Brilliant Disguise (Season 20, Episode 15)
Premise: A young woman who secretly worked as an escort is executed in a hotel room, and suspicion moves from a smitten lab technician to a charming graduate student whose fiancée will do anything he asks.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 20, Episode 15
- 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
- Daniel Eric Gold as Alex Conway, Adam Driver as Robby Vickery, Jess Weixler as Carrie Newton, Timothy Busfield as Ray Backlund, Jason Jurman as Jordan Pinter, J. K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda
- Ripped from the headlines
- The episode is reportedly based on the 2009 “Craigslist Killer” case, in which Boston medical student Philip Markoff was charged with killing one woman and robbing others he met through online ads.
- Director
- Alex Chapple
- Writers
- Story: René Balcer; Story & teleplay: Keith Eisner
Summary
The Investigation
“Brilliant Disguise” begins when a hotel guest lifts the cover of a room-service cart and finds the body of Justine Stebbins, a young woman from Richmond. She was bound with plastic ties and gagged, then shot with a .22, first in the lower back to paralyze her and later in the head. She had told her mother she was staying with a friend and had met a medical student on the train.
The supposed med student is lab technician Robby Vickery, who took her to brunch and a museum. Her phone records reveal hourly calls with a Richmond booker who lined up escort dates for her in a different city each weekend, and her final client, “George,” used an anonymous cellphone near Vickery’s lab. Lab-rat feed traces in her room lead to Vickery’s arrest, though he denies harming her.
The same phone was used to book Stacey Tipton, who says a young man tied her up and tried to gag her before she fought him off; she does not recognize Vickery. Calls made near a Connecticut casino lead to Carrie Newton, whose fiancé, behavioral science grad student Alex Conway, shares Vickery’s lab and had seen his photos of Justine. Posing as Conway’s online chat partner, the detectives arrest him carrying cable ties, a prepaid phone and a .22 pellet gun, but he says it is all for his sex research, and Carrie vouches for him.
The Trial
Hoping Conway will overplay his hand, Cutter tells the arraignment judge that a fingerprint match failed a retest, and Conway is released. Vickery, freed to bait him, reveals Conway vanished from the lab on two Monday nights, which lead to Atlantic City casinos and four robberies by a man in a Poconos cap; one victim was hit low on the spine. Held for New Jersey on $5 million bail, Conway loses the Newtons’ backing, and Carrie admits he was out jogging the night of the murder.
Conway, represented by Ray Backlund, turns down 20 years to life. At trial Tipton identifies him, and the defense tries to pin the murder on Vickery. When juror Jordan Pinter suddenly wants to stay on the panel, police find he is dating Carrie, disguised with dyed hair and brown contacts. Pinter is removed, but there is no mistrial. Despite warnings that the case is a shambles, Cutter cross-examines Conway, claiming he once had Rubirosa use her looks on a juror, until Conway boasts that Carrie slept with Pinter on his orders.
Spoiler, the ending: Conway is convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life. Cutter apologizes to Rubirosa for his courtroom remark, and Carrie shouts her devotion as Conway is led away.
Why it stands out
- Adam Driver plays lab technician Robby Vickery, and Timothy Busfield plays defense attorney Ray Backlund.
- Conway’s fiancée, wearing brown contact lenses and dyed hair, seduces a juror on his instructions.
- Cutter goads Conway into confessing to jury tampering by claiming he once had Rubirosa use her looks to sway a juror, a remark he later apologizes to her for.