Loretta had confessed to having murdered Ben Glenroy in the eighth episode of Only Murders in the Building Season 3, but Mabel, Oliver, and Charles knew that she was doing so only to save her son, Dickie. Oliver knew that he had to make a breakthrough and find the real perpetrator if he wanted to save Loretta. Courtesy of Charles and Oliver, Mabel now had the recording of whatever the cast and crew had said to Detective Williams during the interrogation and she knew that she could find some evidence there. It was Mabel’s 30th birthday, and she wished that she could spend the entire day working with her two best buddies and making progress in the case. So, let’s find out if Oliver, Mabel, and Charles are able to find any leads that take them closer to solving this murder mystery.
Spoiler Alert
How Did Dickie Prove His Innocence?
In Only Murders in the Building Episode 9, Mabel, Charles, and Oliver gathered together, and they decided that they would have to go and at least talk to Dickie once and get to know what his standpoint was. Loretta believed that Dickie had murdered Ben, which is why she took the blame on herself and confessed in front of Detective Williams. Dickie, at this juncture, had no clue that Loretta was his mother, though Mabel, Charles, and Oliver were aware of it. Something inside Mabel told her that Dickie was not the murderer, though he had a very strong motive, and he had explicitly stated how he felt trapped when Ben had come back to life after people had presumed him to be dead for the first time. Dickie told Mabel that he had an alibi, as at the time Ben was killed, he was at a place where Ben used to go quite often.
Dickie told the trio that whenever Ben used to meet these 5 women who worked at a fabric shop called “Snitches Get Stitches,” which was apparently a front for an escort service. Dickie also went there in a hope of spending some time with the girls but apparently he did not find anyone there and he ended up getting drunk and passing out. So Dickie embarrassed himself that night and he might have misbehaved, but the fact remained that he was not the one who had killed his brother, Ben Glenroy. Loretta’s trial was supposed to begin that very day, and Oliver just wanted to find some evidence so that he could tell her to take back her confession. The sleuths were short on time, and they once again sat together and started going through the recorded testimonies of the cast and crew, hoping that they would find some clue that would lead them to the murderer.
Who did Ben go to meet a day before opening night?
Mabel, Charles, and Oliver went to that same shop that Dickie had told them about, believing that it was just a front and that the owner of the place was running an escort service. Dickie had taken the names of five women, Trixie, Marigold, Emerald, Dot, and Mei Mei, and said that Ben used to visit them quite often. The trio went inside the shop, and they found out that these five ladies were very old women who worked at the fabric shop and with whom Ben used to spend his time whenever he used to feel anxious. Ben liked stitching, as it helped him get things off his mind. Ben had spent the entire night in that shop with those ladies, stitching handkerchiefs for each and every cast member. He had told the ladies that he had treated everybody very badly and that he needed to make up for his behavior.
The next day, when Ben arrived at the set, he first learned that Dickie had made up his mind to stop working for him. After that, he had an argument with Loretta, as he believed that she was the one who had brainwashed his brother. To make matters worse, Charles arrived at the scene when he was having an argument with Loretta, and he punched him in the face. Even his five female buddies were not able to come in time for the opening night as they were stuck in traffic. All this was happening just minutes before the opening night, and it had a huge impact on Ben, making him feel pathetic about his existence. Charles, Oliver, and Mabel actually felt bad for the man because he had to go through all that after putting in so much effort to rectify his mistake and stitching handkerchiefs for everybody. Now that the trio had ruled out the involvement of Loretta and Dickie, they needed to know who was in Ben’s room and with whom he was having such an intimate conversation during his last moments.
Was Howard Able To Put Together The Shredded Papers?
In Only Murders in the Building Episode 9, Howard was finally able to put the pieces of that shredded paper together, and he made an emphatic entry inside the room where Mabel, Oliver, and Charles were having a discussion. At that juncture, the trio had lost all hope that they would ever be able to find the real killer of Ben Glenroy. But Howard’s effort once again gave them hope, and they all became eager to see what was written on the paper. Oliver read only two words from the paper, and he knew what it was. It was the negative review that the play critic, Maxine, had written about Oliver’s play, Death Rattle after she had seen the older version of it. She had specifically criticized Ben Glenroy’s performance and stated that he had single-handedly ruined the entire play, which did have a lot of potential otherwise. So basically, the trio realized that somebody would have read the criticism and decided that they would kill Ben Glenroy so that he did not end up ruining the production.
What Motive Did Donna Have To Kill Ben?
At the end of Only Murders in the Building Episode 9, it struck Oliver that Donna spoke the exact same words, once during the rehearsal, that were written by Maxine in her piece where she had criticized the play. Oliver came to know that Donna had read it, and maybe she was the one who took steps to sabotage the play as she believed that Ben Glenroy wouldn’t be able to pull it off. That’s when Mabel figured out that during his last moments, Ben wasn’t talking to any other person, but he was giving in to his cravings and talking to himself. So Ben was on a diet, and Donna, according to Mabel, had kept a cookie inside his room, knowing that he might end up eating it if he was in such a bad mood. Mabel believed that Donna had mixed rat poison in that cookie, and her plan became successful when Ben did exactly what she intended him to do and fell for the trap. Mabel knew that she still needed to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that it was Donna who was the murderer if they wanted her to be convicted by the court, but as of now, the trio had enough material to go to Loretta and tell her to take back her confession.
Mabel, Oliver, and Charles rushed to the courtroom and told Loretta that Dickie was not the killer and that they had another theory through which they could determine who it was. Before they could utter another word, all three of them saw Donna sitting among the audience in the courtroom. She was present, as she would have wanted to witness Loretta taking the fall, so that she knew that the law enforcement authorities would close the case and didn’t come chasing her. Now Loretta, together with the trio, was in a difficult position because, knowing the kind of woman Donna was, she was not going to give up so easily. In the season finale of Only Murders in the Building, we would get to know if Donna pays for the crime she committed or if she uses her resources to somehow escape from the clutches of law.
