Shrunk (Season 14, Episode 4)
Premise: A young actress is stabbed to death in the townhouse of a reclusive Broadway composer, and his confession raises questions about the psychiatrist who controls his life.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 14, Episode 4
- 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 Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- John Shea as John David Myers, Robert Foxworth as Dr. Frederick Barrett, Kathleen Chalfant as defense attorney Lisa Cutler, Molly Regan as Margot Dalton, J. K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda
- Director
- Jace Alexander
- Writers
- Richard Sweren
Summary
The Investigation
“Shrunk” opens with a stabbing murder in the townhouse of Tony-winning composer John David Myers, where his longtime assistant, Margot Dalton, finds actress Carrie Gunderson dead in the kitchen. Myers, barely responsive upstairs, says he met her at a premiere and the party after, and that they drank, slept together and he passed out. An unlocked terrace door and mud on the den carpet suggest a burglar, and none of his antique knives shows blood. The M.E. counts eight stab wounds, a sign of uncontrolled rage.
Gunderson’s roommate, Lisanne, says the premiere ticket came from one of her regular customers. Ex-boyfriend Mark Hamilton has an alibi and explains that a fight left both of them in court-ordered anger management. A group member with a crush on Gunderson is cleared by a fellow moviegoer. When the mud proves to be potting soil, Dalton admits she faked the break-in and hid the knife. Myers is arrested on a swing beside his psychiatrist, Dr. Frederick Barrett, and after repeatedly asking for Barrett, he confesses.
The Trial
Defense attorney Lisa Cutler gets the confession suppressed, arguing that Myers’s requests for his psychiatrist amounted to requests for counsel and that Dalton had told police he had a lawyer. Barrett then reveals that Myers saw his mother stab his father to death at 13 and has fantasized about stabbing women, and Cutler switches to a mental-defect insanity defense. Dr. Emil Skoda examines Myers and finds him angry but not schizophrenic.
At trial, Dalton describes Myers’s old habit of wearing a knife and a time he screamed about his mother at a woman hiding in a closet. Skoda testifies that Myers knew what he was doing and that Barrett had been tapering his Thorazine. Barrett tells the jury that Myers heard his mother’s voice and was overwhelmed by the party, and he calls Gunderson an emotionally unstable actress, though no case file describes her that way. Lisanne identifies Barrett as the customer who gave her the ticket, and Gunderson’s sleeping pills prove to be his prescription. Her group therapist, Dr. Felicity Cyrus, whose reports went to a judge, reveals that Gunderson had been sleeping with her psychoanalyst and planned to sue him after he ended it.
Spoiler, the ending: McCoy accuses Barrett of steering Myers toward Gunderson and offers Myers commitment instead of prison if he explains how it happened. Myers stays loyal to Barrett and takes a plea to first-degree manslaughter instead. Barrett faces no charge on screen, and McCoy tells him prison may eventually loosen Myers’s tongue.
Why it stands out
- The confession is thrown out after the defense argues that asking for a trusted psychiatrist during questioning can count as asking for counsel.
- Because the victim’s anger-management therapy was court-ordered, her group therapist’s privilege gives way and exposes her affair with Barrett.
- Dr. Emil Skoda (J. K. Simmons) evaluates Myers and testifies for the prosecution that he is not schizophrenic.