Sin (Season 8, Episode 17)
Premise: The murder of a male escort leads to a famous anti-gay preacher, his devout wife and a family secret that someone in the church was willing to kill to bury.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 8, Episode 17
- 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), CSU Ryan O’Halloran (Mike Doyle), TARU Ruben Morales (Joel de la Fuente), Defense Attorney Barry Moredock (John Cullum)
- Guest stars
- Tim Daly as Rev. Jeb Curtis, Kathy Baker as Hannah Curtis, Corey Sorenson as Paul Curtis, Chad Hoeppner as Trent Labette, Amie Tedesco as Lucy Curtis
- Director
- George Pattison
- Writers
- Patrick Harbinson
Summary
“Sin” opens in a Washington Heights churchyard, where a man is found laid out like a corpse in a coffin, sodomized, his eyes taken by crows and a bag of crystal meth stamped with the initials of a Southeast Asian drug army forced down his throat. The squad releases a retouched photo claiming the man is in a coma at St. Mark’s, and his mother, Rhona Antrim, arrives and names him as Richard, a medical school dropout trying to act. His apartment has been stripped of his computer, phone and camcorder, but Morales recovers a text from a crushed cell phone about a pickup in Queens, which turns out to be a church youth group rehearsing a “Satan’s house” show condemning abortion and homosexuality.
Munch finds that Richard worked as a male escort named Nick Benchley, and his phone records show long calls to the private line of Rev. Jeb Curtis, an anti-gay preacher with ten children who has just buried his eldest son, killed in Afghanistan. Reporters mob the house when Curtis is brought in. Warner matches leather traces on Richard’s teeth to a sofa cushion used to smother him, and sweat on it partially matches Curtis’s DNA. Stabler, a Catholic, takes Curtis into a church, prays, and Curtis says he killed Richard. Defense attorney Barry Moredock argues the confession was coerced, and the judge signals he will throw it out. Bank records show church money paying rent in Richard’s building, and Curtis’s wife, Hannah, brings in a taped call of Richard demanding money. Curtis will say only that he is responsible.
Curtis is then shot in his church, and Hannah confesses that she shot him for betraying the family. Suspecting the DNA could belong to one of his sons, Benson and Stabler question his daughter Lucy, who reveals that her brother Paul is gay and was sent away by their father to be cured. Paul says he and Richard got back together and that Richard was alive when he left. In the hospital, Curtis tells Paul he accepts him; he had paid Richard to stay away and had been protecting Paul, whom he believed was the killer.
Spoiler, the ending: Curtis tells the detectives that the church’s financial director, Trent Labette, had seen Paul and Richard kissing, demanded that Curtis intervene, and alone knew the detectives would visit the house on the morning the reporters showed up. Told that his home is being searched for Richard’s missing belongings, Labette quotes Leviticus, says he was doing God’s will, and adds that Curtis deserved punishment for his weak faith. Hannah, in custody, is brought to her husband’s bedside, and the couple speak of having failed to trust each other.
Why it stands out
- Tim Daly guest-stars as Rev. Jeb Curtis, with Kathy Baker as his wife, Hannah.
- John Cullum returns as defense attorney Barry Moredock, who challenges a confession given inside a church.