Summer Bay is set to be rocked to its core in one of Home and Away’s most emotional and harrowing storylines yet. In a storyline no one saw coming, Harper Matheson will uncover

a devastating secret that changes everything she thought she knew about her family — her estranged father is the man responsible for a shocking death that has haunted the Bay for years.

For weeks, Harper has been wrestling with her complicated feelings about reconnecting with her past. After tentatively reaching out to her mother, Carrie, Harper believed

she was finally piecing together the broken fragments of her childhood. But what she’s about to learn will tear her fragile peace apart in the most heartbreaking way imaginable.

According to exclusive teasers, the truth comes out after Harper digs deeper into her family’s history, following a series of mysterious documents and whispers from her mother. What she discovers is chilling — her late father, Warwick, wasn’t just a troubled man battling addiction. He was also hiding a dark crime that had been buried for over a decade: he was the one responsible for a tragic death that once shook the Bay community.

The revelation comes when Harper receives a box of her father’s belongings, recently unearthed by a family friend. Inside, she finds letters, police reports, and one crucial piece of evidence that connects Warwick directly to the death — believed to be that of a beloved Summer Bay resident.

“It’s a moment that breaks her completely,” an insider close to production revealed. “Harper has spent months defending her parents, trying to believe there was goodness in them. To find out her father’s hands are stained with blood… it’s unimaginable.”

The emotional fallout is immediate. Dana, her sister, reacts with fury — blaming Harper for ever trying to bring their parents back into their lives. “You wanted the truth,” Dana spits in a tense scene, “well, now you’ve got it. And it’s destroyed everything.”

Harper’s grief spirals into guilt, confusion, and horror as she realizes the man she’s spent her life trying to forgive is the same man who destroyed another family’s future. She’s torn between her moral duty to tell the truth and her desperate wish to protect what’s left of her family’s reputation.

Adding to the tension, Cash Newman becomes involved when Harper confides in him, unable to carry the burden alone. As a police officer, Cash is caught between professional obligation and compassion, knowing that if he acts on the information, it could reopen an old case and devastate the Bay all over again.

“This story is about guilt and legacy,” says one show source. “It’s not just about a crime — it’s about what happens when the past refuses to stay buried.”

In haunting scenes set to air in the coming weeks, Harper visits her father’s grave, collapsing in tears as she whispers, “Why did you do it?” Her anguish is raw, her pain palpable — a woman shattered by the sins of the man who raised her.

But as always in Home and Away, secrets never stay hidden for long. When word of the connection begins to spread through the Bay, Harper finds herself ostracized by some, pitied by others — and utterly alone.

Will she choose to expose the truth publicly, even if it means destroying her family’s name forever? Or will she bury the secret, knowing it could consume her from within?