Mrs. DiLaurentis May Be Another 'PLL' Killer

There are so many murders on Pretty Little Liars that it can be hard to keep track, but there is one death that changed everything — that of Ali's yellow top-wearing doppelganger, Bethany Young. Her body was actually found in the grave in the DiLaurentis backyard and mistaken for Ali's for years following her disappearance. We now know that while Ali is very much alive, but the question remains, who killed Bethany? Right now all signs point to Charles, aka Big A, as the killer, however, I'm not so sure that he's responsible for this particular crime. Someone else was there that night in the backyard and could have theoretically killed Bethany — even though the idea surrounding this theory is pretty dark. Could Mrs. DiLaurentis have killed Bethany, thinking she was Ali? It's tragic, yet completely plausible.

Ali revealed to the girls that it was her own mother who buried her in the grave in her backyard, as an attempt to protect the person responsible for the attempted murder. It seems like Mrs. DiLaurentis knew the person who attacked Ali, and there's a good chance that person was Charles, who appears to be Jessica's son. We also know that sometime after Mrs. DiLaurentis buried Ali, she escaped the grave, and Bethany was buried in her place by Melissa, who mistakenly assumed Spencer had killed Ali. That might not have been the only time that night that Bethany was mistaken for Ali — and Mrs. DiLaurentis could have killed Bethany for real.

Someone hit Bethany with a shovel the night that Ali disappeared, which is why she was laying by the ground near the grave. We assumed it was Charles, but if Charles did hit Bethany, why wouldn't he kidnap her the same way that he kidnapped Sara shortly after? Perhaps because Charles isn't really the one who attacked Bethany. What if Mrs. DiLaurentis saw Bethany walking around that night and thought that she was Ali, having escaped from her grave? Mrs. DiLaurentis could have panicked, perhaps thinking that Ali would report her and Charles to the police. That panic could have made Mrs. DiLaurentis act out quickly and hit "Ali" to stop her from telling — only to hurt Bethany.

It's an upsetting theory, but it might make sense if Mrs. DiLaurentis hadn't intended on actually killing Ali. Perhaps she wanted to knock her out in order to be able to talk to her before she ran off to tell the police. That would explain why Mrs. D left Bethany's body outside of the grave: she had planned to come back with help, but was too late and found that the body was buried by the time she returned.

Unfortunately, Mrs. DiLaurentis is no longer around to answer our questions about "that night." We'll have to wait until the Pretty Little Liars midseason finale to have all of these major mysteries resolved, but until then, we should definitely keep an eye on how Bethany fits into this story. For more Bethany theories, check out Bustle's PLL podcast below.

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