The Ledger

9.5 Agony

In this elaborate episode (9.5), a mailman is killed and a young woman is tortured for 36 hours. It looks like a serial killer is to blame, but Briscoe, Curtis, McCoy, and Carmichael have trouble making the charges stick.

The episode begins with an older couple bickering about whether to go to a wedding. The man almost stumbles over the body of a mailman in the building. He died of stabwounds. Briscoe and Curtis arrive on the scene and begin canvassing the building. They knock on a half-open door and enter the apartment. In the bedroom, they found an extremely bloodied young woman who has been slashed up, stabbed, and nearly strangled. She is still alive.

The dets talks to her parents who immediately say, "It's Roger," referring to her abusive ex-husband. The dad says it wasn't Roger, but the mom is convinced it was. Briscoe and Curtis talk to Roger. As they do, a woman who appears to be his assistant looks at them defensively. It turns out she's his new girlfriend. Roger has an alibi -- he says he was with a friend that night. The friend confirms the alibi, and says that the new girlfriend is very demanding.

We learn that the stab wounds in both victims were 1-inch in diameter and u-shaped. Forensics is not sure what caused them. A friend of the victim tells the detectives about other men she dated, including a sort of gigolo who preys on newly-divorced women. He has an alibi, too. He also tells the detectives the name of another conquest who was friends with the victim. They talk to her in Central Park and she tells them that she ran into Roger's friend -- the one who supported his alibi -- at a club the night the incident occurred. This means the friend was lying, and Roger doesn't have an alibi after all. They bring him in for questioning, and he admits that he was with an expensive call girl that night. The dets question the call girl who confirms his story and says that he had 5 girls for 11 hours, at a cost of $25,000.

When the victim, Kitty, finally wakes up, they try to get some more information out of her, but she says she doesn't remember anything beyond the assailant saying, "Don't turn around." Based on the crime, Skoda (with a mustache) profiles the attacker, saying he's meticulous, organized, travels frequently, is into sadistic porn, had no prior relationship with the victim, goes trolling for victims, and perhaps it was his first atttempt at such a crime. Van Buren tells her detectives to look through old cases that might be "close calls" and see what they come up with.

Doing so, they find a woman named Erica who was nearly strangled to death by a man she met in a bar. She says it was an S&M session that got out of hand. She doesn't know the details of the man's identity, but she says his name was Matt and she tells them where the apartment is. They visit the apartment, where they find an older woman. She doesn't know Matt, but says she found a "perverted" tape in the VCR when she moved in. Through the rental agency, the dets learn the identity of the perpetrator: Matt Bergstrom, a software developer from Seattle who frequently visits NYC. They track down Matt through his employer, and find him at a restaurant with a female co-worker. They bring him in for questioning.

During his interrogation, he is calm and collected. Mo, the detective who helps out Briscoe and Curtis sometimes, says he found some people who recall seeing him in the neighborhood where Kitty had been out dancing the night she was attacked. They also find all kinds of S&M gear in his apartment, but no u-shaped stabbing tool. Bergstrom says he has co-operated for 5 hours and wants to be charged or released. They bring in Erica to get her to press charges, since they don't have enough evidence to arrest him for the attack on Kitty. She is extremely reluctant -- she says she works for a politician -- but Van Buren sends the male dets out of the room and shows her pictures of what happened to Kitty and tells her she needs to put a stop to this guy. AVB's gesture works and they arrest Bergstrom.

At Rikers, McCoy and Carmichael visit Bergstrom to get him to talk. It doesn't go very well. Mostly he just stares intensely at Carmichael and seems to be undressing her (and God knows what else) in his mind. Back at the office, Schiff says, if you have no case against him, then settle for a plea on a misdemeanor assault charge. Carmichael doesn't like the sound of that very much.

Briscoe and Curtis continue to work the case. They talk to the little, bald forensics guy, who tells them he found a piece of wood in the shoes of Bergstrom, possibly from a railroad tie. Curtis looks at his financial records, and sees that Bergstrom went to a restaurant at Fort Tryon Park three times in one week. (Fort Tryon is in northern Manhattan, far out of the way for a business traveller.) They visit the restaurant and learn that Bergstrom would request the same table every time and look out the window and smile. Some cops spotted him coming out the park one night at 4 am and held on to him while they looked around, but eventually released him.

