‘Criminal Record’ Ending Explained: Who Killed Adelaide? And Does Errol Mathis Go Free?

Criminal Record, Paul Rutman’s riveting Apple TV+ crime thriller starring Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo, aired its Season 1 finale on February 21, bringing an intense investigation to an end.

After an anonymous domestic violence call reignited interest in an old murder case, Detective Sergeant June Lenker (Jumbo) challenged the legacy of Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty (Capaldi) by revisiting his original verdict. Along with weekly cliffhangers, Criminal Record featured a compelling cat-and-mouse chase and shined a spotlight on crucial explorations of racism, institutional corruption, and failures within the criminal justice system until the very end.

Season 1’s penultimate episode confirmed that Hegarty illegally tricked, guilted, and coerced Errol Mathis (Tom Moutchi) into confessing to the murder of his girlfriend Adelaide Burrowes. But will Errol be set free? Will Hegarty pay for his crime? And will the real killer be found? All that — and more — is tackled in Episode 8, “Carla.”

Curious how Criminal Record ends? Looking for a detailed Season 1, Episode 8 recap? Decider’s got you covered. We’re breaking down the biggest moments from the Apple TV+ series’ finale below.

Criminal Record Ending Explained: Who Killed Adelaide? And Does Errol Mathis Go Free?

Criminal Record Episode 7 ended with news that the anonymous call to police, which claimed Errol was innocent and a free man murdered Adelaide, had leaked. Episode 8 picks up right where we left off, with the recording going viral and Lenker trying to reach Sonya (Aysha Kala), who she believes leaked it.

Hegarty accuses Lenker of posting the evidence online and she presses him about Errol’s coerced confession. He maintains that “the evidence was overwhelming” and Errol confessed on his own, but Lenker followed up on his alibi and it checked out. She tells Hegarty it’s a matter of time before the caller’s boyfriend hears what she’s been saying and goes after her, so she urges him to think: “What if I was wrong? What if it wasn’t Errol? And if not him, who?”

The DCI says he’ll walk her through the evidence and the two head inside to review the case files, alibis, and suspects together. Lenker asks why Clive Silcox (Andrew Brooke) wasn’t interviewed, and Hegarty says they ran DNA and prints on him, but they weren’t a match. He finds the list of overlapping DNA samples/priors/prints and is about to hand it over when his face drops — as though he instantly realized something obvious slipped through the cracks. Saved by the bell, Hegarty gets a call, excuses himself for a moment, and flashes back to the days of investigating the crime. He recalls DS Tony Gilfoyle (Charlie Creed-Miles) assuring him that they ran the DNA evidence and got their man, but when he looks at the list again in present-day, his face tells a different story.

When Lenker opens the door to check on Hegarty, he’s gone. He’s on his phone in the car telling someone he’ll double their fee and meet them in person. He hangs up and tells DS Kim Cardwell (Shaun Dooley) — sitting beside him — “He’s at home.” Before they leave the garage, Lenker intercepts and Hegarty agrees to drop her a pin. They head to an unknown location, and on the way, Hegarty interrogates Cardwell to see if Tony covered for a suspect back in the day. They arrive at the suspect’s, and we learn it’s Stefan Ash (Paul Thornley), the man we saw Hegarty meet with earlier in the series.

Ash’s wife suspiciously answers the door and sends Hegarty to the backyard to wait for her husband. Hegarty notices a broken planter on the lawn next to shattered glass and heads inside to find Mrs. Ash with domestic battery injuries. As he puts the pieces together and calls for a paramedic, Stefan hits the road, driving to what Hegarty assumes is one of 17 properties he poured money from the job into.

Lenker drives with Hegarty as he gives her the run-down: Stefan has been an informant for him for the past five years, but back when Errol was convicted, he worked with Tony. Once Tony got sick, Hegarty took him on, which reminds Lenker that the caller once said the guy she feared was “protected.”

“When she first said that I kept thinking, ‘Oh. Maybe [it was police],” she told Hegarty. “If he’s an informant he thinks he’s untouchable.”

As the recording continues to spark outrage online, officers fan out to scour the 17 addresses in hopes of finding Stefan and their caller, Claudia. After a majority of the searches turn up empty, Lenker knocks on the door of Patrick and Hegarty’s daughter Lisa (Maisie Ayres). Patrick asks if the investigation is about Errol, and Lenker calls Hegarty to reveal who answered the door. (Hegarty already knows, of course. He sent Lenker to see if her daughter was there!) Just when it seems the team lost their lead, they remember an asbestos scare resulted in an entire floor being shut down in the towers and race over to continue the search for Ash and Carla.

