| This article is in reference to the court case that came as a result of the death of Wes Gibbins and the fire the same night. For information about the house fire itself, see Fire at the Keating House. |
- "That's a lie. He wasn't just a stranger. He was, um... He felt... He... He felt... He felt like my son. He felt like my son... because he was. He was my son. He was my son. He was my son. And he's gone."
- —Annalise Keating to the AA group about Wes Gibbins[src]
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Keating and Delfino was the case against Annalise Keating and Frank Delfino for the murder of Wes Gibbins and the fire at the Keating house. Annalise was charged with first degree murder and arson, whilst Frank was charged as her co-conspirator. Todd Denver and Renee Atwood proffered that Annalise found out that Wes was going to sign an immunity deal and turn on her, so she called him over to her house and burnt him to death.
Ultimately, Wes was posthumously blamed for the fire and it was put forth by Annalise that he used the fire to commit suicide because the police were going to find out that he murdered his ex-girlfriend Rebecca Sutter, and Annalise's husband Sam Keating. Annalise strongarmed Denver into closing the case and dropping her and Frank's charges after telling him about the voicemail on the copy of her phone that Oliver Hampton kept.
Pre-arrest[]
On November 3, 2015, Annalise arrived at Bonnie's house drunk. She said the District Attorney's Office was investigating her and they needed to catch up. She told Bonnie she burnt some files and smashed her laptop with the trophy. Later Bonnie put her to bed. She woke up in the evening and rang Oliver and said she would meet him at the clinic. At the clinic, she told Oliver everybody was in trouble and she needed him to hack the D.A's Office. At some point between Bonnie's house and the clinic, she called each member of the Keating 5 and told them to meet her at her house. Once she was finished with Oliver she left for the house only to find it on fire when she arrived.
Annalise pushed to the front of the crowd and begged the paramedics to let her see who was under the sheet. Once she saw it was Wes, she broke down. Oliver arrived and Annalise slyly passed him her phone and told him to wipe it clean. John Mumford and Brianna Davis began questioning Annalise on her whereabouts prior to the fire. Brianna mentioned her neighbours had reported seeing her car in the driveway all day. Annalise grew impatient and told the detectives to arrest her if they truly believed she burnt down her own house. Shortly after, they did. ("Who's Dead?")
In custody[]
Annalise rings Bonnie and tells her the house burnt down, Wes is dead and they arrested her. She also mentioned Oliver was wiping her phone and Bonnie was to find him. Bonnie arrived at the scene and had John let her past the police tape with Oliver so he could kick Annalise's phone under an ambulance. Then Fire Chief Gains hears on the radio they found another body in the house but they were alive. Annalise meets with John and Brianna and is told her official charges are arson and first degree murder. The evidence was an anonymous source that provided evidence linking Annalise to the charges. Annalise is then sent back to holding when Bonnie comes to visit her. Annalise asks Bonnie if she is the anonymous source, to which she denies. Later, Nate visits Annalise after visiting Dr. Bradfield. He tells her that Wes was already dead before the fire. ("Who's Dead?")
Annalise is sent to county lockup until her bail hearing, where she meets Claudia Gelvin and Jasmine Bromelle. Bonnie meets with Frank, who tells her that it's obvious who did it. Bonnie relays this information to Annalise, that it had to be the Mahoneys. She says they must have discovered Wes was Wallace Mahoney's son and killed him. Bonnie then went on to discuss who should represent Annalise. She suggested Helen Hughes but Annalise said no and insisted that Bonnie had to represent her.
Brianna and John visited Laurel in the hospital. Laurel explained that when she arrived there was nobody around so she looked around the rooms before seeing the basement door open. She went down there but heard a noise from upstairs and that was the last thing she remembered. Brianna asked if Laurel knew why Annalise wanted her and the others at the house, and Laurel asked if they were trying to pin her attempted murder on Annalise. She said Annalise didn't do it.
