'Where the Crawdads Sing' Ending: Did Kya Kill Chase?

After a year of waiting, Where The Crawdads Sing is in theaters worldwide now.

The gripping movie brings to life the best-selling novel of the same name by Delia Owens, with Normal People's Daisy Edgar-Jones playing Kya "the marsh girl" Clark.

Where The Crawdads Sing follows Kya's journey through a traumatic childhood and isolated life, living alone in the North Carolina marsh. Everything changes for her when she falls in love with Tate Walker (played by Taylor John Smith), a boy from the local town.

When Tate headed for university and didn't return to the marsh as promised, Kya crossed paths with Chase (Harris Dickinson), another local boy who brought her nothing but trouble.

When Chase is found dead in the marsh, Kya finds herself the suspect in his murder, but did she kill him? Newsweek has everything you need to know.

Did Kya Kill Chase?

In the eyes of the jury, Kya didn't kill Chase Andrews and the audience watching is also led to believe this, especially when the not guilty verdict is delivered.

However, at the end of the movie, there is a huge twist, revealing Kya really was the one who killed Chase.

Speaking to Newsweek, Where the Crawdads Sing director Olivia Newman shared that she and the team behind the movie adaption were never tempted to change the ending from the original book.

She said: "I think the ending, is the story. It had to remain faithful to the book because without that ending, you don't have the full story."

Newman continued: "Everybody on the project was as passionate about doing the book justice as I was. We all really felt that we were given an enormously wonderful piece of material and we just had to make it into the best version of the book as possible.

"It was good knowing that we all felt equally passionate about doing the book justice and we had Delia Owens blessing to really take the material and make it into a film. It put us all at ease. She was very involved with the whole process, which was also very comforting and supportive."

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Kya's defense successfully argued there was no way Kya could have traveled from Greenville, (where she was meeting with book publishers) to the marsh where Chase was found dead and back in one evening, without being spotted.

As a result, it was generally believed Chase had died from an accidental fall from the abandoned fire tower.

Also at trial, Chase's mother spoke of a shell necklace Chase would wear around his neck every day. It was a necklace Kya made him and when his body was found the necklace was missing.

At the end of Where the Crawdads Sing, years in the future and after Kya has peacefully passed away, her husband Tate uncovered Chase's necklace hidden in a book full of poems Kya had written.

Alongside the necklace was a range of poems and drawings of Chase and in one piece of poetry, she describes Chase as her prey.

There are many motives Kya could have had to kill Chase. He was physically and mentally abusive, and sexually assaulted her when she rejected his advances.

No matter how many times she asked him to leave her alone, he would not listen.

Kya, who grew up with a violent father, knew men like Chase "always had to have the last word." Kya also spoke of living in fear, so perhaps she took matters into her own hands to protect herself.

The exact reason why Kya killed Chase, when or how is never revealed and Newman hopes the ending will get people talking.

Newman told Newsweek: "It's a really hard story about, resilience and human strength and it's about what it takes to stand up for yourself. Hopefully, the ending is one that I think inspires a lot of conversations, and I think some of the best movies are the ones where you leave, and you need to talk about it and debate it and think about it and it's not an easy ending, and it's one that requires great thought and conversation."

Where the Crawdads Sing is out in theaters now.