Chattel (Season 19, Episode 8)
Premise: The murder of a married pair of divorce lawyers leads the detectives to a Haitian adoptee sent back home after a divorce, and then to a couple who brought Haitian children to New York to work as servants.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 19, Episode 8
- 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
- Jessica Hecht as Miriam Johnson, Tom Gilroy as Eric Johnson, Thuliso Dingwall as Patrick Johnson, Shana Dowdeswell as Karen Johnson, Tom Riis Farrell as defense attorney Marks
- Director
- Jim McKay
- Writers
- William N. Fordes & Matthew McGough
Summary
The Investigation
“Chattel” starts with divorce lawyers Fred and Lizzy Bellamy found shot in their home, where the air conditioning had been left blasting. The killer came through a basement window whose alarm sensor had been broken for months, in the playroom where the couple interviewed children in custody fights. A court clerk who studies law with Lupo pulls their custody filings, and a deposition video shows Bill Carter, a client’s husband, raging when his daughter, Isabelle, comes up; he settled two weeks later.
Ann Carter reveals that Isabelle, 11, was adopted from Haiti and sent back after the divorce. A Haitian consular official says the Bellamys were asking about the girl, who vanished after landing in Port-au-Prince, and that the consulate told Bill Carter of their inquiries two days before the couple was shot with a .22. The settlement came from a $300,000 loan co-signed by family friends Eric and Miriam Johnson, who adopted a boy, Patrick, while living in Haiti.
The Carters’ son David says his parents relied on the Johnsons’ son, Patrick, 13, to talk with Isabelle by phone. With a material witness warrant, the detectives find his cramped room freshly redone and catch him in Marcus Garvey Park, where he calls himself a restavek, a Haitian child handed to a family as a servant. Doctors find bruises, rashes, nutritional deficiencies and untreated cavities.
The Trial
Since New York has no anti-slavery law, the prosecutors propose treating the sham adoption as kidnapping, but McCoy wants a grand jury first. Patrick tells the jurors he is happy, Miriam Johnson defends rescuing him from Haiti, and the panel refuses to indict in twenty minutes. Rubirosa then learns Eric Johnson bought a .22 Ruger in Haiti and received sixteen $30,000 wire transfers. One paying couple has a Haitian child shut in the basement, and sixteen children are recovered from fourteen couples.
The Johnsons, now charged with murder as well, have a confirmed alibi in Connecticut and say their gun has disappeared from a closet shoebox. Their daughter, Karen, says David Carter played with it, but David reveals he told Karen about the broken window and that she texted him around 2 a.m. on the night of the killings. Gunshot residue in the shoebox and dirt under Patrick’s nails lead to the gun, buried in the park with his prints, and Patrick says Karen led him into the house and told him to shoot.
Spoiler, the ending: Karen denies it and is remanded at her arraignment. Patrick, charged with two counts of second-degree murder, tells the judge he wants to be free and is also held; he asks Rubirosa to send him home to Haiti, and she tells him it cannot happen. No trial is shown.
Why it stands out
- With no anti-slavery statute in New York, the prosecutors try to charge an adoption arranged to obtain a child servant as kidnapping.
- A grand jury takes twenty minutes to refuse an indictment after the boy at the center of the case denies any mistreatment.
- The investigation uncovers sixteen Haitian children placed with fourteen New York-area couples for $30,000 fees.