Vengeance (Season 2, Episode 16)
Premise: A young woman’s strangled body turns up on top of an elevator car, and the method matches two earlier unsolved killings.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 16
- Detectives
- Sgt. Phil Cerreta (Paul Sorvino), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- James Rebhorn as Albert Lawrence Cheney, Rutanya Alda as Sara Cheney, Barbara Barrie as Mrs. Bream, Gerald Gordon as Mr. Bream, Allen Garfield as defense attorney Carl Berg
- Director
- Daniel Sackheim
- Writers
- Story: Peter S. Greenberg; Teleplay: René Balcer; Story & teleplay: Michael S. Chernuchin
Summary
The Investigation
“Vengeance” begins when a building repairman lowers a sluggish elevator and finds the taped body of Judy Bream, a tenant, on the car’s roof. The medical examiner says she was strangled with a wire and fought her attacker. Cerreta and Logan find two earlier victims killed the same way, Debra Beckett and Sandy Markham, and the case quickly looks like the work of a serial killer.
Two of the women saw the same gynecologist, Dr. Phillip Banks, who has a file of patient complaints, but he was delivering a baby when Judy died. The third saw a different doctor, and the link between the two practices turns out to be their bookkeeper, Albert Lawrence Cheney. Cheney once served five years for a manslaughter in Brooklyn. Duct tape, carpet fibers and a camera tie him to the crime, and after 12 hours of questioning he reveals a storage locker full of photographs of his victims.
The Trial
Cheney’s lawyer, Carl Berg, attacks the marathon interrogation, and the judge suppresses the locker evidence. Stone learns that Cheney’s earlier case ended in a plea because of a similar confession problem. With the case weakened, Judy’s parents bring in Jack O’Connell of the Connecticut prosecutor’s office, who wants Cheney extradited to face kidnapping and felony-murder charges in a state with the death penalty. Stone argues that New York, where the crime happened, should keep jurisdiction, and he wins a restraining order that keeps the case in Manhattan.
At trial, Mrs. Bream’s account of her daughter’s last weekend is shaken on cross-examination, and Stone is left with circumstantial evidence. He turns to Cheney’s wife, Sara, whose testimony would normally be protected by spousal privilege. Because she washed her husband’s clothes after the killing, Stone has her arrested as a possible accomplice, which removes the privilege.
Spoiler, the ending: Shown what her husband did, Sara Cheney testifies that he came home with blood on his shirt, asked her for an alibi, and had her hide his toolbox and camera. Cheney is convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life.
Why it stands out
- The episode sets a grieving family’s wish for the death penalty against Stone’s duty to win the case he can actually try.
- Stone uses an accomplice charge against Cheney’s wife to get around spousal privilege.
- James Rebhorn plays the soft-spoken bookkeeper at the center of the killings.