At the end of episode 4, Keith told Melissa where to find the wrench that he killed Heather with. It was recovered by Melissa and Shane in the shed on Shane’s property.
Episode 5 opens with a flashback to Elijah as a kid, when he broke into a church to play the piano. He wakes up in his cell to a phone call telling him about the murder weapon being found.
We see Hazel buying a burner phone in a store, and later Melissa tries to have a mother-daughter heart-to-heart about sex, but Hazel shuts that down quickly. She asks what will happen now that the murder weapon has been found, and Melissa tells it will take about a week for the test results to come in. Hazel asks if Keith will get the death penalty.
Later at dinner, the pizza cutter comes up missing, but Melissa finds it in Max’s backpack. She asks why he has it, and he casually says it’s a weapon “in case Ash finds out where I go to school.” Melissa reassures him, and then she and Ben argue about the security cameras. She cries, and he comforts her, promising things will get back to normal when all this is over.
The next day, while Melissa and Dr. Greg chat, Ivy takes a phone call; it’s not good news, Heather’s clothes are missing from the evidence locker. There is nothing to compare the DNA on the wrench with.
They visit the evidence locker with Elijah’s lawyer and his sister Joyce. The supervisor checks everything out, and finds out the evidence box from Heather’s case was destroyed, per the DA’s orders. That Calloway! They confront him, threatening to advertise that he destroyed it. He offers a deal for Elijah: If he confesses, he only has to do another 10 years behind bars. Melissa and Ivy decide to try for familial DNA from Heather’s mother.
Elijah’s sister and attorney tell him about the deal, but Joyce doesn’t want him to take it in hopes the familial DNA will help. He’s not sure what he wants to do.
Melissa and Ivy plead with Heather’s Mom, but she refuses to consider it, and says she has already talked to Calloway. Melissa begs her to allow DNA tests to get to the truth, even though it won’t bring Heather back, but she tells them to leave.
Ivy asks Melissa if she knows how the Golden State Killer was caught. She says they got DNA from a snotty tissue, and grabs a bag of garbage from the curb.
Hazel sneaks away at school to call Keith on her new phone, and he asks if she got the balloon he sent. They make small talk, and he is positively giddy to be talking to her. He asks her if she got the drawing he sent, then says she could have gotten more than $200 for it. He chuckles, then asks if Melissa knows. The answer is no. He admits to Hazel that he did kill all those women; he’s not proud, but he owns it. He says she is not a kid, and can decide how she feels about it. He asks if she looks like Melissa, and requests a photo. She says ok, then asks if he will send more drawings to a friend’s address (meaning Josh). He gets ticky about it at first, but she says she just wants to know more about him.
We rejoin Ivy and Melissa, going through the bag of trash, as they talk about where they want their careers to go from here. Melissa’s phone dings, and she takes a look, only to see a photo of her high school boyfriend Brenden, his face all bloody and beaten. A text from Keith reads “He got what he deserved.”
The trash search was fruitless, and Heather has no other living relatives other than her mom. They need to let Joyce know.
At Joyce’s house, the three women are chatting and drinking together. Melissa forgot to tell them that Keith was the one who spilled the beans about her abortion. This gets Joyce angry. What kind of father does something like that? She tells them that her life went down the tubes because she gave up on everything so she could work on saving Elijah. She never gave up and will never be able to move on while he is in jail. Melissa thinks maybe Joyce should try to talk to Heather’s Mom.
They visit Denise (Heather’s mother) again, and Melissa tells her she knows she hates Joyce. She tells Ash’s story, and says she knows how the justice system works; they paint every victim’s family as good, and every accused person’s family as bad. At first, Denise is unmoved, but then she finds out the death penalty has been taken off the table with Elijah’s potential deal with the DA. She consents to the DNA test.
Joyce visits Elijah to tell him what has happened, but he says he doesn’t have time to wait for the test results, he has to give Calloway an answer. He is still torn, so she says if it’s what he wants, he should take the deal.
However, when Elijah gets the call from Calloway, he tells him no.
Hazel opens her school locker to find an envelope Josh left for her. She sneaks off again to call Keith, and opens the envelop to find a drawing of a woman. Keith tells her it’s Desiree, and she asks if it’s victim #2. He seems pleased that she is researching him, and tells her he kept Desiree’s earrings. He kept a lot of his victim’s “things” at a cabin, because he always knew he was going to turn himself in. He wanted something to give the families as an apology. Also in the envelope is a drawing of Hazel.
Outside of the prison, people are chanting “Save Elijah” and carrying signs, the mood is joyful and upbeat. Then Calloway holds his press conference, announcing that they have re-examined the evidence. The state of Texas now believes Elijah and Keith acted together. The crowd is NOT happy, but Calloway is like Honey Badger and doesn’t give a damn.