In Renee Atwood's office, Todd Denver confronted Nate about visiting Dr. Bradfield an hour before going to see Annalise in holding. He said he thought she might've disclosed key evidence due to their prior relationship. Denver said he had no choice but to suspend Nate for his actions, but he pointed out that he was recently in a sexual relationship with Atwood and a demotion could be construed as sexual harassment, causing Denver to back down. Later, Bonnie met with Nate in the car park of the D.A's office and asked for his help but he said no. Bonnie then met Annalise in jail and told her she pushed the bail hearing because she wanted the autopsy report to counter any bail denial. She also told Annalise that Nate wouldn't be helping. She mentioned Frank was supporting in the case and Annalise said she didn't want Frank near any of it. Back at her house, Frank told her he got the call logs from the police station. They went through them together and Frank saw that Hannah Keating called the police that night. Bonnie said there was no way she could have called so soon unless she knew the fire was going to happen, but Annalise said she called Hannah whilst drunk and said she could have the house. Bonnie said it couldn't be enough to incriminate her.
The first hearing takes place in regards to Annalise getting out on bail. Denver opened the hearing, stating that the state believed Annalise was a flight risk and there was a lot of evidence against her so she should be denied bail. Bonnie argued that any attempt to deny bail should be because of evidence shown in court, so Denver asked for a recess to discuss the matter internally. When court was back in session, Atwood passed around a copy of the immunity deal that Wes had made notations on, suggesting he was about to sign. She then explained the state's theory was Wes told Annalise about the investigation and his potential immunity so she killed him. Bonnie countered, saying there were other suspects the D.A's office was refusing to look into, but Judge Jacobs ruled in the state's favour, denying Annalise bail.
Following the hearing, there was a press conference led by Denver. They discussed the case and how Annalise had been in close proximity to murders that had went unsolved, namely the murder of her husband Sam Keating. Atwood then read a portion of the medical examiner's report, stating that Wes died from asphyxiation due to smoke inhalation. Bonnie panicked because it was a lie and called Frank, asking for help. Frank turned himself in as a result. ("We're Bad People")
Frank joins the case[]
Frank told Brianna and John that he killed Wes because he was dating Laurel. He explained that he picked Wes up and told him that Annalise wanted to see him. They got to the house and Frank said he knocked Wes out with chloroform. He then said he cut the gas and left the stove on before making his escape. John asked why Frank did it and he said because Laurel left him for Wes and he didn't like it and it got worse when he found out she was pregnant. The detectives said his statement couldn't be corroborated so he told them to check the street cameras, which showed Wes getting into his car. This prompted them to officially arrest Frank.
Brianna went to Atwood and was confused why she didn't want to charge Frank. She decided to visit Frank herself and confront him about lying for Annalise, saying that he owed her for getting him 10 years free after he attempted to murder his father. She began to press Frank about specific details and he folded saying he won't be answering any more questions and they could either charge him or let him go. Later, Soraya Hargrove visited Annalise in jail.
The Keating 4 were at Connor and Oliver's apartment when Oliver called everybody together. He hacked into Atwood's server for information on Frank but instead found a slew of murders that they suspected Annalise being involved in. They saw Sam, Rebecca, Caleb, Emily and Lila's case files and realised that even if they got Annalise off for Wes, the D.A's office were going to keep coming at her. Bonnie encouraged Annalise to pin it all on Frank and said she arranged a meeting with Atwood to offer Annalise a plea deal in exchange for her co-operation. Atwood goaded Annalise into trying to attack her, causing her to deny a plea deal. Bonnie then went to Laurel in the hospital and told her to tell the police she saw Frank in the house before the fire, causing him to be charged as Annalise's co-conspirator. ("Not Everything's About Annalise")
The next time Annalise is in court, it's an arraignment. The Keating 4 aren't in attendance because Wes' memorial at Middleton University was at the same time. Judge Jacobs begins by asking Denver about the fact there were two defendants in the courtroom. He reads their charges; first degree murder with special circumstance of arson. He said he believes the crime was pre-meditated and that Wes was lured to the house with intent of setting the fire that would kill him. When it was Bonnie's turn to speak, she moved to sever Annalise's case from Frank's to prevent bias. This was denied, so she attempted to get Annalise out on bail again, which was also denied.
