The sixth and last episode of the crime drama “Black Bird” on Apple TV+ shows the culmination of James “Jimmy” Keene’s covert quest to track down Tricia Reitler’s purported dead body and bring Larry Hall, a suspected serial killer, to justice. A map of Indiana and Illinois with numerous red dots on it is presented to Jimmy by Larry. Jimmy concludes that the positions of the red dots actually correspond to the bodies of Larry’s presumed victims.
Jimmy makes every effort to persuade Larry to turn over the map to law enforcement for the benefit of the victims’ families. Jimmy’s quest relies heavily on Larry’s map, so we’ve learned whether it really existed and what actually happened to it. Let’s discuss what we learned!
Was the Map of Larry Hall Accurate?
Larry actually had a map of Indiana and Illinois with red dots strewn inside the borders, according to Jimmy Keene and Hillel Levin’s “In with the Devil: A Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption,” the show’s source text. Larry attempted to conceal the map when he saw Jimmy. According to the original text, Jimmy commented, “He [Larry] was so protective of that map that I knew it had to represent something, but I got a good enough look at it before he rolled it up to see all the red spots on it.”
Jimmy believed that the red dots represented the locations of Larry’s claimed murders of the girls. The map and six Larry-made wooden falcons were also discovered. According to “In with the Devil,” Larry said of the wooden falcons, “They watch over the deceased.” Jimmy realized that Larry intended to send his brother Gary Hall the falcons and the map so that Gary could set the falcons in the designated spots to “look over the dead.” After finding the map, Jimmy sought to get in touch with FBI Agent Butkus—possibly the real-life Lauren McCauley—to prevent Larry from sending Gary the map and falcons.
Jimmy was unable to prevent Larry from sending Gary the map and falcons, though. He was placed in solitary confinement for allegedly upsetting Larry mentally by a woman, who served as the model for the fictional Dr. Amelia Hackett. The map was gone by the time Agent Butkus got to Springfield to save Jimmy. Later, Jeffrey Steinback, Jimmy’s lawyer, confirmed to him that Larry was not the one who discovered the map.
Robert Hall, Larry Hall’s father, did he really burn it?
The map that Larry had provided to his brother Gary and the wooden falcons are burned by Larry’s father Robert Hall in the television episode. Robert actually did destroy Larry’s map. However, according to “In with the Devil,” he did the same thing while Larry was detained in Marion after being apprehended by Deputy Sheriff Miller, not while Larry was in Springfield. Gary informed Wabash police officer Ron Smith that their father Robert had been contacted by Larry to remove certain goods from his storage vehicles. Gary reported to Smith that Robert had returned bearing a large map of Indiana bearing more than twenty “DB” marks.
“I questioned Gary, ‘What does DB stand for?'” and he said, “DB equals “dead body” at the bottom [of the map].” And then, according to “In with the Devil,” Smith, “he witnessed his dad burn that map into a garbage can.” It cannot be the same map because this occurrence occurred before Jimmy even met Larry. However, Larry might have actually mailed Gary the map he created while in Springfield, and Gary or Robert might have burned it.