Following a clue, Lee and Carter find a doll with a high-energy metal orb inside. Despite Carter’s skepticism of the supernatural, Lee theorizes that Longlegs uses these orbs to possess people as each family received a similar doll. After visiting Carrie, the sole survivor of Longlegs’s attacks, who was visited previously by someone using Lee’s name, Carter suspects Lee’s connection to Longlegs. Discovering that Ruth had filed a police report of an intruder approaching Lee on her ninth birthday, Carter encourages Lee to talk to her. Ruth directs Lee to childhood belongings, where she finds a Polaroid of the pale-faced man, revealing Longlegs to be the man who had visited a young Lee on her birthday. Lee submits the photo, leading to Longlegs’s arrest. Realizing the missing date is that day, Lee fears an accomplice will commit another murder. In the interrogation room, Longlegs claims to serve “the man downstairs” and hints at Ruth’s involvement before killing himself.

Agent Browning drives Lee to her mother’s home, where Lee witnesses Ruth murder Browning with a shotgun. Ruth then destroys a doll resembling young Lee, causing Lee to lose consciousness. Lee sees that Ruth has been Longlegs’s accomplice since Lee’s childhood. Longlegs forced Ruth to choose between her daughter’s death and his bidding, leading her to comply and spare Lee. Longlegs has lived in the Harker basement, creating Satanic dolls that Ruth, posing as a nun, delivered to families, causing them to kill each other. Lee’s doll blocked her memories of Longlegs while influencing her with his magic.