Who killed Ezra in Hell on Wheels? The boy had already outlived the man who murdered his parents

Ezra Dutson survived Thor Gundersen — the Swede, the most patient killer on Hell on Wheels. What got him in the end was a fire set by a man who didn't even know he was in the building.

The answer is Sydney Snow. The how and the aftermath are where the story gets interesting.

How Ezra ended up in Hell on Wheels

Back in season 3, the Mormon Dutson family — Bishop Joseph, his wife Eleanor, and young Ezra — picked up a helpful stranger on the trail west after he fixed their broken wagon axle. That stranger was the Swede (Christopher Heyerdahl), traveling under the alias Andersen. On Ezra's eighth birthday, right after his baptism, the Swede faked a conversion, got baptized himself, and then murdered both parents at the riverbank while Ezra ran.

The boy survived alone in the wilderness, later found a half-dead Cullen Bohannon, and led him to fresh water — which saved both Bohannon and the camp. Ruth Cole (Kasha Kropinski), the town's preacher, took him in.

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The church fire

In season 4, episode 10, "Return to Hell," ex-Confederate marshal Sydney Snow (Jonathan Scarfe) set fire to the church sheltering the town's wanted men. Ezra, who everyone assumed was still down at the river, had slipped into the back room and hidden under the floorboards — the same spot Mickey McGinnes once used. He died in the fire. Bohannon found the body the next morning.

Snow was an arsonist, not a child hunter; he had no idea Ezra was inside. The town made no such distinction.

What Ruth did about it

At Ezra's burial, Ruth told Bohannon:

"I never deserved to be a mother, " she says in the 2014 episode, shortly before Snow rides back into town.

When Snow returned for a street showdown, Bohannon moved to arrest him. Ruth shot him twice instead. Snow died of the wounds an episode later in "Bleeding Kansas," despite a genuine group effort to save him — purely so Ruth wouldn't face a murder charge. It didn't work. In "Thirteen Steps," Ruth pleaded guilty, told the court she shot Snow because he burned Ezra alive, refused a pardon that governor Campbell had ready to sign, and was hanged. Bohannon buried her next to Ezra and quit the railroad.

The plot thread that never paid off

Here's the part that still gets debated: the Swede was alive through all of it. He wasn't hanged until season 5's "Two Soldiers," which means Ezra died without ever identifying the man who slaughtered his family — a recognition scene the show had spent a full season loading.

"Most of all, though, I question the decision to kill Ezra at all," wrote critic Basket of Kisses in 2014, arguing the coincidence of his survival was built for a payoff that never came.

For the record: the Swede's last words on the gallows were an introduction. After years of aliases, he told the crowd his real name — Thor Gundersen, from Norway.

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