5 Huge Emmerdale Spoilers as Ray’s killer is finally revealed

Next week on Emmerdale, as villagers’ secrets come to light, Ray’s killer is finally revealed.

In a special week of Emmerdale, the story rewinds to the day of Ray’s (Joe Absolom) death, retracing the final hours of his life as suspicion falls on several familiar faces—before the truth of who killed him is finally revealed.

Only days after viewers watched Ray kill his mother Celia (Jaye Griffiths), another shock followed in the build-up to Corriedale, when it emerged that Ray himself was also dead. His body was seen being dragged away, wrapped in a tarpaulin, setting another whodunnit in motion.

In a grim twist, Ray’s corpse somehow ended up in the back of one of the depot vans, driven by an unsuspecting Jai (Chris Bisson)—a development that placed him firmly in the frame when the police made their discovery.

At the end of tonight’s episode, several suspects—Ross (Michael Parr), Rhona (Zoe Henry), Marlon (Mark Charnock), April (Amelia Flanagan), Bob (Tony Audenshaw), Laurel (Charlotte Bellamy), Arthur (Alfie Clarke), Paddy (Dominic Brunt) and Dylan (Fred Kettle)—came face-to-face on Main Street, as a frustrated Jai reiterated that he had nothing to do with Ray’s death.

“I have no idea how Ray’s body ended up in the back of my van, but I know for a fact that it wasn’t me who put him there,” Jai told the group.

“Who do you think did then?” piped up Arthur.

“I don’t know, your guess is as good as mine,” Jai replied. “But it has to be someone from round here, and someone with a good reason to want Ray dead.”

“They’ll have made a mistake somewhere along the way, it’s only a matter of time until the truth comes out.”

As this played out, the audience saw glimpses of some of the secrets the characters were hiding.

Snippets of flashbacks showed Laurel in her cottage eyeing up some of the fireside implements; an upset April embracing Ross outside Butlers; Marlon concealing a kitchen knife as he watches Ray enter Mulberry with Laurel; Rhona ringing a phone number written down on a scrap of paper; and Ross preparing a shotgun.

The sequence ended with Ray’s body being concealed in the tarp by a pair of gloved hands, setting us up for next week.

At the beginning of each episode next week, we rewind the clock to Friday 2nd January, the morning after Celia’s death, where Ray is standing over his mother’s body preparing for what comes next.

As the week progresses we see more and more of what occurred in the short time before Ray heads to the village.

1) Monday – Laurel is confronted by Ray

On Monday, we see Ray pulling himself together, picking up his distinctive red backpack and heading for the door.

The flashback then turns to Laurel, who is reeling after learning the truth about Ray’s evil deeds from Dylan. Rushing back to Mulberry, she refuses to listen when Ray then turns up at the house, unable to reconcile the man she thought she loved with what she’s now learned.

When Ray goes on to force his way inside, he tries desperately to reframe himself as a victim of Celia’s control, laying bare his traumatic childhood in the hope Laurel will see him differently.

“She sees the vulnerable child that he was,” Charlotte Bellamy explains. “But then he gets quite angry, knowing he will lose her, and she sees a side she hasn’t seen.”

Laurel refuses to accept Ray’s version of events, and as his pleas turn increasingly desperate, she makes the decision to let him walk away—a choice that proves far more dangerous than she realises.

Outside, a vengeful Arthur doesn’t hesitate to confront Ray, after seeing the effect everything has had on his mum.

“Arthur sees that Laurel is upset and goes into a protective mode, as any 18-year-old son would do,” Charlotte says.

With Nicola urging Laurel to help lure Ray into a trap, she’s left facing an impossible decision—how far is she willing to go to make sure Ray pays for his crimes?

2) Tuesday – Who is Rhona’s intruder?

On Tuesday, the flashback returns once more to the morning after Celia’s death, this time revealing Ray wiping his fingerprints from the knife before leaving with his red bag.

From there, the focus shifts to Rhona, who at this point still thinks that both Ray and Celia hold all the power over her family. With April remaining missing and Marlon unravelling, fear is still dominating their lives.

“This period in her life is just constant abject fear and panic,” Zoe Henry tells us. “They’re just like rabbits in the headlights. There’s not a noise in the night, a door opening, where they’re not straight back there. They think they’re at constant risk.”

The story takes a further turn as we see more of what has happened to Rhona during this period. We’ve already seen that she’s been making secret phone calls, and in present day she made another plea whilst leaving a message for an unknown person concerning Ray’s death.

“I need to know what’s happened,” she stated in today’s episode. “Because things are getting out of hand here, people are being arrested.”

Back in the flashback, Rhona is alone in Smithy Cottage when an ominous shadow approaches her from behind… and we cannot say any more than that!

Will the events that occur lead to Rhona finally deciding to put an end to her family’s torment by offing Ray?