McCoy and Carmichael continue to investigate, too. They try to get the Houston police department involved, too, since Bergstrom spent some time there as well. They learn of a missing person there named Anna Laskey, who was last seen with Bergstrom. They confront him with this info at Rikers, but he doesn't budge. Carmichael tells him aggressively "We're closing in on you," and she threatens him with the death penalty in Texas, saying, "They throw the switch a lot faster down there." After they leave Bergstrom, McCoy has noticed that AC is a little aggravated, and basically tells her to calm down. She says it drives her crazy when Bergstrom looks at her like "a carcass on a meat hook." Apparently, though, Carmichael's ploy works and Bergstrom's lawyer says he'll plead to 25 to life, as long as they can secure an agreement from the state gov't not to extradite him to Texas or another death penalty state. McCoy says fine, but you give me something in return. Bergstrom says, "How'd you like to close some cases?"

Schiff, McCoy, Skoda, and AC debate what to do. Schiff says, Make the deal. McCoy offers 25 to life in exchange for the info, and he'll plead guilty for the death of the mailman and the attack on Kitty. He reserves the right to prosecute on other cases if they find evidence independent of what Bergstrom gives them. It's a deal. Bergstrom says he'll show them where 6 bodies are, but won't confess to their murders.

The detectives, the DAs, and the ME look at the sets of bones at the ME's office. The dets can't believe he won't be prosecuted for these murders. It seems like everything is all set, and then Kitty gets a note at her apartment: "Dear Kitty...You think that was bad. Wait til next time."

Kitty is understandably upset over this development, despite McCoy's assurances they'll find out who sent the note. This could be bad -- if the person who sent the note is the same one who originally attacked her, then Bergstrom is not guilty of the crimes he just plead to. They check all the original suspects, and Roger's new girlfriend is the only one without a solid alibi. They visit her father's woodworking shop on Long Island, where they meet her oddly cold and distant brother. Briscoe turns up a wood working tool that matches the one used in the attack on Kitty.

They bring in the brother for questioning, and he is creepy as hell. He's got a dispassionate voice and dead eyes that react to nothing. Straightaway, he admits to the murder and says that his sister put him up to it, telling him to "make it look like some psycho did it." AC's reply: "Guess what? Some psycho did do it." When his lawyer insists that the sister made him do it, McCoy says, did she tell him to be sure to kill the postman on the way out, too?

The confession brings concern for the DAs, however. As McCoy says, they got played by Bergstrom. He knew they'd find the bodies eventually, so he cut a deal on the crime he didn't commit to escape prosecution for the ones he did. Schiff orders McCoy to release Bergstrom. Abbie gets angry, and Schiff says, "Don't rant...offer a solution." She proposes a novel plan: convict Bergstrom on the state charges related to Kitty, and then go after the brother and sister on federal charges for killing the mailman. McCoy can't believe his ears and says, Do you know what you're proposing? He tells her the NYC DA's office is not going to convict someone of a crime he didn't commit. Abbie (beautifully!) retorts, "I'm just taking a page from the Jack McCoy playbook!" and she brings up the old disciplinary charges against McCoy that stemmed from his hiding a witness from the defense. They start yelling at each other, but then McCoy calms down and comes up with a new plan: bluff Bergstrom into believing that they're going to release him and Texas wants him.

Here's how it works: they write a fake letter on Texas DA's office letterhead (which Abbie had left over from her days in Texas). The letter says they found the body of Anna Laskey in Texas, and they want to charge Bergstrom with her murder. They visit Bergstrom in prison, where his lawyer withdraws his earlier plea on the charges, since the brother and sister have confessed to the crime. They show this letter to Bergstrom and his lawyer, and he panics. He doesn't know what to do. He says, You can't prosecute me on those bodies because we had a deal. AC reminds him he just withdrew the deal. Bergstrom realizes he's screwed, and he blames AC. "You bitch!" he exclaims. She comes back at him, threatening him with the death penalty in Texas: "If they let me push the button, I'll do it." Bergstrom, saying he doesn't want AC to control his fate, makes a deal on the NY murders to save himself from being extradited to TX. AC gets up to leave, but Bergstrom stands up and yells at her "Sit down! You listen to what I did." AC sits down, and they all listen to how Bergstrom sliced up one of his victims. He says some disgusting stuff and everyone looks disgusted. His last words are, "I had total control."

The episode is notable because of the unusual legal maneuvering, and also the fierce fight between McCoy and Carmichael.

Posted by adm at April 9, 2004 11:15 PM

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