Tangled (Season 3, Episode 5)
Premise: A doctor is beaten to death and his wife raped in their home, and the investigation runs through his estranged son and his affairs to a mistress and her downstairs neighbor.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 5
- 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), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Lisa Eichhorn as Peyton Kleberg, Liza Weil as Lara Todd, Justin Hagan as Vincent Boyd, Geoffrey Wigdor as Jesse Kleberg, John-Luke Montias as Martin Wexler
- Director
- Jean de Segonzac
- Writers
- Story: Tara Butters & Michele Fazekas; Written by: Dawn DeNoon & Lisa Marie Petersen
Summary
“Tangled” opens as friends arriving to set up a surprise birthday party find urologist Max Kleberg beaten to death and his wife, Peyton, bound and raped. A masked gunman held the couple for about two hours, made Peyton tape her husband, pistol-whipped him repeatedly and never spoke. The medical examiner identifies the weapon as a Ruger P94 and finds animal hairs in the tape residue. Cash and Peyton’s heirloom jewelry are missing.
A doorman recalls an angry visitor, leading to Martin Wexler (called Welker in the episode), a patient in Kleberg’s impotence-drug trial who blames the drug for his later subway attack on a woman; DNA clears him. Kleberg’s accountant explains that $5 million was moved into Peyton’s name and that Kleberg had just cut off his son, Jesse, 18, who owes $100,000 in gambling debts. DNA clears Jesse too, and his mother, Marilyn Dunlap, reveals that Max began a string of affairs after heart surgery.
Phone records point to Lara Todd, secretary to Kleberg’s department chief, whom Benson and her partner find raped in her apartment. Lara says Peyton threatened her days before the murder, and a bank officer reports that Peyton withdrew $10,000 and removed her jewelry, which a search turns up in a cigar box. Peyton says the cash paid private investigator Ken Voltz, whose photos show Vincent Boyd, an ex-convict who lives below Lara, watching Max. Vincent owns a tabby, and a specialist matches the cat’s DNA to hairs on all three victims.
Before Vincent can be picked up, Lara shoots him dead with the Ruger and describes him as a possessive, violent ex-boyfriend who killed Max and kept raping her. Because she shot him in his apartment, self-defense is not clear-cut. Vincent’s DNA matches both rape kits and traces of Max’s skin are found in the gun, and a search of his apartment yields a homemade video of Lara offering him $15,000 to kill Peyton.
Spoiler, the ending: Confronted with the tape, Lara says the plan was Max’s: he supplied the money, hid the jewelry and meant to marry her once Peyton was dead, but Vincent killed Max instead. The detectives then tell Peyton that her husband arranged the attack and that she was the intended victim. No charge against Lara is shown.
Why it stands out
- The case is cracked with DNA from a suspect’s cat, a technique the squad is told had been used in only two earlier cases in the United States.
- Liza Weil plays Lara Todd, and Lisa Eichhorn plays Peyton Kleberg.