Kay had already been banished from the Reno compound when Fredo goes on his little fishing trip.

Connie is delegated to take Anthony off into Reno while Al Neri pulls the hit on Fredo. Michael would never have told Connie he was having Fredo rubbed out; he had to have given her some kind of BS cover story to get Anthony out of there.

As we see in GF III Connie still self-rationalizes it to herself in 1980 that "poor Fredo" had "drowned." Undoubtedly by that time she knows the truth, but nobody who really knew would ever have told her in so many words.

So ... how would Kay, and then Anthony, find out that Michael had ordered the hit on Fredo, at least to the extent they believed it for a fact? Who would have told her?

The only person who knew EXACTLY what had happened to Fredo was Al Neri, and Al never seemed to be the kind of guy who would walk around casually letting Kay in on Michael's darkest secrets.

Kay would have left the Reno compound, flown back to New Hampshire, and then several days later gotten the news, "Fredo was killed in a fishing accident."

She certainly might SUSPECT Michael had something to do with it, but she had no real evidence that he had.

But obviously between 1960 and 1980 there was supposed to be some event in which Kay was told Michael had ordered Fredo's killing, from some source she would have believed would be in a position to know.

(I don't think Tom Hagen knew about the Fredo hit, either, at least not ahead of time. As we saw at the end of GF II, Michael was somewhat suspicious that Tom's loyalty might be wavering. Michael might have had suspicions that Hagen, closer in age to Fredo, might not have gone along with the hit [although Hagen certainly knew what a liability Fredo had become], so my bet is that Michael would not have told him the truth about it and fed him the same cover story he fed Kay. Of course Hagen would be too smart to buy it right off the bat, but Michael would say, 'that's my story and I'm sticking to it,' about the 'drowning' excuse for Fredo's death, and Tom would be smart enough to go along with it at that point.)

In light of all that, I thought it was kind of ridiculous in GF III that Michael didn't try, even lamely, to deny Fredo's murder when Kay accuses him right to his face.

I would think when Kay says, "Tony knows you killed Fredo," Michael would have at least come out with, "come on, that story is 20 years old, it was BS then and it's BS now," if for no other reason to lead Tony and Mary into believing that maybe he hadn't done it.

Just off the top of my head (and thus probably missing something), it seems that Kay was still at the compound during the days when they were trying to figure out how to resolve Michael's perjury? That would mean that she was around Fredo, and could have at least picked up the feeling that something huge had happened between Fredo and Michael? Having learned to think like a Corleone, she could easily put that together with the timing after Mama Corleone's death and concluded that Michael had finished his business with Fredo.

As to Anthony, I doubt she'd sit him down and tell him that his father killed his uncle, but maybe she just answered questions honestly and he finally drew his own conclusion, so that Anthony knew but he didn't really know.

When Kay tells Michael that Anothony knows he killed Fredo, this is many years after it happened. Tom had to know about Fredo's fate ahead of time. In II at the meeting where Michael insults Tom about his mistress, etc., Michael poijtedly asks him whether he is going to go along with "these things I have to do." Tom, being Tom, rhetorically asks Michael whether he has to rub [/i]everybody[i] out, and Michael says "only my enemies." This means more than Roth is going to be killed. In fact Tom is sent to convince Frankie to commit suicide. This leaves Fredo as Michael's last enemy, so it is reasonable to assume that Tom, Rocco, Neri and Michael all knew that Feedo was a dead man when they left the meeting.
Looking at the entirety of the situation, it was well known among the family members that Michael killed the heads of all five families in New York, as well as Carlo. Connie, in fact was more than a little miffed about this.
It took Connie a long time to "forgive" Michael for his transgressions, and during all that time, and we can assume even after, she and Kay had back-channel communications.
Certainly it made the news that Hyman Roth and Frankie Pentangeli both died within a reasonable time of one another, and it would also have been known that Fredo also died in that same time frame. Add to that the fact that it was Connie who was sent to make sure Anthony didn't go fishing the very day Fredo had his "accident (kinda like that bullet ridden car Tom told Kay had been in an accident in I)." Further, Connie said that Anthony could not go fishing because Michael had to take him to Reno. In fact Michael didn't take Anthony anyplace, because he was there to hear the gunshot that killed Fredo. Michael probably never even thought that Anthony would not remember the fact that he was supposed to go fishing with his uncle, who happened to drown on the same day he ended up not going to Reno.
Once Anthony and Mary were sent back east to live with their mother, both of them realized what a monster Michael really was. Anthony was bitter about it, and evem Mary asked Vincent about Fredo's murder.
The circumstantial evidence was overwhelming, and it was no large leap for everyone to conclude what the truth really was.
As for Connie's comment about Fredo drowning, it is important to note that she made it after Michael told her he had confessed his sins to a priest. Of all the things Michael did for which he had to make a confession, the one thing COnnie mentions is Fredo's "drowning." that was a signal to Michael that she knew what really happened but that she would keep silent.

