Caught ending explained: Martina’s killer is revealed and Leo’s fate gets exposed

Harlan Coben and Netflix have established a successful partnership, and the latest offering from them, Caught, has also been received quite well. Premiering on March 26, 2025, Caught consists of six highly tense episodes as

“famed reporter Ema Garay faces a dilemma when the suspect in a teen's disappearance turns out to be someone close to her.”

What starts as an apparent case of getting hold of a groomer leads to the revelation of several other truths. Let us now explore in detail what happened at the end of Caught and if all the questions were answered by the time the final episode concluded.

Martina’s death turns out to be an unfortunate accident in Catch

As investigative journalist Ema Garay tries to get to the bottom of the case regarding an online groomer, she primarily suspects Leo Mercer, a local social service worker. Shortly after she starts investigating Leo, a local teenager, Martina Schulz goes missing, making it seem like Leo has something to do with her disappearance.

However, after being confronted by Ema, Leo vehemently denies being an abuser, and after somehow escaping from her, he makes a cryptic call to her to let her know that both of them had been framed by people who are actual abusers.

While Ema does not initially believe him, a subsequent incident involving Leo and another missing girl, Camila's father, Facundo, makes her decide to continue investigating Martina’s disappearance.

Continuing with her search for truth, Ema comes across Martina’s complicated past as it is revealed that Martina used to make self-pleasuring content on a particular subscription app. This led to her being unfairly taken advantage of by older men, a situation from which she luckily managed to escape.

On the night that Ema confronted Leo, Martina attended a party with a bunch of people her age and hooked up with Armando. While things were going fine till this point, when Ema tried to get out of Armando’s house, the news of Leo being labeled as a predator broke out, and that made her get all worked up.

Martina’s behavior made Armando suspicious, as he had always considered Leo as a father figure. As Leo’s news makes Armando frustrated, he eventually realizes that Martina also had a part to play in the whole thing, and this leads to Armando pushing Martina away from him, which results in Martina falling off the stairs and dying. After all of this has happened, Armando’s mother, Juliana, comes back home and they decide to cover up Martina’s death.

Juliana decided to hide Martina’s body in the forest and also kept her phone at the campsite that belonged to Leo so that it would seem like Leo had killed Martina. However, by the end of Caught, Ema successfully reaches the bottom of this case, and Armando, who was already feeling extremely guilty over causing Martina’s accidental death, turns himself in.

Leo Mercer is shot by Facundo in Caught

As Ema began her investigation with the motive of getting hold of the online predator, she posted herself as a 17-year-old teenage girl and established contact with FinalGame05, whom she thought to be the man she was looking for. At the same time, Ema also interviews Facundo and Isabel, the parents of a missing teenage girl, Camila. This is where she first meets Leo, and despite a rough start, Leo promises to help Ema with her investigation.

As Ema grows some conflicting feelings toward Leo, on the night of her sting operation when she is all set to meet FinalGame05, it is Leo who comes. This severely shocks Ema, and though Leo does not accept himself to be an abuser, Ema does not believe him. As Leo flees, Ema makes this news viral by posting it everywhere.

This leads to Facundo, who was Leo’s friend, getting mad because he thinks that it is Leo who has harmed Camila. Facundo chases Leo down and shoots him, and Leo goes down into the river. While he is considered dead, his body is never recovered, which puts his living status up for debate.

It is not till the end of Caught that Leo’s present whereabouts are revealed. As the search for Leo or his body continues, it is shown that he is actually alive and is riding a horse in a desert with a new group of friends.

While it can be argued whether the scene is real or not because of its dreamlike framing and color palette, there is no practical reason not to believe that Leo managed to survive and decided to leave all of this behind to start a new life.

Caught is streaming on Netflix.

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