Fools for Love (Season 10, Episode 15)
Premise: The bodies of two teenage girls lead to a serial rapist and his girlfriend, the older sister of one victim, and a plea deal with her comes back to haunt McCoy.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 10, Episode 15
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), Lt. Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Ellen Pompeo as Laura Kendrick, Sam Ball as Peter Williams, Tom Mardirosian as defense attorney Mr. Stubelski, DonnaMarie Recco as Melanie Daniels, J. K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda
- Ripped from the headlines
- The episode is inspired by Karla Homolka, who took part in the rape and murder of her own younger sister and two other girls.
- Director
- Christopher Misiano
- Writers
- Kathy McCormick & Lynne E. Litt
Summary
The Investigation
“Fools for Love” begins when a designer and her workman find a teenage girl’s body in a building slated for demolition, with a second girl nearby. Both were bound, drugged with GHB and sexually assaulted; one choked on her own vomit, and the other was strangled days later. One girl had scratched someone. Ceramic dust leads to a paint-your-own pottery studio holding unclaimed pieces with their names, identifying them as Jane Kendrick of Philadelphia and Anneke Ullman, a Swedish exchange student living with her family.
Special Victims detectives Benson and Stabler link the case to five Nassau County rapes and two suspects, among them Peter Williams, who denies knowing the girls. Jane’s parents reveal that her older sister, Laura, was traveling with them and had recently told them all was well. Van Buren puts the whole squad on finding Laura. Williams disappears, and a witness saw him steer a young woman, Melanie Daniels, into his car.
Laura turns up in an emergency room, beaten, and names Williams, who calls her his girlfriend. She then denies being raped. The skin under Jane’s nails turns out to be a woman’s, and Laura has deep scratches on her inner thigh.
The Trial
Nassau County’s evidence proves unusable, and Williams is about to go free. Dr. Skoda concludes Laura was abused and manipulated, and McCoy agrees to three to six years in exchange for her testimony. She says Williams wanted Jane because she was a virgin, made her drug the girls, and that Jane’s death was an accident. Photos from a storage cage then show Laura smiling beside the drugged girls, and Melanie Daniels, alive after a weekend in Atlantic City, calls Laura the more eager partner.
With no proof Laura lied, McCoy is held to the deal. She testifies against Williams, whose lawyer paints her as the instigator, and Williams claims he acted only to please her. The jury convicts him of first-degree murder and rape.
Spoiler, the ending: At Laura’s plea allocution, McCoy questions her until she admits the attacks excited her. The judge rejects the deal as grossly inadequate. Facing trial with Williams as a witness against her, Laura accepts 25 years to life and reveals two more victims, runaways from Indiana later found killed the same way as Anneke.
Why it stands out
- McCoy deliberately provokes Laura during her allocution so that the judge throws out the lenient plea deal.
- Ellen Pompeo guest stars as Laura Kendrick.
- Benson and Stabler of Special Victims join the case days after the two shows’ “Entitled” crossover.