EastEnders viewers are convinced they have “discovered” the true identity of Anthony Trueman’s killer in a jaw-dropping and deeply unsettling twist involving Jean Slater, and the reason why it was him is far more psychologically complex and tragic than a simple act of violence, because this theory doesn’t hinge on revenge, jealousy, or greed, but on a slow-burning emotional collapse that has been hiding in plain sight for years, woven into Jean’s fragmented memories, cryptic dialogue, and moments of dissociation that fans now believe were never just eccentric character traits but carefully planted narrative landmines, waiting for the right moment to explode, and the shock factor lies not only in the accusation itself but in how disturbingly plausible it becomes once viewers begin re-examining Anthony’s final days through the lens of Jean’s fractured perspective, as the theory suggests that Anthony didn’t die at the hands of a stereotypical villain but was instead caught in the tragic crossfire of Jean’s untreated mental health spiral, a spiral that blurred her sense of reality so completely that she may not even remember what she did, or may remember it in a way that feels justified, distorted, or even merciful to her own mind, and fans point to a series of overlooked moments where Jean’s behavior subtly shifted whenever Anthony’s name or presence was mentioned, moments initially dismissed as awkwardness or anxiety but now reinterpreted as signs of suppressed guilt, unresolved conflict, and a subconscious attempt to rewrite history, because Anthony represented something dangerous to Jean’s internal balance, a mirror of truths she had spent years avoiding, truths about family loyalty, moral compromise, and the consequences of silence, and according to the emerging theory Anthony discovered something he was never meant to know, not a sensational crime or affair, but a deeply personal truth about Jean’s past actions, actions tied to a moment when she believed she was protecting her family, particularly Stacey, at any cost, and this belief becomes the psychological key to understanding why it was him, because in Jean’s mind Anthony wasn’t an enemy, he was a threat to stability, a destabilizing force who risked pulling apart the fragile narrative she had constructed to survive, and when that narrative was challenged her mind didn’t respond with logic or restraint but with panic, dissociation, and a catastrophic need to regain control, and viewers argue that the show has been quietly laying the groundwork for this reveal by emphasizing Jean’s tendency to reframe traumatic events as misunderstandings or external attacks, a coping mechanism that allows her to live with unbearable guilt by displacing responsibility, which would explain why Anthony’s death was never emotionally processed by her in a conventional way, instead hovering around her like an unspoken ghost, occasionally surfacing through cryptic comments, sudden mood shifts, or an almost eerie calm whenever tragedy struck the Square, and the most chilling part of the theory is that Jean didn’t kill Anthony out of malice, but out of a twisted sense of protection, believing in that moment that stopping him was the only way to prevent something far worse, a belief reinforced by her illness, making the act feel to her not like murder but like intervention, and this reframing is exactly why she was able to continue living among the community without obvious breakdown, because her mind archived the event not as a crime but as a necessary sacrifice, and fans point to recent scenes where Jean speaks about fate, consequences, and “doing what needs to be done” with unsettling clarity, lines that now feel like confessions hidden behind metaphor, while the show’s decision to link this revelation to Anthony, a character deeply associated with moral integrity and unfinished business, adds another layer of tragedy, because his death becomes not just a loss but a moral wound that infected the Square slowly, quietly, and invisibly, and when viewers ask why it had to be him, the answer becomes devastatingly clear within the logic of the theory: Anthony was kind enough to hesitate, principled enough to confront, and trusting enough to underestimate the danger of pushing someone whose grip on reality was already slipping, making him the worst possible person to stumble into Jean’s psychological breaking point, and as fans dissect past episodes they argue that the show deliberately avoided sensationalizing Anthony’s death at the time because the truth was never meant to be external, it was meant to live inside Jean, waiting to surface only when her mental state could no longer contain it, and if the theory proves correct the fallout promises to be emotionally nuclear, because it wouldn’t just destroy Jean, it would force Stacey and the entire Slater family to confront the horrifying possibility that love, loyalty, and protection can mutate into something lethal when left unchecked, and it would recontextualize Jean not as a comic relief figure or tragic victim of circumstance but as one of the most morally complex characters the show has ever created, someone capable of both immense love and irreversible harm, and the final sting of the theory lies in the idea that Jean herself may genuinely believe she didn’t kill Anthony, because in her mind the version of events she lives with is the only one that allows her to survive, making the truth not a dramatic confession waiting to happen, but a psychological reckoning that could shatter her completely once the final piece clicks into place, leaving viewers unsettled not because a killer was revealed, but because the killer was someone who never fully understood she had become one.