Legacy (Season 2, Episode 4)
Premise: A seven-year-old with a history of hidden injuries lies in a coma while the detectives sort through her father, stepfather, stepbrother and mother.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 4
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), Judge Lena Petrovsky (Joanna Merlin)
- Guest stars
- Jennifer Dundas as Jamie McKenna, Yancey Arias as Denny Corea, Paul Michael Valley as Randall McKenna, Adam Zolotin as Justin McKenna, Jean De Baer as Lois Huntington
- Director
- Jud Taylor
- Writers
- Story: Dawn DeNoon & Lisa Marie Petersen & Robert F. Campbell & Jonathan Greene; Written by: Jeff Eckerle
Summary
“Legacy” begins when Jamie McKenna finds her seven-year-old daughter, Emily, unresponsive in bed. Doctors find a head injury, a leg broken about six weeks earlier, cracked ribs, bruises and signs of sexual abuse, and Emily slips into a coma. Jamie blames Emily’s father, Denny Corea, a Cuban defector who served time for robbery and assault and now cooks at Emily’s school. Denny blames Jamie’s husband, banker Randall McKenna, and says child welfare workers dismissed his reports. Jamie’s mother, Lois Huntington, explains that Denny got custody when Jamie was in rehab, and that Randall offered to drop charges over a beating if Denny gave up custody by Friday.
Emily’s teacher, Mrs. Dunlap, vouches for Denny and mentions Henry Abidin, a protocol minister at the Brunei mission who often takes Emily out. Emily’s friend Jennifer tells Munch that Emily and her father planned a trip to Cuba, and the detectives find one-way tickets booked for Friday. As questioning of Denny heats up, Cragen interrupts: the lab has excluded him. Dr. Emil Skoda describes a manipulative abuser who may excel in public life. Randall, who did not leave town until Monday morning, refuses a blood sample, while Abidin waives his status and gives one. Judge Lena Petrovsky orders Randall to comply.
Randall is instead found beaten into critical condition, and Denny admits he attacked him after Randall laughed and said he would be deported. A nylon bristle from the rape kit points to a hairbrush, and the hair on it belongs to Randall’s son, Justin, 15, who resents Emily and is locked up. Munch is not satisfied. A key chain in Emily’s room bearing the name Erica Smith leads to a clinic, and the detectives find Emily was treated at several clinics under false names, always paid in cash.
Justin says he left Emily alone to go running, and a pharmacist and the doorman leave a window when Jamie could have been home with her. Cabot says that is not enough to charge. Munch learns from an old child welfare file that Jamie was sexually abused by her own father, an ambassador, and he tells her, untruthfully, that Emily has woken and told everything. Jamie admits she pulled Emily from the car so that she hit a curb, then beat her with a hairbrush and threw her against a wall to stop her crying.
Spoiler, the ending: Afterward, Munch recalls a girl who lived across the street when he was growing up on the Lower East Side: she showed up with bruises, he paid no attention, and her mother later threw her through a window. Emily is still in a coma when the episode ends; her recovery is not resolved on screen.
Why it stands out
- Munch shares a piece of his own past: a neighbor girl from his teenage years whose abuse he failed to notice.
- Munch breaks the case with a bluff, telling Jamie her comatose daughter has woken and named her.
- J.K. Simmons appears as forensic psychiatrist Dr. Emil Skoda, who profiles the abuser for the squad.