Lenker finds a furnished apartment complete with baby items and blood, but shortly after she arrives, Ash enters. He sets his eyes on a knife across the room and the two engage in a brutal battle that finds Lenker pinned to the bed fighting for her life. She escapes and grabs the knife, but before she can stab him, Hegarty grabs her hand. They arrest Ash and Lenker screams for Carla until she hears a baby cry in the hallway. She opens a closet door to find Carla and her child traumatized, but safe. Patrick asks Hegarty if the man in custody killed his mom, and Hegarty gets in the car with Ash. When they drive away, Cardwell makes a mysterious call, telling the person on the other end of the line, “It’s me.” Before Hegarty can fully put Ash in his place, a car darts in front of their vehicle causing them to brake, and a gunman pulls up beside the back seat and shoots directly at them. In a scene that suggests the detective may be dead, we see Hegarty standing alone with Patrick, who begs him to look his way, then walks away. When Lenker arrives on the scene, however, she learns Hegarty was shot in the stomach and the only victim was Ash.

Units arrive at Ash’s house and find the knife used to kill Adelaide in the toolshed, along with more evidence, including the engagement ring. We cut to Errol, who’s beside himself over news he’ll be set free as an innocent man. “She was right, your mum,” Sonya says. “It was this man. It wasn’t you.” Speaking of his mom, his community painted a beautiful mural to remember her and Adelaide, which welcomes Errol back home.

After the taxing day, Hegarty pays Tony a visit and says he can get his charge dropped from murder down to reckless driving. Tony is relived, but when Hegarty asks if he knew Stefan killed Adelaide, he says, “No I did not know that, cause he didn’t do it.” Hegarty asks what he traded Stefan for the freedom, and Tony dodges the question. “Sometimes you’ve got to turn a blind eye… But not that, Tony. Not murder,” Hegarty says. “The evil that man got up to on your watch,” Tony replies, calling him a hypocrite.

When Errol is released, Patrick vists, giving us one of the most emotional scenes of the series. “There were two men with your name, Errol. One of them took care of me and my mom, and then he went to prison even though he was innocent. And I do know what that’s like — all those years on your own. The other one killed my mom and I turned my back on him, never went and saw him, and I hate him so much. I picked the wrong one. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Patrick says. Errol embraces him tightly, and both men sob over all they’ve lost, endured, and overcome.

During DCI Hegarty’s testimony, he claims as soon as he learned there were doubts of Errol’s conviction he did everything in his power to undo the damage. He meets with Lenker and reveals he turned over a copy of his confession tape, because “a bullet to the gut, it concentrates the mind.” Hegarty claimed he wanted a fresh start and if they wanted him out, he made peace with that. But an outside officer called in to examine the video said “the tape was evidentially inconclusive,” so Hegarty remains good to go, professionally speaking.

“You think I’m prejudiced…Who are you to judge your own actions? If I was a fucking racist, I’d be the first to know, right?” he says. “But then Errol…”

“Nine days out of 10 you’d have been all over every lab report, alibi, and comma,” Lenker replies. “So why not that time? Why not for him?”

After Errol’s release, he hosts a barbecue for his dad, Patrick, and the neighborhood beside the mural of Adelaide and Doris Mathis (Cathy Tyson). Lenker stops by and asks, “Why didn’t you tell someone? Your mom, your defense team, Sonya?” Errol said that after everything Patrick had been through he didn’t want to call him on the stand and give him more pain. “I believed him. He heard what he heard,” Errol added. “I’ll knock you flat. I’ll knock you flat.”

Haunted by loose ends, Lenker returns to the evidence and finds the tape of Hegarty talking to Patrick in hospital room . Through audio and flashbacks, we learn that Patrick was distracted by a cartoon during questioning, and “I’ll knock you flat,” was a quote from the show that he was mimicking, not a recollection of Errol and his mom’s argument.

After realizing Hegarty edited the tapes and fixed the evidence, she calls him and says, “He wasn’t talking about Errol, he was just quoting some cartoon off the telly. And you knew that, and you poisoned him. You poisoned his whole life with that, didn’t you? What happened to follow the facts? What happened to that?” Hegarty, looking absolutely villainous, stays silent on for a few seconds before hanging up, placing his phone on the table, and giving the series an absolutely chilling end that perhaps leaves the door open for more?

While we wait for news on a potential Season 2, Criminal Record is now streaming on Apple TV+.