Missing (Season 12, Episode 14)
Premise: The disappearance of a 24-year-old state aide leads to the head of the State Gaming Board, a married family friend who denies any affair while his old buddy confesses to her murder.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 12, Episode 14
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Serena Southerlyn (Elisabeth Röhm), DA Nora Lewin (Dianne Wiest)
- Guest stars
- Brian Kerwin as Ted Weldon, Maryann Plunkett as Mrs. Weldon, Timothy Wheeler as Mickey Bastone, Chip Zien as defense attorney Steven Cromwell, Scott Wentworth as Senator Elliot Judson
- Director
- David Platt
- Writers
- Story: Barry Schindel; Teleplay: Eric Overmyer & Matt Witten
Summary
The Investigation
“Missing” starts as a missing person case. Lisa Edwards, 24, an aide to State Senator Elliot Judson, has not been seen for a week, and her apartment is half packed. Her parents had to go through a family friend to get police attention. Coworker Scott Purdy insists they were only friends, and Don Hamilton of the Lieutenant Governor’s office, who had her researching casino legislation, admits a brunch on the day she vanished but says she turned him down.
The friend who called the commissioner is Ted Weldon, who heads the State Gaming Board and also found Lisa the job with Hamilton. Her past shows a pattern of affairs with older married men, and Purdy reveals she was seeing a married big shot she could only call “E,” who promised to leave his wife. Her laptop shows she used Judson’s private password to reach Senate subcommittee files. Then a dog uncovers her body in a park; she was shot in the head and was pregnant.
Judson admits he gave his password to Weldon. Weldon says Lisa visited his city apartment only as a family friend, but the doorman calls her a regular and says Weldon’s wife was in town the weekend Lisa disappeared. A former girlfriend of Weldon’s recalls that he also used the name “E” and sent a childhood friend, Mickey Bastone, to warn her off. Bastone, who has a record for gun trafficking, is linked to the murder weapon’s model, to witnesses near the burial site and to blonde hair in his car. He confesses and says Weldon paid him $10,000.
The Trial
Weldon is charged with murder for hire. His lawyer, Steven Cromwell, mentions a private polygraph at the bail hearing and later claims the case punishes Weldon for refusing to admit the affair. On cross, Bastone concedes Weldon never told him outright to kill her. Prosecutors then show Mrs. Weldon the evidence of her husband’s affairs, and she produces a $10,000 withdrawal slip from their son’s account. Weldon testifies but will not discuss any affair with Lisa; McCoy accuses him of forging his son’s signature to pay Bastone.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Weldon in under an hour, and he is sentenced to life without parole. Southerlyn later notices that Mrs. Weldon’s signature closely resembles the one on the withdrawal slip, but Mrs. Weldon points out that reopening the case would undo her husband’s conviction.
Why it stands out
- The final scene leaves open whether Weldon’s wife, not Weldon, forged the signature that sealed his conviction.
- Cromwell taunts McCoy about his history with his assistants, and McCoy reminds Lewin that he married one of them.
- Bastone avoided prison on an earlier gun-running case after an unnamed official close to the Governor vouched for him.