D.A loses the body[]
The detectives call Oliver in for an interview and he does well after some preparation. Laurel goes to Nate and asks him to help see Wes' body in the morgue, leading to the discovery that his body had been lost. Bonnie meets with the judge and Atwood to discuss the victim's body being missing. Bonnie suggests that the body was moved intentionally to hide evidence after she ordered a second autopsy. She uses this to try to convince the judge to let Annalise out on bail, which gets denied again. Bonnie informs Annalise as such, prompting her to goad Claudia into attacking her and then having Bonnie show the pictures to the judge and threaten a lawsuit if Annalise isn't released on bail. Later, Frank fired his lawyer and rang Bonnie to arrange a meeting. ("Go Cry Somewhere Else")
Annalise on bail[]
Oliver tells Connor he saved a copy of Annalise's phone after he wiped it the night of the fire. Connor convinces him to start going through it. Denver and Atwood confront Nate about him being the one to sign off on Wes' body being transferred. He goes to Annalise, who was now out on bail, with this and she promises to help him. Frank and Bonnie have their first meeting where he brings up another case where the victim's body went missing and the judge threw out the entire case. Bonnie points out that in that case the body was lost before any autopsy could be performed. Frank suggested filing a motion about hiding evidence and Bonnie got frustrated that he clearly didn't know what he was doing.
Demand letter and article leak[]
Annalise writes a demand letter addressed to Ingrid Peters seeking a grand jury investigation into a alleged conspiracy launched against her by the District Attorney's Office. She writes that the letter is a formal complaint and demand to investigate the alleged prosecutorial misconduct by Atwood, listing her unlawful actions including acting on personal bias and false information and orchestrating the disappearance of Wes' body. She hand delivers the demand letter to Ingrid Peters who doesn't take her seriously and the two begin going back and forth and at the end Annalise threatens to release what she knows to the press unless the D.A's office finds Wes' body. Later, Bonnie meets with Denver and Atwood who are against everything Annalise wrote in her letter for obvious reasons. The conversation ends with Denver stating he has files on everybody in Annalise's life. At the same time, Laurel hires a private investigator named Howie to look into the Mahoney family and the murder of Wallace Mahoney.
Later Nate meets with Ingrid Peters about the transfer form for Wes' body. He admits it is his signature on the form but he didn't sign it, meaning someone with access to his signature forged it. Following this meeting, Nate angrily calls Annalise and is angry that she got the state involved. She tries to justify what she did but Nate tells her to stop helping him. After the call she meets with Oliver by help of Bonnie. She has him leak an article about the loss of Wes' body and how it points to there being a conspiracy against her. After this Soraya calls her and they have a brief chat.
Annalise arrives at Bonnie's house to find Laurel, Asher, Connor and Bonnie waiting for her. Laurel shows her the DNA test the Mahoneys ran on Wes a week before he died, suggesting that they killed him because they found out who he was. Annalise got annoyed and ended up expressing how dangerous the Mahoneys are by revealing she lost a child because of them. Later Ingrid Peters calls and rejects the request for a grand-jury investigation because of the article leak. She threatens to have Denver go for the death penalty on her case if she keeps it up. Annalise then meets with Soraya for a meal and she realises that she's working with Atwood in order to get custody of her children. Back at Bonnie's she hatches a plan and has her meet with Frank in the morning.
The next day there is a hearing opened by Frank. He files a subpoena for all of Atwood's personal correspondence on the day Wes' body was transferred. Denver objects, Frank insists, Denver says the body is close to being found and Frank points out by then the chain of custody would be broken. Denver then stands up and says Frank is only arguing the motion at the direction of Annalise, causing Bonnie to object and say the two have had no communication but Denver points out Bonnie met with Frank earlier. Bonnie says the meeting was about convincing Frank to rehire his attorney so it wouldn't look like the two defendants were colluding. The judge said that Atwood's private communications could remain as such unless there was evidence. Frank submitted into evidence Wes' morgue transfer form that was signed by Nate. Denver said that Nate doesn't work on the case so it's irrelevant but Frank pointed out that he was romantic with Atwood. The judge said that the D.A's office had broken no laws so Frank pointed out that there was the appearance of bias and conflict of interest, causing the judge to rule in his favour and ordered Atwood to turnover her calls, texts and e-mails for the day the body was transferred.
