Careless (Season 5, Episode 18)
Premise: A six-year-old foster child is pronounced dead after a prayer service, and the investigation turns from a faith healer to the foster home and the caseworker who never checked on him.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 18
- 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 Casey Novak (Diane Neal), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Julie Hagerty as Mariel Plummer, Cress Williams as Sam Dufoy, Malinda Williams as Lori-Ann Dufoy, CCH Pounder as Carolyn Maddox, Jazz Raycole as Megan
- Director
- Steve Shill
- Writers
- Patrick Harbinson
Summary
“Careless” opens in an emergency room, where doctors cannot revive six-year-old Jamie Semple, said to have stopped breathing during a late-night service at the Church of Divine Blessing. Finger marks and a ring imprint on his chest lead Dr. Angela Chuny to call Special Victims. His foster parents, Sam and Lori-Ann Dufoy, tell Benson and Fin that Sam brought the boy to Father Hendry for prayer after a day of fits. Caseworker Mariel Plummer of ACS and Jamie’s doctor, Dr. Engles, say he had ADHD, a conduct disorder and epilepsy, and the doctor dropped the family a month earlier when they chose the church over his care. With Benson and Stabler busy preparing for trial, Munch and Fin learn the ring was Hendry’s, and Hendry tearfully admits he may have squeezed the boy too hard.
Dr. Melinda Warner then finds foam and cotton fibers in Jamie’s lungs. He was smothered with a pillow and dead at least an hour before the ring mark was made. A bitten pillowcase turns up in the Dufoys’ trash, and Sam takes the blame, saying he only wanted the boy to sleep before he went still, then took him to Hendry hoping to wake him. Phone records show Sam called a child-abuse hotline and Plummer’s office repeatedly that day, and her files prove she rewrote six months of visit records after the subpoena. Charged with tampering and reckless endangerment, she is defended by Carolyn Maddox, who fails to get the case dismissed. At trial Sam takes the Fifth when asked whether he smothered Jamie, and Plummer explains she was handling a family murder-suicide that day. She is convicted only of tampering.
Warner identifies a recent bloodstain on Jamie’s bed as a young girl’s, left by a cheese grater. When Fin confronts Plummer at home about the missing child, she shoots herself in front of him. Munch finds that four foster children were placed under Lori-Ann’s maiden name, Watkins, and that she kept collecting payments after each one ran away. The last, Megan Rose, is found sedated at St. Columba’s, a psychiatric home where Lori-Ann had her committed as delusional the night Jamie died.
Spoiler, the ending: Megan tells Fin that she watched Lori-Ann hold the pillow over Jamie while yelling at him to be quiet. Confronted, Lori-Ann blames her husband, but Sam, watching from behind the glass, says he only covered for her. Munch arrests Lori-Ann for Jamie’s murder.
Why it stands out
- Fin and Munch lead the investigation, while Benson and Stabler are largely taken up with trial preparation.
- The guest cast includes Julie Hagerty as caseworker Mariel Plummer, CCH Pounder as her lawyer, and Cress Williams and Malinda Williams as the foster parents.