Leaving Ojai at dawn after Vincent’s violent outburst and hospitalization, Olivia drives Highway 150 to Bakersfield to find her mother, whom she located through an online search. She recalls her single vivid childhood memory of her mother and frames her visit around unanswered questions that tie her mother’s disappearance to the 1975 murders.

At the modest apartment, Olivia’s mother is startled but lets her in. Their strained small talk reveals years of distance, that Vincent has long paid her rent, and that he and Olivia had been estranged. When Olivia pushes about 1975, her mother first minimizes, then bristles when Olivia accuses her of sleeping with Paul Stewart and notes Vincent’s confessed alibi lie.

Olivia discloses Vincent’s Lewy body dementia and his recent delusional rage after seeing a bonfire film clip. She plays the clip, and her mother points out the background: she and Danny together at the bonfire, close and laughing. Her mother recounts that Danny charmed her that night; when she pulled back from kissing, he became angry and coerced her. She later learned she was pregnant.

Her mother says Danny never acknowledged responsibility and let people assume Paul Stewart was involved. Paul Stewart, however, only deduced the pregnancy, offered help, and drove her to a clinic posing as her older brother. Vincent later used the abortion secret to pressure Stewart into providing a false alibi for the night of the murders.

On the day before the murders, Olivia’s mother witnessed Danny tackle Poppy in the field behind the Taylors’ house, wrench away Poppy’s camera, and drag Poppy inside. Hiding, she retrieved the thrown camera to protect Poppy, then kept it. She now gives Olivia the dented Super 8, likely still containing film, explaining she never took it to the police because knowing can be a burden.

When Olivia suggests the sequence—Danny killed Poppy to silence her about the rape and pregnancy, then Vincent killed Danny—her mother rejects Vincent’s preferred narrative. She insists Vincent arrived after Poppy was already dead and says whatever is on Poppy’s film is the reason Danny killed Poppy and nearly killed Vincent.