s supposed dead body from suspected serial killer Larry Hall. Jimmy encounters Larry with a map of Indiana and Illinois with several red dots marked across it. Jimmy deduces that the red dots are really the locations of the dead bodies of Larry’s suspected victims.
Jimmy tries his best to convince Larry to hand over the map to authorities for the sake of the families of the victims. Since Larry’s map is a significant part of Jimmy’s mission, we have found out whether such a map really existed and what really happened to it. Let us share our findings!
Was Larry Hall’s Map Real?
According to “In with the Devil: A Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption,” the source text of the show, written by Jimmy Keene and Hillel Levin, Larry really had a map of Indiana and Illinois with red dots scattered inside the borders. When Larry saw Jimmy, he tried to hide the map. “He [Larry] was so protective of that map that I knew it had to mean something, but I got a good enough look at it before he rolled it up to see all the red spots on it,” Jimmy said about seeing the map and the red dots, as per the source text.
Jimmy assumed that the red dots indicated the places where Larry allegedly killed the girls. He found the map along with several wooden falcons made by Larry. “They watch over the dead,” Larry told Jimmy about the wooden falcons, as per ‘In with the Devil.’ Jimmy understood that Larry was intending to send the falcons and map to his brother Gary Hall for Gary to place the falcons in the locations to “watch over the dead.” After discovering the map, Jimmy wanted to contact FBI Agent Butkus, the possible inspiration behind the character Lauren McCauley, to stop Larry from mailing the map and falcons to Gary.
However, Jimmy couldn’t stop Larry from mailing the map and falcons to Gary. He was put in solitary confinement for seemingly disturbing Larry mentally by a lady, the apparent inspiration behind the character Dr. Amelia Hackett. By the time Agent Butkus arrived at Springfield to rescue Jimmy, the map was gone. Later, Jimmy’s attorney Jeffrey Steinback confirmed to him that the map wasn’t recovered from Larry, as per the source text.
Did Larry Hall’s Father Robert Hall Really Burn it?
In the show, Larry’s father Robert Hall does burn the map Larry had sent to his brother Gary along with the wooden falcons. In reality, Robert did burn Larry’s map. However, he did the same when Larry was in jail in Marion upon getting arrested by Deputy Sheriff Miller and not when he was in Springfield, as per ‘In with the Devil.’ Gary told Wabash detective Ron Smith that Larry called their father Robert to retrieve some items from his storage cars. According to what Gary told Smith, as per the source text, Robert returned with a big map of Indiana with more than twenty “DB” marks on it.
“I asked him [Gary], ‘What’s DB stand for?’ and he answered, ‘At the bottom [of the map] it said DB equals “dead body.”’ And then he watched his dad burn that map into a trash can,” Smith said about the incident, as per ‘In with the Devil.’ Since this incident happened before Jimmy even met Larry, it cannot be the same map. But Larry might have sent the map he made while in Springfield to Gary as he intended and Gary or Robert might have burnt it.
Read More: Did Larry Hall Really Rape a Hitchhiker?
