Untamed: Who Killed Caleb? Did Kyle See Caleb’s Ghost?

Netflix’s Untamed began with Special Agent Kyle Turner telling his son, Caleb, how poachers operate and the lengths they go to to cover their tracks. Kyle had promised Caleb he’d take him down to Grouse Lake when he suddenly got a call from a forest ranger named Bruce Milch, informing him about a dead body they had located on the summit. The murder in this context may not be related to Caleb or his story, but the news of Lucy Cook’s death saved Kyle’s life, in a way. If he hadn’t received that call, then we might have never seen Kyle again. [Spoiler Alert] The truth is, Caleb died years ago, but Kyle was still struggling with the loss of his young son. Throughout the show, he kept talking to his dead son because, being a parent, Kyle wasn’t ready to let Caleb, or his memories fade away so easily. On the day of Lucy Cook’s death, Kyle was going to end his life in the same lake his son was found in. Every night, when Kyle sat near the window of his cabin, he would hear the voices coming from the lake. Restless and unable to silence the demons in his head, Kyle would spend the night near it. Kyle’s friend, Jay Stewart, even joked that someday the ghost of the lake might snatch him right down to the bottom. Obviously, the ghost wasn’t real, but Kyle’s guilt was. Kyle blamed himself for not being able to protect his son, the only thing children expect from their parents. It is possible that Kyle wanted to drown himself in the water so he could free himself of the burden he had been carrying for so long.

Some five or six years ago, Caleb was out in the park with some children’s group when he got separated and got lost in the woods. This was when Caleb bumped into a man named Sean Sanderson, a Stockton businessman, who sexually assaulted Caleb and killed the young boy. For two days, Kyle had been searching for Caleb’s tracks in the forest, and he finally found his son, unfortunately, not in a condition a father should ever have to. The show didn’t reveal how or when Sanderson killed Caleb, though it can be surmised that either the boy died during the sexual assault, or Sanderson drowned him in the lake to hide his crimes. When Kyle found him, Caleb’s body was floating in the water.

For the longest time, Kyle couldn’t figure out what exactly happened with Caleb, when suddenly, Shane Maguire, the park’s Wildlife Management Officer, showed Kyle and his wife, Jill, the footage that swept their feet out from under them. Shane had set up motion-activated cameras in the park, which recorded Sanderson with Caleb. Shane told Kyle that he should just let him kill his child’s perpetrator, but Kyle, being a righteous man, wanted to gather evidence against Sanderson so he could bring justice to his son. Unfortunately, Jill wasn’t willing to wait that long. She didn’t want her child’s killer to defend himself in court or lie to their faces while everyone knew about the gruesome acts he had committed with a young soul. Jill sought immediate action. She was burning with the desire for vengeance and wanted Sanderson to be executed without any appeal. So without telling Kyle, Jill paid Shane to blackmail Sanderson with the footage he had with him and bring the pedophile to Yosemite National Park, where he killed him. No one really knows what Shane did with Sanderson or where he disposed of his body. People only started talking about Sanderson when his parents reported him missing. Kyle was in a fix when he found out about Sanderson’s disappearance. It wasn’t difficult for him to connect the dots, as he already knew someone who had offered to kill Sanderson, but he knew Shane wasn’t a saint either. He wouldn’t pull the trigger until he had been paid or if it served his interests, which was when Kyle figured out Jill’s betrayal.

For the longest time, we believed that it was Caleb’s death that had put a dent in Jill and Kyle’s marriage, but eventually it was revealed that Kyle never really forgave Jill for hiring Shane to murder their son’s killer. He understood her reasons as a parent, yet being an officer of the law, Kyle couldn’t look past her crimes. He too had lost a son, but he wanted to seek justice the right way, Jill’s desire for vengeance ruined everything. She gave their child’s killer a quick and easy death. Sanderson deserved worse. 

Jill’s betrayal not only broke Kyle from the inside, but also took away something that he held close to his heart: his ethics and his morals. He asked his seniors to hand him Sanderson’s case so he could cover up for Shane, making sure nothing could be traced back to Jill. The thing is, Kyle broke the law to protect his wife, and things were never the same between them. He lost a piece of himself, his integrity to be precise, which he never earned back, not until Lucy Cook’s murder case came knocking on his door. So you know why Kyle was so obsessed with finding closure for Lucy. He knew he would never be able to do the same for Caleb and Sanderson’s case. 

After solving Lucy’s murder, Kyle went back to the lake to conclude his unfinished business, that is, to drown himself in the lake and reunite with Caleb in the afterlife, just like Lucy was reunited with her mother. However, things were different this time. The course of his investigation into Lucy’s death had brought about a change in Kyle. He no longer wanted to die to be with his son, but wanted to keep his son’s spirit alive in his memories and be by his side always. 

In Untamed’s ending, Kyle decided that he no longer wanted to remain a prisoner of his past. The only reason Kyle wasn’t able to move on from the place or leave the forest was because he wanted to remain close to Caleb’s spirit, which he believed still dwelled in the valley. He kept Caleb’s toys packed in a box in his cabin, as he couldn’t gather enough courage to part ways with Caleb’s belongings. But, in the end, Kyle finally understood what his friend, Stewart, had been trying to explain to him. Stewart had told Kyle that the spirits of our lost ones are not confined to any forest, valley, or any other materialistic things. Instead, those spirits are within us, and we carry them inside our hearts, no matter where we go. So with such a realization, Kyle not only drove out of Yosemite National Park but also left Caleb’s toys for Naya Vasquez’s son, Gael. His gesture meant that he no longer carried the burden of his past anymore. But that doesn’t mean Kyle would stop talking to Caleb, because no matter wherever Kyle goes from here onwards, he will always keep Caleb close to his heart. Not as a ghost, but as a child kept alive by his father, at least in his memories.