Fools for Love is the 220th episode of NBC's legal drama Law & Order and the fifteenth episode of the tenth season.
Original air date: February 23, 2000
Contents |
Written by Kathy McCormick & Lynne E. Litt.
Directed by Christopher Misiano.
Ellen Pompeo as Laura Kendrick
Sam Ball as Peter Williams
Christopher Meloni as Det. Elliot Stabler
Mariska Hargitay as Det. Olivia Benson
Tom Mardirosian as Mr. Stubelski
J.K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda
Leslie Hendrix as Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers
Donnamarie Recco as Melanie Daniels
Judith Blazer as Peter Williams' attorney
The bodies of two teenage girls, wrapped in plastic, are discovered in a derelict apartment building. The forensics cop informs Briscoe and Green the girls died elsewhere and were dumped at the scene, they also appear to have been bound and raped. Dr. Rodgers, the medical examiner, confirms the girls were bound and brutally raped over the course of several days, and were also drugged with GHB (a date rape drug). One of the girls choked to death on her own vomit as a consequence of GHB overdose. The other girl was strangled, a day or so later. Rodgers is able to recover some foreign flesh (and DNA) from beneath the fingernails of the choked girl.
Given the sexual dimension of the crime, Detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson from the Special Victims Unit (i.e. from the Law & Order spin-off Law & Order: SVU) are called in to assist the investigation. Briscoe and Green focus on identifying the victims and soon establish the girl who choked is Jodie Kendrick from Baltimore while the other is a Swedish national, Annika Ludersdorf. They were visiting New York and staying at a youth hostel. Stabler and Benson identify two possible suspects from their records, one of whom (a man named Peter Williams) resembles a man who visited the victims at the hostel a few days before their disappearance. Briscoe and Green visit Williams at his apartment; he refuses to allow them in without a search warrant and is defensive in response to questions.
Jodie Kendrick's parents arrive at the 27th precinct unaware of their daughter's fate. Upon being told by Van Buren, they immediately express concern over Jodie's older sister Laura, from whom they have not heard for several days. Jodie and the Swedish girl (an exchange student) were supposed to staying with Laura. Given the killer's established behavior (drugging and raping his victims over several days before killing them), Van Buren launches an intensive manhunt for Laura Kendrick. Briscoe and Green gain access to Williams' apartment on the pretext that Briscoe smells gas leaking from it. Williams is not there but the detectives discover numerous books on serial killers including Ted Bundy, Richard Speck and the Boston Strangler, and also some manacles and other physical restraints. They also discover Williams was seen recently with another missing woman named Melanie Daniels.
Laura Kendrick is found alive and Briscoe and Green visit her in hospital. She has been badly beaten and also apparently raped. Laura identifies Peter Williams as her attacker and Briscoe and Green arrest him. Questioned at the precinct, Williams claims Kendrick is his girlfriend and any sex between them was consensual; he denies beating Laura or knowing, or killing Jodie Kendrick and the Swedish girl. Carmichael is confident the DNA recovered from under Jodie Kendrick's fingernails will be sufficient evidence to convict Williams of the murders; but the DNA does not match Williams'. Instead it belongs to a woman with the same blood type as Laura Kendrick, suggesting she was present when Williams raped her sister and the other girl. The DAs note deep scratches on Laura Kendrick's leg and are suspicious but McCoy realizes Laura Kendrick's potential eye-witness account is now their only evidence against Williams.
Laura Kendrick is approached for a statement but Kendrick's parents and her attorney, Mr. Stubelski, ask for immunity from prosecution for Laura, raising further suspicion she is involved. McCoy and Stubelski reach a compromise, allowing psychiatrist Emil Skoda to interview Laura. To Skoda, she says she is in love with Williams whom she met six weeks earlier; at first he was charming and caring but soon turned controlling and violent, demanding rough sex and that Laura assist him in procuring virgins he would then drug and rape in front of her; if Laura refused his demands, he would beat and threaten to kill her. When Skoda raises the subject of her own sister, Laura says that she was helpless to prevent what happened, confirming Jodie Kendrick choked to death while unconscious and Williams later killed the other girl to prevent her acting as a witness. Skoda reports back to McCoy, saying Laura Kendrick is a classic case of battered person syndrome, in psychological thrall to Peter Williams who has Laura "wrapped around his finger." Carmichael finds it difficult to believe Laura could passively witness the brutalization and death of her own sister without trying to intervene. McCoy makes a deal with Stubelski, Laura Kendrick to be charged with manslaughter and serve 3–6 years in prison in exchange for her full co-operation.
In Williams' apartment, Laura Kendrick emotionally repeats what she told Skoda. She says she invited the girls to Williams' apartment and helped drug them under threat of death from Williams. Williams disposed of the bodies. At the end of her statement, Laura coldly asks Briscoe and Green if, when they searched the apartment, they found a pair of earrings she is missing. Carmichael shows the taped recording of this to McCoy, who agrees Kendrick's sudden change in demeanor was strange.
Melanie Daniels is found alive and well and states she met Peter Williams and Laura Kendrick on the street and agreed to consensual sex with both of them. She says Williams and Kendrick wanted her to pretend she was a virgin being raped, and that Kendrick was a willing and enthusiastic participant in what Daniels calls 'sex games'. Daniels describes Kendrick as "kind of crazy" in her enthusiasm and suggestions for the acts they performed. Then photographs are discovered, depicting the ordeal undergone by the dead girls. In them, Laura Kendrick appears as willing participant in the degradation of her sister and the other girl, smiling and laughing. She sports no bruises or any signs of assault.
Confronted with the new evidence, Laura Kendrick claims to never have met Daniels and to the other contradictions in her story, including the photographs, that either Williams forced her or she "doesn't remember". McCoy and Carmichael think they have been duped by Kendrick. Carmichael wants to scrap the deal, but McCoy says they can't proceed against Williams without Kendrick as a witness. DA Adam Schiff tells them to stick with the current deal, however unedifying.
Kendrick gives her testimony at Williams' trial. When Williams' attorney presents Melanie Daniels' testimony and the photographs and suggests Kendrick was an equally culpable accomplice, Kendrick repeats her earlier assertions regarding Williams and his threats against her. Williams testifies that Kendrick was his willing accomplice and even murdered two other girls in a previous, similar incident, in addition to disposing of Ludersdorf's and Jodie Kendrick's bodies. But after McCoy shows the jury the photographs of Williams raping the drugged girls, the jury quickly find him guilty of murder. "One down, one to go," says McCoy to Carmichael.
As part of her deal, Laura Kendrick allocutes in court. She repeats her earlier statements until McCoy asks Kendrick whether she "enjoyed" watching Williams rape her sister, reminding Kendrick she is under oath to tell the truth. Coldly, Kendrick admits she did enjoy watching the act. When McCoy asks Kendrick if she enjoyed participating as shown in the photographs, Kendrick admits she also enjoyed those acts. Feeling revulsion, Judge Jensen calls a halt to proceedings and finds McCoy's deal of a minimum 3-year sentence for Kendrick "wholly unacceptable". She quashes the deal and remands Laura Kendrick for trial. Before they leave the court, McCoy makes a new deal with Kendrick and Stubelski for a sentence of 25 years-to-life. As they leave the court, Carmichael asks McCoy "How do you wash it off, Jack?" "Wish I knew," he responds.
The plot for this episode was based upon the exploits of Canadian 'Ken and Barbie killers', Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. The usual disclaimer prior to the episode was replaced by the words "Although this story was inspired by an actual incident, the characters depicted and their acts are completely fictional..." etc.