Damaged (Season 4, Episode 11)
Premise: A little girl wounded in an apparent robbery turns out to have been raped, and the hero clerk and her troubled adoptive sister become the focus of the case.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 11
- 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), Judge Lena Petrovsky (Joanna Merlin), Bureau Chief Elizabeth Donnelly (Judith Light)
- Guest stars
- Ari Graynor as Missy Kurtz, Dan Lauria as Peter Kurtz, Christopher Denham as Joey Field, Michael Gaston as Malcolm Field, Ned Eisenberg as Roger Kressler
- Director
- Juan J. Campanella
- Writers
- Barbie Kligman
Summary
“Damaged” opens with a holdup at a video store. A gunman in a ski mask, Eric Campbell, fires twice, killing passer-by John Marcum and gravely wounding six-year-old Rebecca Kurtz, before the clerk, Joey Field, shoots him dead with the owner’s gun. Rebecca is declared brain dead, and hospital tests show she has gonorrhea. Her older sister, Missy, was adopted by Peter and Raquel Kurtz at 12 after abuse by her biological father, and she once accused Peter of abuse before taking it back. Peter, who cares for Rebecca at home, refuses a test.
The Kurtzes want to donate Rebecca’s liver to a dying boy in Philadelphia, but Cabot wins a restraining order so a specialist can examine her first. The exam confirms repeated rape, and the family doctor admits he treated Missy for gonorrhea two weeks earlier. Missy names her boyfriend, Joey, saying he forced her to bring Rebecca to the store because the girl had threatened to tell. A message on Campbell’s answering machine has Joey setting a 3:00 meeting, and gunshot residue shows Campbell stepped closer to aim at the child. The detectives lure Joey outside with talk of a heroism award and arrest him, and Judge Mark Seligman refuses bail despite the pleas of his father, prominent lawyer Malcolm Field.
Missy’s lawyer, Roger Kressler, wins her immunity in exchange for testimony. Then Fin and Munch find a videotape in the Field home showing Missy directing Joey as he abuses her drugged sister. Joey breaks down: Missy abused Rebecca, paid Campbell to shoot her, and planned the staged robbery in which Joey would kill the gunman. DA Arthur Branch approves seeking the death penalty for Joey, so Cabot offers to drop it if Malcolm Field argues that Missy’s deal denies his son a fair trial. Judge Lena Petrovsky voids the immunity but scolds Cabot for using her courtroom and demands an indictment.
Missy is arrested, and her parents, shown the tape, still will not help build a case against her. Kressler prepares a defense built on her early trauma, while Huang concludes she knew her actions were wrong and did not care. Fin and Munch trace half a pawn ticket from Campbell’s room to a diamond pendant engraved to Missy from her parents, pawned by Campbell for $1,000.
Spoiler, the ending: Cabot tells Missy that Joey will plead guilty and testify and that the state will seek the death penalty against her; Missy answers that she is already dead. Peter Kurtz begs Cabot to settle for prison, and she replies that she has to follow the law. The episode ends before any trial.
Why it stands out
- Dan Lauria, best known as Jack Arnold, the father on The Wonder Years, plays Peter Kurtz.
- Erik Palladino, Dr. Dave Malucci on ER, appears as Det. Dave Deuthorn, the precinct detective who catches the shooting.
- The threat of execution hangs over the case: New York restored the death penalty in 1995, but its highest court struck the law down in 2004, and no one was executed under it.