Atwood gets suspended by Denver and she tells him the body was cremated. Nate passes this information to Annalise, who passes it to Laurel. Meanwhile, Asher confronts Connor about being the anonymous source and he ends up revealing that everybody is about to be wrong about defending Annalise because Oliver was going through the copy of her phone. He returns home and Oliver confronts him about getting Annalise's voicemail and being at the house the night of the fire. ("It's War")
Connor was there[]
A few days later there is a hearing in court for a motion to dismiss the case. Bonnie calls Atwood to the stand and grills her about moving Wes' body. She asks if she ordered the cremation to which Atwood denied. Annalise is annoyed that Bonnie wasn't able to get Atwood to confess. After the hearing Bonnie asked everybody to come back to her house to help figure out how to prove that Atwood was lying.
Back at the house, Charles Mahoney is released from jail and the charges against him are dropped. Annalise points out that if Atwood and the Mahoneys are colluding, she is the weak link and all they needed to do was find proof that she was in contact with them. Nate gives Annalise her WI-FI password which she passes onto Oliver and tasks the Keating 4 with looking into the case discovery because it was likely Atwood interfered with some of those too. Michaela realises Connor is acting strange and the two meet in the bathroom and he tells her what Oliver already confronted him about. Meanwhile, Oliver hacked into Atwood's landline records and noted that she was being called by a number from a burner phone multiple times since Wes died. Connor and Michaela leave the bathroom and are acting strange causing her to blurt out that Connor might've killed Wes.
Connor says that he got Annalise's voicemail and went to the house. The front door was open so he walked around the house, noticed the basement door was open and went down there. That was where he found Wes. He realised his body was still warm so he started CPR for a few moments before hearing a crack, causing him to stop. Then he noticed the gas line had been cut so he fled out of the storm door seconds before the house exploded. During the entire ordeal, he didn't call for help because he didn't have his phone. Asher pointed out there was a phone in the house but Connor implied he was under too much pressure to think about that. Meanwhile, Denver offered Frank a plea deal; admit that Annalise ordered him to kill Wes and he would get 7 years.
That night the group were discussing what to do and Connor had the idea to testify to what he told everybody earlier. He said there was no mention of the cracked rib in the autopsy report, proving that the medical examiner lied. Annalise said she couldn't let him take the stand but said Laurel could. The next day Laurel testified to exactly what Connor said but during Denver's cross he had her admit that she signed an affidavit stating she lied about being kidnapped as a child, proving that she had committed perjury before and invalidating her entire testimony.
Later, Connor met with Denver to get an immunity deal so he could tell the truth, that Laurel told his story. This caused Asher to finally call the burner phone number that Oliver found the previous day, and Connor realised it was Denver's phone so when Denver came back with the immunity paperwork he arrested Connor. ("He Made a Terrible Mistake")
Closing the case[]
Denver leaves Connor locked in a room and tells him he can either sign the immunity deal or be arrested and charged for Wes' murder by the end of the day. Bonnie, Asher and Oliver make attempts to locate Connor but nothing works. At the end of the day, Denver returns to Connor and has him arrested by Brianna Davis for Wes' murder but he stops them by telling them about the copy of Annalise's phone in his apartment with Oliver. The police get a warrant and raid the apartment and find it. Annalise meets with everyone and tells them she has a plan to get Connor back but it's by giving Denver a new suspect, Wes. Laurel is against it but comes around, so the next day Annalise meets with Denver and explains to him that Wes left a voicemail that night confessing to Sam and Rebecca's murder and then committed suicide by setting the house on fire. Denver wasn't convinced but Annalise threatened to go after him the way he went after her so he came around.
Later, he meets with the judge and Nate and explains that he no longer wants to pursue Annalise or Frank. He said that Nate found the voicemail, likely because Annalise told him to say that. The Sam Keating and Rebecca Sutter cases were officially closed along with the arson and murder charge brought against Annalise and Frank. ("Wes (episode)")
See also[]
Appearances[]
| Season 3 | |||||||||||
| "We're Good People Now" | "There Are Worse Things Than Murder" | "Always Bet Black" | "Don't Tell Annalise" | ||||||||
| "It's About Frank" | "Is Someone Really Dead?" | "Call It Mother's Intuition" | "No More Blood" | ||||||||
| "Who's Dead?" | "We're Bad People" | "Not Everything's About Annalise" | "Go Cry Somewhere Else" | ||||||||
| "It's War" | "He Made a Terrible Mistake" | "Wes" |
Gallery[]
