The Ledger

14.17 Hands Free

In this episode (14.17), a kid finds a human hand in the trash near his apartment. Down the street, responding cops find a second one. Briscoe and Green investigate.

By combing through various trash cans, the team eventually discovers lots of body parts, all from the same person, all wrapped in the same brand of trash bag. The learn the brand of trash bag, and then find one more bag of the same brand with regular household trash in it. This bag contains a magazine, and the magazine has a page torn out. The page was an advertisement featuring a photo of a man who turns out to be...the victim's son. Briscoe and Green tell this guy what they know about the victim, based on what the ME had told them: he was Latino, he walked with a cane, he had arthritis. That's him, the son says. So who killed him?

Without too much poking around, the detectives learn the man had a deaf girlfriend, an artist. After much asking around, they track her down at her studio, and when they find her, she runs. Green tackles her, and they discover something unexpected about her identity: she is a he!

They also learn that this "girlfriend" is actually a wealthy man named Eli Madison who was investigated for the murder of his wife several years earlier, and had been attempting to live an anonymous life as a woman ever since. Whatever. McCoy says Arthur Branch's predecessor, Adam Schiff, had pursued the case against Madison but was unsuccessful. Madison's large defense team seeks a change of venue, but the judge refuses, and simply disallows evidence about his wife's murder to be heard.

At trial, Madison claims he killed the victim because they were watching a basketball game together, and Madison got excited and yelled, revealing his true identity as a man. In the subsequent fight, he says, the victim had a heart attack and died. Then he chopped up the body because he thought the police would suspect him in his death. The ME admits she doesn't know the cause of death, and no one can prove that he didn't have a heart attack. Based on this lack of evidence, the jury acquits Madison.

But McCoy isn't done yet. He learns that Madison's friend and alibi witness died in a "mountain climbing accident" during the investigation into Madison's wife's death. McCoy investigates this situation, and is eventually able to put a case together. He manages to convict Madison of this death.

Posted by adm at March 19, 2004 02:00 PM

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