January 01, 2004
10.2 Killerz: Skoda vs. Olivet +
In this episode (10.2), McCoy attempts to prosecute a 10-year-old girl and her 13-year-old accomplice for murder. After evaluating her, Skoda determines that the girl is a sociopath and is convinced that she's a budding serial killer. McCoy moves towards getting her committed, but the girl's defense attorney hires....Dr. Elizabeth Olivet.
The episode begins with a kid trying to get other kids to go see a body with him. Just like Stand by Me, except this kid wants to be paid for his efforts. The body, he says is at a construction site. The kids say instead of paying, they're going to call 911, which is apparently what happened. The victim is 7 or 8 years old, and half-stuffed in a pipe. He's found with a AA battery in his mouth. Well, they say it's a AAA, but when they hold it up, it's AA. Anyway, Briscoe and green investigate and McCoy and Carmichael prosecute.
They trace the 911 call to one of these kids, who leads them to a kid named Jones and his dad. This leads them to Tara Padden, a shy teenage girl who says she saw a man with the boy's body. They get her to contribute to a sketch of the man she saw.
They canvas the area visit a gas station where someone recognizes the boy and says he knows the kid's mother, Mrs Polansky. They visit the mom, and she freaks out when she realizes she screwed something up: her sister was supposed to pick up the boy from somewhere, and didn't. The sister left a message, but the mom never got it. And now her son has turned up dead.
A tenant at the mom's building, Dale Varnett, matches the sketch. He says he was standing outside the building and the girl, Tara, saw him. It looks like Tara's story doesn't quite add up. Green questions her delicately about her story, winning her confidence and noticing her "tells," the physical gestures she makes when she gets nervous or lies. Tara tells him about her friend Jenny.
They talk to jenny and her mom. Jenny tells the same story as Tara. They talk tto the kid from the beginning of the episode, Jake, and he says he doesn't like playing with Jenny because "she hits." He saw her at the building where the victim lived. It begins to look like the girls may have killed the boy.
Green interviews the girls again. Jenny is 10. Her mom has a husband in jail and says she wants an attorney. Green meets again with Tara, and uses his advanced interrogation techniques to again win her confidence, telling her how "secrets hurt." He holds her hand and says they're friends. She starts crying on rolls on Jenny, saying Jenny hit the victim, and pulled his pants down to make it look like a sexual assault.
Jenny is arraigned at family court and released on her own recognizance, even though the mom has proven herself to be a not-very-effective guardian. Tara's confession gets suppressed because of Green's coercion. The defense lawyer mentions that Green has been cited twice for excessive force.
The DAs confer and figure out how to salvage the case. They talk to Gaby, Jenny's babysitter, who says Jenny hates boys and knows a lot about sex because her mom and her boyfriend used to have sex in front of Jenny.
The ADAs visit Jenny's dad in prison. He is emotional and wants to cooperate. He says she once drew a picture of a boy with batteries around his head. They tell him about the battery in this case, and he realizes, again, how messed up his daughter is.
Tara and Jenny's lawyers bicker with each other. Jenny's lawyers want to argue that Jenny is too young to appreciate consequences and was influenced by Tara who is a couple of years older.
In a pretty creepy scene, Skoda questions Jenny (33'). She discusses her mom's gross boyfriend Byron, and talks about how she wants to kill and humiliate boys. She says she tortured and poisoned a local cat. She says that when she poisoned it, "It went dead. It was way cool." Skoda tries to rattle her by pretending he's angry, but it doesn't work...she shows no emotion. Then she talks about putting the battery in the boys mouth, "like they do in hospitals."
Skoda tells the DAs that she's a future serial killer and a "done deal." McCoy wants to get her confined via a psych ward placement, but her mom refuses to commit her. Her dad says he will agree to try to get her committed.
So the rest of the ep is the hearing which will determine whether Jenny gets committed or not. Her defense lawyer hires Olivet to testify on the girl's behalf.
Olivet says it's worth trying to rehabilitate the kid without sending her to an institution. Olivet says Skoda has "a penchant for easy chemical fixes," and has some strong words for him during her testimony. In rebuttal, Skoda tells Olivet he thinks her "expertise" has made her soft." Skoda says forget the predictors, this girl already killed someone. Oh, yeah, and: Olivet looks pregant.
Anyway, after listening to both sides, and despite McCoy's very emotional closing argument, the judge decides to quash the papers that would have committed Jenny to a mental institution and she is allowed to go free. The episode ends with Carmichael and McCoy walking by Jenny in the courthouse hallway. She is eyeing a young boy in a predatory manner.
The scenes with the little girls are for the most part outstanding. Ed Green once again shows his skills in the interrogation room when he questions the accomplice, Tara. (This is Green's second episode. He has another great interrogation scene in his first appearance, "Gun Show," one of the best episodes ever.) Skoda's session with the 10-year-old is chilling...the girl is completely dispassionate as she describes watching her mom have sex with a boyfriend, killing a cat, and assaulting the boy. The craziest moment comes when she explains why she put a AA battery in the dead boy's mouth: "He wouldn't wake up. That's why I put a battery in his mouth: to give him some electricity to wake him up." Creepy.
Here's some screenshots.
Posted by adm at January 1, 2004 02:35 PM