[SPOILERS] My Theory On The Ending...
First off, I randomly stumbled upon this film and found it to be a very pleasant surprise. Both style and substance are quite engrossing. While there are a couple threads devoted to theories on who actually killed Elizabeth, I thought I would give my own take on it as I had not seen a similar theory on the boards. This thread is meant to inspire more discussion, and as the film is presented in a very ambiguous way there probably is no one right answer.
*** SPOILERS AHEAD! ***
My take on the ending of the film is that while Kennesaw did indeed physically kill Elizabeth, he was a mere pawn set up into doing so and the entire sequence of events was masterminded by Wayland. So while Kennesaw is technically Elizabeth's killer, Wayland is the psychopath who is actually responsible for her murder taking place. He additionally gets to dismember her body and possibly commits a necrophilic act on her, all the while getting off scot-free and manipulating everyone around him for his own personal amusement. Following are a few reasons for my thinking:
Evidence In Support of Kennesaw's Guilt
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1) Kennesaw fails the polygraph after Wayland rephrases his question, and after doing so never really denies having killed Elizabeth again. I saw this as a sort of acceptance of guilt, as usually you would expect someone to vehemently deny such wrongdoing.
2) Kennesaw's flashback (memory or fantasy?) of him smothering his wife with a pillow at least establishes that he did have moments where he wanted to do so.
3) Kennesaw's flip-out reaction is not consistent with that of an innocent man.
Evidence In Support of Wayland's Psychopathic Masterminding
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1) Wayland is constantly buying people off and has connections everywhere due to his social standing and genius level IQ. Both his fortune and his genius allow him to manipulate everyone he comes across, and may also be a part of his psychopathic desire to do so. What better way to spend your day when you're a rich genius whose parents never showed you any love?
2) With the manipulative power and connections that Wayland has, it is possible that he arranged the infidelity of Kennesaw's wife with the obstetrician... both of whom Wayland refers to being of a more elite class than Kennesaw. Wayland seems to have very intimate knowledge of the affair... perhaps that is because he is the one who instigated it?
3) Wayland could then have engineered a way for Elizabeth and Kennesaw to meet, and then used his knowledge of psychology to foster the "Elizabeth as wife" mentality and the eventual killing. Let us remember that Wayland has a genius level IQ and also holds a degree in psychology.
4) Wayland is seen in a flashback sequence talking with a wealthy friend in a bar about halfway into the movie about the publicly humiliating stunt in which Wayland introduced Elizabeth to his parents. This conversation may have inspired the notion of faking his own death to get back at his parents. The scene then pans into another flashback (flash forward?) of him having sex with a possibly dead Elizabeth on a bed, which continues panning over to a shot of Wayland observing the bedroom through the glass window booth looking very pensive and then pans back to an empty, clean bed. While very ambiguously shot and presented, this segment may be a view into the way Wayland is actually experiencing things... and the panning shot may show events of the night after Kennesaw murders Elizabeth.
5) More on Wayland's manipulative, necrophylic and psychopathic tendencies... he tells a story early in the movie about having sex with his passed-out girlfriend from Jr. High School and then telling the girl's father that his recently deceased friend did it.
6) The ending shot with Wayland still being alive, his psychotic look and the "That's the idea..." line put him in a very menacing light.
So what do you all think? Is this a plausible theory?