The Ledger

1.19 The Serpent's Tooth

In this episode (1.19), two young adults sons are apparently responsible for the murder of their wealthy parents. The episode seems loosely based on the case of Menendez Brothers. Greevey and Logan investigate, and Stone and Robinette prosecute.

The episode begins, as many early episodes do, with two cops discussing the mundanities of life while on patrol. They hear an alarm, and a man comes running out of a townhouse. He tells them his parents have been shot. He is their son, Greg Jarman. The detectives enter the house, and find the dead parents. Profaci is already at the scene. They find the father's gun collection. It appears one of the weapons from this collection is the murder weapon. Greevey jokes, "The family that kils together..."

Greg Jarman is questioned while sitting in a police vehicle, and his older brother Nick Jarman arrives. Nick keeps saying, "She wasn't supposed to be home." Back at the station house, they interview the brothers separately. The detectives stategize onhow to proceed. Captain Cragen mentions the Menendez case. They check the brothers' alibi but it is inconclusive. Ballistics says the gun matches. They try to come up with theories to explain the crime.

They talk to their housekeeper, played by that old actress who looks like Jessica Tandy, and she doesn't say much for now. They talk to Jarman's business partner, who says Jarman was tough but no one wanted to kill him. Greevey likes the kids for the murder, but Logan is skeptical. They talk again to the business partner, Mr Petrovich, who tells that that Jarman broke one of his son's jaws. He also says Jarman was a mentor to him. Petrovich's alibi is that he was out to dinner with another Russian immigrant couple. They talk to this couple, and subtitles(!) tell us they are being less than direct with the detectives.

They talk to the family doctor who tells them that it appeared the father broke Nick's jaw. They talk again to the housekeeper who is more forthcoming this time around, and says that Mr Jarman regularly beat his kids until Nick objected and fought back. This stopped the beating until one time when Jarman went after Greg, and Nick stepped in.

The detectives go through Mr Jarma's mail, and find a letter from Greg's college detailing his progress at school. They talk to someone at the college who says he met with Mr Jarman and Greg one time, and Jarman was mad over his son's weak performance at school. He says Jarman slapped him right there in front of him.

Stone tells the detectives to arrest the boys, which they do. They find them playing racquetball. (31')

The ADAs and detectives meet. Logan still insists they are innocent. They listen to a 911 tape of Greg calling it in, and he sounds pretty upset. Schiff tells them to eliminate all possible suspects, including Petrovich.

They begin to invesitgate Petrovich, and learn that if the kids get convicted of the murder, Petrovich will inherit all of the printing business he co-owned with Jarman. They also learn that Petrovich may be connected to Russian mobsters.

They talk to Jack Epstein, an ADA in Brooklyn who is expert on the Russian mob. He directs them to "the People's Bank of Brighton," which is a front for mob operations. They learn Petrovich has connections to this bank. They theorize that Jarman took out a loan from the mob after his regular bank's debts were bought by this bank.

They want to go after Petrovich, but Schiff predicts he'll walk. They go back to the Jarmon kids and ask for help. They learn that the ammunition used in the killing was brought to the house...this shows pre-planning. They get a witness who says that Petrovich's alibi witness bought this ammunition. Petrovich is arrested off camera, and is represented by a lawyer named Schwap. The judge, a recurring character, entertains a motion about holding a material witness related to the case. They visit Rikers to try to break the alibi witnesses, but they won't.

At trial (53'), stone makes a deal with the alibi witnesses' lawyer to give them immunity "in New York County" for anything they did related to this crime in exchange for this testimony. Their idiot lawyer falls for it, and they give Stone the testimony he needs. He then has them arrested for prosecution in Brooklyn, which is Queens County. Whoops.

The alibi witness, Orsinsky, testifies about the mob's involvement in the crime, and the verdict comes back: Petrovich is guilty of Murder 2.

The episode is notable in part because of the use of the subtitles. If you think about it, using the subtitles violates one of the basic rules of typical L&O narration: don't tell the audience something the investigators don't know. The subtitles clue us, but not Logan and Greevey, that something is strange about their story.

Posted by adm at July 6, 2004 11:58 PM

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