Who is Sanderson in Untamed? Character explored in depth

Untamed, the Netflix murder mystery drama series, which was released on 17th July 2025, tells a truly untamed story. Marked with one or more deaths, old secrets, and a drug lab, the show explores unpredictable characters and even more unpredictable incidents. The show's logline describes it:

"In the vast expanse of Yosemite National Park, a woman's death draws a federal agent into lawless terrain — where nature obeys no rules but its own."

The series stars Eric Bana as Kyle Turner, who is an agent at the National Park Service's Investigative Services Branch. Kyle is tasked with investigating the murder of an unidentified girl, hence given the name Jane Doe, who fell from the top of the three-thousand-foot-high rock formation El Capitan. But he is still grieving his son, and there is a person called Sean Sanderson, who is missing. Who is Sanderson in Untamed? Why is he of significance? Read more to find out.

Who is Sanderson in Untamed?

The main plot of the show follows Kyle as he investigates Jane Doe's death, who, despite falling off the rock formation, did not die due to that incident. She had a gunshot wound and several injuries, which proves that someone was after her. While Eric investigates this case, we often see him talk to Caleb (played by Ezra Wilson), his son. What seems like sweet moments between a father and his son are soon revealed to be an extension of grief. Caleb is dead; he died years ago, and Kyle has been hallucinating these moments.

However, Caleb's death is not something added into the story simply to add another layer to Kyle's character. It serves a greater purpose. It is partly the reason Kyle and his ex-wife Jill (played by Rosemarie DeWitt) divorced. But why? We learn the reason in the finale of the series.

By the end of the series, we learn that Jane Doe was actually a girl named Lucy Cook (played by Ezra Franky), who, after facing abuse in foster homes, had been squatting in the national park. Her biological father is Paul Souter, the Chief Park Ranger of Yosemite, who had an affair with Lucy's mother years ago but did not want the child. Soulter is also revealed to be Lucy's killer. He killed her to make sure she would not reveal her parentage and his past affair to anyone else.

The other case of importance is that of Sean Sanderson (played by Mark Rankin). He is a businessman and patron of the park who went missing and hasn't been found. We are not told too much about him, except the fact that Sanderson is the reason behind Kyle and Jill's grief and eventual divorce.

Sean Sanderson was the one who killed Kyle and Jill's son, Caleb. Around six years before the show's present events, Caleb got lost in the park's woods when he got separated from a children's group. He was then sexually assaulted and murdered by Sean Sanderson. Naturally, Kyle and Jill were heartbroken and torn by grief.

But Jill did not want to wait for a trial to make sure Sanderson paid for his actions. In a situation like this, it's best to let the law punish the criminal, but Jill took matters into her own hands. Well, sort of. She hired Shane Maguire (played by Wilson Bethel), the wildlife management officer at Yosemite Park, to kill Sanderson, and that is what tore her marriage with Kyle apart. As Mark L. Smith, co-creator, co-showrunner, and executive producer of Untamed, said,

“The fact that she had Maguire do this without Turner knowing — that is what really split them apart,”

Jill and Kyle divorced, and Jill later remarried. But the grief over Caleb remained. At the end of Untamed, Turner decided to leave the park and Caleb's memory behind him for a different life.

Untamed is streaming on Netflix.

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