This article – “The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window – what happened to Anna’s daughter Elizabeth” contains significant spoilers around the Netflix limited series.
Read the review of the series.
In the beginning of The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window, it appears that Anna has a normal family life. She forgets to get her daughter, Elizabeth, ready for school. And, as such, Anna is still in her dressing gown when she drops her off at the school gates. But later that night Anna remembers that Elizabeth is dead, the trauma of which Carole says has made Anna “bat-s**t crazy with a drinking problem”.
After Elizabeth died, Anna and Elizabeth’s father, Douglas, separated, and Anna lost her passion to paint. Instead, Anna started to drink heavily, often drinking several bottles of wine.
What happened to Elizabeth in The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window?
In flashbacks to the day that Elizabeth died, the series reveals that Douglas took her to work as part of a “take your daughter to work day”.
And even though Douglas is a forensic psychiatrist for the FBI specializing in serial killers, it doesn’t put Elizabeth off. But the day turns to the disaster when Elizabeth is accidentally left alone with a serial killer, Massacre Mike. (Who has eaten and killed 30 people). As Douglas locks himself out from the interrogation room, he is powerless to help as Elizabeth becomes Massacre Mike’s next victim.
The last time that Anna saw Elizabeth alive, it was chucking down. So it has now given Anna an overwhelming fear of the rain. But Anna’s not one to be kept down for long. When newly moved in neighbor Lisa gets murdered, Anna forces herself to fight through the trauma of Elizabeth’s death and her fear of rain to save her neighbors Neil and Emma.
Although, in a twist, Emma, who Anna viewed as similar to Elizabeth, gets revealed as the killer. Once Anna can expose (and kill) Emma, she overcomes her fear of rain, reunites with Douglas, and has another child. Happy Ever After! That is, until Anna boards a plane to New York.
