The Serpent's Tooth (Season 1, Episode 19)
Premise: When a businessman and his wife are murdered in their home, everything points to the sons who stand to inherit.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 19
- Detectives
- Sgt. Max Greevey (George Dzundza), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Jonathan Hadary as Alex Petrovich, Matt Hofherr as Nick Jarmon, Stephen Mailer as Greg Jarmon, Olek Krupa as Sasha Osinski
- Ripped from the headlines
- Inspired by the 1989 killing of Jose and Kitty Menendez by their sons, Lyle and Erik.
- Director
- Don Scardino
- Writers
- Story: I. C. Rapoport & Joshua Stern; Teleplay: René Balcer & Robert Stuart Nathan
Summary
The Investigation
“The Serpent’s Tooth” opens with printing-company owner Karl Jarmon and his wife, Evelyn, shot to death in their Manhattan home. Their younger son finds the bodies after a night out with his older brother, Nick. There is no sign of a break-in, the weapon came from the father’s own collection, and the two sons, Greg and Nick Jarmon, stand to inherit the business. With a famous West Coast case fresh in everyone’s mind, the brothers quickly become the prime suspects.
Greevey and Logan learn that the father was violent and had beaten his sons for years, which gives the brothers a motive and makes the case against them look stronger. The sons are arrested. Still, the detectives aren’t fully convinced, and they keep digging even as the DA’s office prefers the simpler story. The brothers’ grief seems real to them, and some details of the night don’t fit a planned killing by the sons.
The Trial
The detectives and Robinette turn their attention to the business. The father had made his longtime employee Alex Petrovich a 10% partner, and Petrovich has ties to Russian organized crime. The company’s debts had been bought up as part of a squeeze to take it over, and with the sons convicted of murder, Petrovich would end up in control. The charges against the brothers are dropped, and they help the prosecution by pointing out that their father had switched brands of shotgun shells, a change only an outsider would have missed.
Stone needs a witness who can tie Petrovich to the killings. That leads him to Sasha Osinski, an associate who helped with the scheme, and Stone offers him immunity in exchange for testimony against Petrovich.
Spoiler, the ending: Osinski testifies, and Petrovich is convicted of the murders. Stone’s immunity deal covered only Manhattan, so Osinski is arrested by Brooklyn prosecutors as he leaves. The sons are cleared, though they have still lost their parents.
Why it stands out
- One of the earliest Law & Order episodes to draw on the Menendez case, which the series returned to later.
- The obvious suspects turn out to be innocent, a reversal of the usual ripped-from-the-headlines pattern.
- Stone’s carefully limited immunity deal shows the series’ interest in the fine print of plea bargaining.