I think when the door closed on Kay, that was it as far as 'back-channel communications' between her and Connie or anybody else still in the good graces of the family.

At least for the near future, any and all communications would be handled between the respective divorce attorneys for Michael and Kay.

Whenever any kind of divorce dispute starts in real life, the lawyers always advise you very strongly to make sure none of your family members, friends, business associates talk to the other person, at all, ever -- because whatever they say can be construed as an 'offer' in the negotiations, and thus you run the risk of undermining your whole case if you allow any of those people to make informal or 'back-channel' contacts.


With all the Corleone family had at stake in the divorce with Kay, it is a very safe bet that their legal counsel -- Hagen or whoever else -- laid down the law that nobody was to communicate with Kay in any fashion whatsoever unless it was in the presence of lawyers for both sides.

So it's highly likely Kay would not even learn of Fredo's death until somewhat later, and at that point it would be explained to her by Michael's divorce attorney with whatever cover story they came up with for Kay and the children.

Of course she would probably strongly SUSPECT the whole thing was fishy, but she would have no hard-and-fast evidence for it.

To me Neri shooting fredo seems like a bad choice at some point his body is discovered, either through the lake being dragged either for him or somebody(thing) else or it washing up on the shore. If their explanation was that he drowned, neri should have whacked him ( no pun intended) on the back of the head with an oar, or overpowered him which would have been very easy and smothered him. It would have been very easy to explain this away as a drowning than a bullet to the back of the head. Plus the fact of the gunshot being heard. The only reason for that that I see is mike knowing it was done. Why would he doubt Neri would not do it. There would be too many people in the area of the lake to hear to gunshot for it not to be suspicious.

I always assumed the Corleone Lodge owned a lot of property on both sides of the cottage, so anybody who might have heard the gunshot might be a mile or more down the shore.

Plus it was a dark, cold and cloudy day so it's not too likely too many people were out on the lake just cruising around for fun. Or, for that matter, sitting on the beach in front of their cottages, either.

There were probably lots of better ways Fredo could have been gotten rid of. Roads get very icy up near Reno in the wintertime; a loosened brake line could have sent Fredo careening off into a canyon and that would have been it.

Also, Fredo was known to be a boozer (all the way back to the opening of GF I) and probably popped pills too. Neri could have dosed a drink with knockout pills and as soon as Fredo passed out, go throw him off the dock into the lake.

Fredo then drowns, the body washes up on shore a couple days later, the autopsy shows alcohol and barbituates in his bloodstream, Michael says, "Poor Fredo. He battled the bottle for years and it finally just beat him."

Perhaps Kay didn't know, on her own, that Michael had Fredo killed--she tells him, "Tony knows that you had Fredo killed [emphasis added]." As we saw, Connie at the last minute pulled Tony off the boat with Fredo and Neri, saying that Michael wanted Tony to go with him. But Michael didn't go anywhere--and neither did Tony. Michael heard the shot that Neri fired, so Tony must have heard it too. So, Tony must have concluded, after Fredo failed to turn up, that his father had Fredo killed. And he asked, or told, his mother.

