Shaken (Season 5, Episode 10)
Premise: A toddler found unconscious near a playground has been violently shaken, and the search for who hurt her moves from a stranger to the nannies and finally to her mother.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 10
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Cynthia Ettinger as Evelyn Prichard, Nicole Leach as Sarah Rendell, Olga Merediz as Veronica Nash, Beverly D’Angelo as Rebecca Balthus, Julie White as Dr. Anne Morella
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Amanda Green
Summary
“Shaken” opens at a Riverside Park playground, where 20-month-old Lucy Prichard wanders off while her babysitter, Sarah Rendell, talks with another nanny, Veronica Nash. With Benson tied up at a hearing on another case, Cragen works the case alongside Stabler, and Lucy is found unconscious in nearby bushes and rushed to surgery. Veronica describes a stocky man photographing children, and prints on a film box lead through a drugstore photo clerk to Ronny Ickles, an unlicensed private investigator hired by a father to watch his nanny. His time-stamped pictures show no one near Lucy before she vanished, and her doctor, Anne Morella, finds she was shaken.
ME Dr. Melinda Warner dates the injury to 12 to 48 hours earlier. Lucy’s widowed mother, Evelyn, points to Sarah, who admits only to taking small sums from Evelyn’s purse and passes a polygraph. Veronica tells a newspaper reporter, Ian Felson, that she saw Sarah hit Lucy, but a museum worker, Frances Clegg, says Veronica was the one who struck the child. Evelyn then admits that her married boss, Drew Farmer, was alone with Lucy on Sunday night; he says Lucy vomited on him. Warner concludes the shaking came before the vomiting, and the pattern of Lucy’s rib fractures fits Evelyn’s hands, not Farmer’s larger ones. Evelyn is charged with assault and attempted murder.
At trial, defense lawyer Rebecca Balthus raises a rare blood disorder and suggests the rib fractures came from CPR or from Stabler’s rescue. Before the verdict, Lucy suffers a massive brain bleed that leaves her in a persistent vegetative state, in constant pain, but the judge will not let the jury hear it, and the trial ends in a hung jury. Stabler urges Evelyn to let Lucy go, then asks District Attorney Arthur Branch to seek an end to life support, angering Novak by going over her head.
At a hearing before Judge Lois Preston, Dr. Morella testifies that Lucy seizes when touched and that her hip broke during a diaper change. Evelyn breaks down, asks for the machines to be turned off despite facing a murder charge, and admits she shook Lucy when she would not stop crying during the evening with Farmer.
Spoiler, the ending: Life support is withdrawn and Lucy dies ten minutes later, with Evelyn brought from Bedford Hills to the hospital. What becomes of her case is not shown. Afterward Stabler confides that years earlier, alone with his toddler daughter Maureen, he slapped her over spilled juice and stopped himself before striking her again.
Why it stands out
- Fred Dalton Thompson makes a special appearance as District Attorney Arthur Branch.
- With Benson away on another case for most of the episode, Captain Cragen teams with Stabler in the field.
- Stabler reveals that he once slapped his daughter Maureen as a toddler, soon after leaving the Marines.