“I think she could be motivated, because how long are they prepared to let this go on for?” Zoe teases. “I think it’s that moment of desperation that there is no way out. And so, if I die or I sacrifice myself in the process of freeing my family, particularly my children, then maybe I’ll do it.”

“I think that’s what’s in Rhona’s mind. Ray is ruthless and relentless, and he will stop at nothing. And Rhona knows that. So she’s all in. She’s got to be otherwise, where will they be left?”

3) Wednesday – Marlon plans his attack

On Wednesday, we rewind again to Ray in the kitchen, where he’s compelled to head upstairs before leaving.

In another scene we’ve seen a part of previously, we see Ray standing at the door of the attic room.

Having been told by Celia the previous day that she had already killed Bear (Joshua Richards), Ray can’t bring himself to step inside, left staring at the man he had come to see as a father figure, laid out on the bed.

Overwhelmed with grief, Ray makes a hasty exit.

Down in the village, Marlon is determined to get answers from Ray, certain that he must be holding missing April somewhere, and feels like he only has one option left.

“So there comes a point where he can no longer see where to go,” Mark Charnock explains. “And it leads into very desperate measures.”

Kitchen knife in hand, Marlon heads out to find Ray.

“He’s been reduced into this sort of single-celled attitude,” Mark continues. “All that’s left is this tiny slit where all he can see is ending Ray.”

“He can’t see any other option, but killing him. And that’s mixed in with just the logic of it—if I get rid of him, maybe he’ll stop. But also, the rage he feels of what this man has forced upon his daughter.”

Meanwhile, Paddy is dealt a devastating blow when he finally learns the truth about his father’s captivity up at Ray and Celia’s farm.

This development is curious in itself, as viewers will know that Paddy supposedly didn’t learn of Bear’s situation until he returned from a conference in Lincoln in the episode that aired on 8th January.

Why Paddy would keep this to himself remains to be seen, but when he confronts Ray outside the village hall about what he’s heard, he’s stunned when Ray brutally tells him that Bear is dead.

Paddy’s anger quickly explodes as he pins Ray up against the gazebo. But Ray keeps his cool, and makes it clear that if Paddy breathes a word, then Dylan will be the one to suffer. He’s nearly killed him once, he could easily go back and finish the job.

With Marlon and Paddy both pushed to the brink, tension builds around who might act first.

Up at Butlers, Ross is seen quietly preparing a shotgun, his intentions unclear…

4) Thursday – Who killed Ray?

On Thursday, Ray’s killer is finally revealed.

We again start proceedings on the morning of 2nd January, and after Ray removes his fingerprints from the knife and briefly heads upstairs, he forces himself to regain control, knowing he still has one grim task left—disposing of his mother’s body.

The process clearly unsettles him, threatening to crack his composure once more. But any flicker of emotion proves fleeting.

When we see a further confrontation between Ray and Paddy, his ruthlessness remains fully intact, as he delivers another chilling ultimatum—this time extending his threats to Paddy’s young daughter, Eve.

The focus then switches back to Arthur, as we see the result of his anger towards Ray. 

Laurel is horrified when she finds Arthur with Ray’s distinctive red backpack, and the discovery of drugs inside it only underlines the reality of the person Ray really was.

We already know that Laurel will go on to dump Ray’s bag in the commercial waste bin behind The Hide, shortly after Ray’s body is found.

She was also seen, clearly shaken, washing a pair of scissors on the day of Ray’s death, before praying in the church later in the week, with a seemingly telling plea…

“I’ve done something which I can’t take back, and it’s eating me up. Please, help me wash away my guilt and show me the path to forgiveness. Please.”

Back in the flashback, the discovery of the bag’s contents soon leads on to a surprising confrontation.

At some point on the same day, as a bloodied and shaken Ray prepares to leave the village, his attention is caught by the person he now sees as the root of everything that’s gone wrong—Dylan.

In that moment, both Dylan and Paddy are suddenly in his sights—will Ray attempt to get his revenge?

We also have the question of Ross and April still outstanding, who are seen up at Butlers. At this point, April is yet to make it known to her family that she is alive and well, with Ross not returning her to Rhona and Marlon until after Ray has shuffled off this mortal coil.

What unfolds between those two moments—and what Ross is planning with the shotgun he’s later seen carrying—remains to be seen.

By the end of the episode Ray is dead, but who out of the many suspects encountered during the day, has committed the deed?

5) Friday – The clean-up goes awry

On Friday, a final flash back to the morning of 2nd January fills in the last missing piece of the puzzle, before the focus shifts to the immediate aftermath of Ray’s death and the stark reality of what must be done next.

Amid the chaos that follows, Ray’s body is bundled into the back of the depot van parked near to the village hall, but a fatal slip-up means the vehicle is later driven away by an entirely oblivious Jai.

With Ray’s corpse unknowingly transported out of sight, ready to be discovered the following day, panic sets in as the full scale of the cover-up begins to take shape.

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