Another possibility that Enzo raises: Connie and Kay still seemed tight. Maybe Connie became distraught after Fredo went missing and blamed Michael, as she did when Carlo went missing in GF. And she confided in Kay. OK, Connie seemed to have rationalized it by III, but before then...?

Most logical explanation: directoral license. Lake Tahoe is very deep. In order to make Fredo's body disappear, Neri would have to have gone fairly far out on the lake--too far for anyone on shore to have heard the shot. FFC needed drama for that last scene--and he needed drama for Kay's confrontation with Michael in III.

TB didn't you see "Deliverance?"

Kay was a smart lady and she knew that by Part 2 Mike was basically a evil bastard. Knowing wha happened to Carlo she ut 2 and 2 together

I have another possibility:

One of Kay's issues with having Anthony raised on the compound was the company he kept. "Anthony's friends are your buttonmen!"

Maybe one of Anthony's loose-lipped "friends" let something slip and Anthony figured things out (and told Kay).

According to Wikipedia, some parts of the lake is 1,000 to 1600 feet deep but upon rewatching the scene again, the shore can be seen in the background. Maybe within a mile or so of where the rowboat was. Its possible it was only a couple of hundred feet deep there.how did neri plan on submerging the body? He couldn't take any concrete blocks or anything like that with him.

Tony was in Reno with Connie when Fredo got offed. I also don't think at age 8 Tony had any concept that dad could have Uncle Fredo killed. He might come to believe it years later, but not at age 8.



Connie has had the tearful boathouse meeting with Michael where she swears lifelong allegiance to him. Right up on the top of the allegiance list would be to NOT be a back-door conduit for information to Kay. (See the legal discussion in my post above).

IMO by the end of GF II, Connie was perfectly fine with Michael having had Carlo smoked. Remember, Connie was the baby sister of the family, and Sonny was very protective of her -- Connie idolized Sonny as well as Vito. Once Connie realized that Carlo's betrayal had resulted in Sonny's killing (and had also endangered Vito as well as the whole family), she would have been just fine with it. Considering also that Carlo repeatedly beat the crap out of her I suspect she would have moved out of the 'mourning widow' stage very very quickly.



Yep, directorial license does explain much of it.

To really explain it further: Neri could have killed Fredo out in the boat, then come back in to shore and picked up some concrete blocks or other weights to sink the body, then gone out again all the way to the center of the lake (1600 feet deep).

You sink a body in 1600 feet of water, it ain't coming up. It's also not very likely the police would have the wherewithal to 'drag' the bottom of the lake.



I pretty much doubt that. First off, the lower-level button men might not even know for a fact that Michael had had Fredo whacked -- that's probably info which would have been given out on a 'need-to-know' basis.

And those who DID know would probably have also known that the details of Fredo's death would be one of the utterly off-limits topics to the kids.

Maybe Neri used the rowboat's anchor to weigh Fredo's body down.

Look back at the end of GF1 and the reaction Connie had in front of Kay. Michael lied to Kay, and then as the film concludes, there's a horrified look on Kay's face as the door is being shut to Michael's office.

First Carlo disappears, and now Fredo. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Kay had custody of Anthony and Mary post-divorce. She may not have had contact with the Corleones, but the kids would have. Anthony learns Fredo is gone, and tells his mother. Kay figures it's a repeat of the Carlo situation, and she feeds Anthony the line that Michael had Fredo killed.

Maybe he did kill Fredo with the rifle butt (in case of an eventual autopsy), and the shot was discharged accidentally -- or as a distraction.

If I'm not mistaken, the film depicts the image of Neri raising a pistol to the back of Fredo's head, in silhouette. It's clear that Fredo was shot to death - and deliberately.

~ Q

Correct. Neri raises the revolver, and the camera pans to Fredo fishing while saying a Hail Mary.

Additionally after the gunshot, there's a follow up shot with Fredo slumped over dead in in the boat. You see the revolver in Neri's hand as he goes to stand up in the boat.

Okay. I shouldn't have gone from memory.

(However, the cinematography did spare us the sight of the actual shot, allowing for some ambiguity.)