American Beauty: Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey)

You guys are retarded. The gunshot that was heard when Carolyn was outside COULD have been from mr Fittz killing his wife.

It's obvious his wife isn't the killer, because when lesters life is flashing as he passes away, it shows montage shots of people during the shot and his wife was one of them and the gun can be heard in the nackground. It could be someone we don't know, like ricky being a bit extra twisted and hiring a friend to kill lester and even though jane said she was only kidding

Col Fitts was most definately the killer. Blood sprays everywhere when you shoot someone and when he ran into his study after the shooting scene, you see that he has rubber gloves on and that the gun on his rack is missing. The reason why he shot Lester was an attempt to erase the proof that he had homosexual feelings. Of course Col Fitts was the killer. It couldn't be Carol because when they were showing where everyone was during the gun shot (Rickey and Janie in her room, Angela in the bathroom etc), Carol was walking on the path leading towards the front door. She's clutching the gun to her hand and you hear the faint sound of the gun shot in the background. I've watched the movie so many times and have analyzed it over and over. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

Col Fitts may have pulled the trigger, but there is another question here. Did his son Ricky set him up to do this? Recall that Ricky asked Jane if she wanted him to kill Lester? When she answered yes, did Ricky then set up the Colonel to do the dirty work? Ricky might have suspected that his father was secretly gay, and used this as the trigger for the killing. He befriended Lester, made it obvious he was visiting Lester and was taking money from him. He even leaned over in exactly the right spot when he was rolling the joint so that the Colonel would get the wrong idea when peering through the window. It may not have happened exactly as Ricky planned - perhaps he thought the Colonel would just go next doors and shoot Lester outright, and not come on to Lester first.

Just a thought.

you're so low

Fuck the lot of ye, I actually fucking enjoyed the movie until i read all this shit, now i'm just unsure! OK, u could be a dickhead and look into every single solitary possibility...BUT...Fitts killed Lester! If the writer wanted us to think any different i'm sure he would have made the fucking movie differently!

By the way...I really fucking like tea!

Stop, stop, why does everybody think he killed him, oh he was convered in blood, he couldv'e killed his wfie in a dispute when she finally killed him. He wouldn't of shot him, because he knew lester wasn't gay after the kiss. It might've been his old boss oh his daughter decided she wanted her dad out of misery and got ricky to give her the gun and pass it on.

You're all wrong. His wife totally had Buddy do it, And the gun shot we heard while she was walking in the rain wasn't Frank killing his wife, It was actually the Mr. Smiley's Drive-thru Girl who was killing Ricky's mom. Duh! "But Carlito, why did Frank have a bloody T-Shirt?!" Obviously he went hunting in the fucking Caribbean and shot himself a big ol' fucking moose, Not to mention the homosexual neighbors, Jim and Jim, we domestic terrorists,

Have you even watched this film? and i mean actually, watched, this film?

I agree. I have seen this movie many times over. And I have to say, after carefully examining the characters in this movie - and they were great characters - I can only conclude that it was Colonel Fitts who shot Lester. And I'll give you my reasons. I came to the conclusion that it could only be Colonel Fitts, the moment he left Lester's garage. I think we can all agree here, that the Colonel was a Closet Homosexual. Just look at how despondent and tormented the Colonel's wife is throughout the movie. Anyway, there are two big reasons why I feel it had to be the Colonel. Number one is - after the Colonel comes out of the closet - so to speak - with Lester, he is rejected by Lester. I've experienced rejection in my life at one time or another, and it can be a terrible feeling. The second reason is - now that the cat is out the bag, so to speak, that the Colonel is gay - a hardened macho Marine, Lester had to die. When he rejected Colonel Fitt's advance, Lester's fate was sealed. Only, he didn't know it of course. There was just no way that the Colonel could take a chance on having Lester blabber to the whole neighborhood, about that encounter between him, and the Colonel - a tough guy marine, no less. Do any of you see my point here. As for the Colonel's wife, I just can't see him going home, and taking it out on his wife. He may have been gay, but I never got the impression that he was a stupid, or irrational man. Getting back to his wife - she was probably the one person in the world, before Lester, who knew he was really gay. Hence - the depression, and torment she exhibits in the movie, that I mentioned earlier. As for Lester's wife possibly killing her husband, I can't buy that. Carolyn had issues, but a killer ? Just what her intentions were when she headed back home, with her gun in her purse, who knows ? It may have been simply to put a scare in into Lester, because of everything that had happened with getting busted by Lester, with Buddy the king, as well as Lester finally growing some balls, and not putting up with Carolyn's bullshit, and fantasy world anymore.
Plus, as some have already have pointed out here, she was outside approaching her home, when she heard a gunshot - at least we are led to believe that she heard it. As for that gunshot coming from the Colonel's home, I doubt it because Carolyn was in a closer proximity to her home, than the Colonel's house. Plus, there was the noise from all the rain. Remember, it was raining outside - and pretty hard at that. That would have had to have been some gunshot, and Carolyn would have to have had some incredible hearing senses, if in fact that shot did come from Fitts's home, after running home and killing his wife, as some have suggested. One last comment here. I'm not a forensics expert, so I honestly don't know in which direction the blood splatter would have traveled right after Lester was shot. So, I make my assumption on face value - that is from the scene after Lester is shot. You see the Colonel with blood splatter all over him - and by the way, did you notice how out of breath Colonel Fitts was, when he's shown removing his latex gloves ? As if he had been running from somewhere, or around somewhere. So, if he in fact did go home and kill his wife right after leaving Lester, why would he be in such an almost panicked state ? The Colonel would have been in the privacy of his own home, with no one around. He could have killed his wife, and taken his time in disposing of all the evidence. And if Carolyn shot Lester, why is there not one drop of blood on her ? I would think at least a little of Lester's blood would have gotten on her clothing. And lastly, as for Carolyn dumping her gun in the hamper in her closet - I think she totally freaked out, after she came home and found Lester slumped over the kitchen table, with blood all over the place. She probably just panicked, after realizing that she had a gun in her possession, and worried that the police were going to think, she shot Lester. Of course, the police would have ruled that out, once they found that Carolyn's gun had not been fired, and so could not have been the the murder weapon. But again, Carolyn probably wasn't thinking rationally, because she was so freaked out after just finding her Lester shot to death. I found this scene so Ironic, because Carolyn was on her way home to scare the shit out of Lester, with her big mean brand new gun - she's not going to be a victim anymore ! - and instead, Lester has already been taken care of - permanently. So that's it folks. Again, all of this is just my opinion of what transpired. You can all come to your own conclusions here. I would never say, that all of my guesswork and assumptions are infallible. That's what makes a movie great. A great movie, that has a great ending. The kind of ending that leaves it to the viewers, to try and figure out what actually happened.