Murder Book (Season 17, Episode 16)
Premise: The publisher of an acquitted ex-ballplayer’s book on how he would have killed his wife is beaten and strangled, reopening McCoy’s old loss to the same man.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 16
- Detectives
- Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), Det. Nina Cassady (Milena Govich)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Bobby Cannavale as J.P. Lange, Mario Van Peebles as Attorney Carsley, Christopher Denham as Gerald Stockwell, Kelly Hutchinson as Lydia Neville, Dennis Cockrum as Don Lampard
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- David Wilcox
Summary
The Investigation
“Murder Book” starts with publisher Serena Darby found beaten and strangled by the elevator outside her apartment, her cash and cards untouched. Darby had brought out a book by former baseball star J.P. Lange, acquitted of murdering his wife, describing how he hypothetically would have done it; amid public fury, stores refused it and her parent company pulled it. Lange, who owes a $20 million civil judgment, says the money was going to his daughter’s trust and to charity, and he has no alibi.
His former father-in-law, Don Lampard, says Darby secretly paid Lange more than $200,000 and that he is suing, and the company’s CEO had promised to fire her. The maître d’ of a restaurant recalls Darby arguing there with a man who looked like Lange shortly before her death. Lange then claims they had a secret affair that he ended, writing an insult in her copy of his book. That copy, missing from the scene, surfaces with a collector of murder memorabilia, spattered with Darby’s blood. It was sold by Gerald Stockwell, the book’s fired ghostwriter, whose novel Darby had bought and then shelved. His fingerprints are at the scene, and he is arrested.
The Trial
Offered a manslaughter plea, Stockwell says he taped Lange admitting he killed his wife and bragging that he bribed a juror. That trial was McCoy’s loss. Another juror points to the lone holdout, Lydia Neville, who paid off $75,000 in student loans after the verdict; a book deal with Darby had been drafted before the defense rested. Neville admits Darby promised her a bestseller for hanging the jury, and that she later sent Lange anonymous blackmail letters. Prosecutors conclude Lange killed Darby when she would not name the juror, and a school camera shows him near Stockwell’s Brooklyn building the next morning. Lange is arrested.
Defense attorney Carsley calls the case a vendetta, and Judge Emerton excludes the bribery, the first trial and the book’s contents. Branch presses McCoy to make a deal, but McCoy refuses an Alford plea with five years. On cross-examination McCoy asks whether the book confesses to the first murder, and the judge cuts him off, but Carsley has Lange call the book fiction. That lets McCoy call Stockwell in rebuttal and play a tape of Lange describing his wife’s killing.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Lange of second-degree murder in Darby’s death. McCoy admits the win is personal, and the episode closes on whether the jury punished him for the right killing.
Why it stands out
- McCoy faces a defendant he failed to convict years earlier, and the defense paints the new prosecution as a personal vendetta.
- The juror bribe behind the first acquittal comes to light, but double jeopardy still shields Lange from a retrial for his wife’s murder.
- Bobby Cannavale guest stars as J.P. Lange, with Mario Van Peebles as defense attorney Carsley.