Lost Boys (Season 19, Episode 3)
Premise: A teenager expelled from a fundamentalist Mormon sect is stabbed in Central Park, and the case exposes a plot by the sect’s Prophet to kidnap the young wife who fled him.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 19, Episode 3
- Detectives
- Det. Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto), Det. Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Michael Cutter (Linus Roache), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- Jena Malone as Michelle Landon, Colm Meaney as Wyatt Landon, Brady Corbet as Patrick Friendly, Tolan Aman as Luke Friendly, Del Pentecost as Jerald McAlister
- Director
- Christopher Zalla
- Writers
- Richard Sweren & Gina Gionfriddo
Summary
The Investigation
“Lost Boys” opens with the stabbing of a teenage boy in Central Park, dressed in worn hand-me-downs and an undershirt with hand-drawn markings. A young woman in a long, plain dress borrowed a stranger’s phone to call 911, then fled. A key leads Lupo and Bernard to a loft building where Patrick Friendly, 21, identifies the dead boy as Caleb Friendly, 17, who arrived from Boyd Canyon, Arizona, two weeks earlier with his 14-year-old brother, Luke.
The boys come from the Church of the True Path, a polygamous sect whose Prophet, Wyatt Landon, expels young men who compete with the elders for wives. Patrick, Caleb and Luke share a father who has several wives. A couple in Sloatsburg who shelter these lost boys are hiding Michelle Landon, who fled the Prophet two months ago, leaving her two small sons behind. She says Caleb promised her papers proving Landon was cheating the state, but he was already wounded when she arrived.
Luke then reveals that Caleb planned to deliver Michelle to the Prophet to earn his way home, and that he told Patrick, who had been expelled for courting her. Patrick admits following Caleb into the park and stabbing him with a wood chisel during a fight, and he is charged with murder. Park photos show a can of motor oil that appears to be a signal and two men waiting in a van rented by Landon, who is staying in Palmyra, New York.
The Trial
Patrick’s lawyer raises a justification defense, and Cutter decides to pursue Landon for felony murder anyway. Michelle supplies the link: Caleb’s story relied on her son’s feather allergy, which only she and Landon knew about. Landon and his two followers are charged with attempted kidnapping and felony murder, Patrick tells prosecutors Caleb spoke of “we” in the park, and the trial judge bars any mention of polygamy.
Greentree County then issues a child-abandonment warrant for Michelle, which would send her back before she can testify. With no jury at the extradition hearing, Cutter has Michelle describe being married to Landon at 16 as his sixth wife and being forced into sex, then confronts Landon over expelling Patrick. The judge quashes the warrant, ruling that she would face either prosecution or forced sex and childbearing.
Spoiler, the ending: Michelle is pregnant and believes Patrick is the father, but Landon wins a court-ordered ultrasound, which shows the baby is his. She decides to return to True Path to raise all her children together and will not testify. The prosecutors drop the charges against Landon and his followers, noting they still have Caleb’s killer, and Michelle leaves with her husband. Patrick’s own case is not resolved on screen.
Why it stands out
- Jena Malone, Colm Meaney and Brady Corbet guest star as the runaway wife, the sect’s Prophet and the expelled young man who loves her.
- Barred from mentioning polygamy at trial, Cutter airs the sect’s practices at an extradition hearing, where no jury is present.
- A court-ordered ultrasound to settle paternity ends the case against the Prophet.