Public Service Homicide (Season 17, Episode 5)
Premise: A man caught in a tabloid TV sting meeting a supposed 12-year-old is stabbed to death the night his segment airs, and the case exposes a reality-show producer who sent his killer to his door.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 17, Episode 5
- Detectives
- Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), Det. Nina Cassady (Milena Govich), Lt. Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Nadia Dajani as Ellie Harper, Zoe Lister-Jones as Hannah Welch, Remy Auberjonois as Dr. Evan Fleming, Vyto Ruginis as defense attorney Depago, Mimi Lieber as defense attorney Wendy Weiss
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Chris Levinson
Summary
The Investigation
“Public Service Homicide” begins with the stabbing of Carl Mullaly on the night the tabloid program Hard Focus shows him arriving to meet a 12-year-old he had chatted with online, a decoy set up by the vigilante group Scum Watch. A deliveryman finds the body. Next door lives emergency room doctor Evan Fleming, a single father of eight-year-old Abigail, who says he slept through the night.
Mullaly’s girlfriend of a month, Hannah Welch, says she was at a movie and reveals he lost his job at a community center days before the broadcast. His boss says a neighbor warned him, and Fleming admits he had Mullaly fired after an anonymous note was slipped under his door. When another man from the segment is attacked, the detectives trace the assault to Howard Lowe, whose 12-year-old daughter was abducted and murdered; Scum Watch expelled him, and he was in Boston when Mullaly died. Producer Ellie Harper defends her show, which receives Scum Watch’s files.
Phone records show Fleming ordered Chinese food sent to Mullaly’s apartment. He admits he found the body and wanted someone else to report it, and says Abigail saw a woman run out with a knife. Van Buren questions Abigail, who says the same woman slipped the note under their door, and her account points to Hannah. Hannah is arrested, shouting that Mullaly deserved to die.
The Trial
Defense lawyer Depago claims self-defense and proposes criminally negligent homicide with probation, but McCoy refuses, even as Branch warns that jurors may side with her. Hard Focus has posted her bail. Rubirosa tracks down a former fiancé in Pittsburgh and a roommate in Brooklyn and learns the show paid rent for Hannah and five others recruited for a since-canceled series in which abuse survivors confront their abusers. Hannah admits that Mullaly, her father’s friend, sexually abused her for years as a child, and that Harper sent her to his door with a hidden camera and a hunting knife Harper had bought.
Hannah agrees to take 15 years and testify, and Harper is tried for second-degree murder on a depraved-indifference theory. Hannah describes the therapy, role-playing and Krav Maga lessons the show arranged, and says Mullaly blamed her when she confronted him. Harper insists she hoped to film healing, but McCoy confronts her with Hannah’s audition tape, in which she spoke of cutting out Mullaly’s heart; a psychiatrist had also judged Hannah unfit for the show.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury finds Harper guilty of second-degree murder. Hard Focus plans a special on the case and asks McCoy for an interview, which he refuses.
Why it stands out
- McCoy convicts a television producer of murder on a depraved-indifference theory, with the woman who wielded the knife as his star witness.
- The key eyewitness is the doctor’s eight-year-old daughter, whose father first hid what she saw to keep her off the witness stand.
- Branch cautions McCoy that viewers of predator-sting shows may side with whoever kills a man those shows expose.