Human Flesh Search Engine (Season 20, Episode 6)
Premise: When the founder of a racy clothing label is found dead in what looks like a sex game gone wrong, the trail leads to an online vigilante forum that published his address and door code, and Cutter tries to hold its members responsible for his murder.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 20, Episode 6
- 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
- Rob Corddry as Jim Leary, Tina Benko as Carrie Sands, Ben Shenkman as defense attorney Nick Margolis, Carolyn McCormick as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet, René Ifrah as Sid Maxwell, Ernie Hudson as Frank Gibson
- Ripped from the headlines
- The murdered apparel boss Sid Maxwell closely resembles American Apparel founder Dov Charney, who faced sexual-harassment lawsuits from former employees, and the title borrows the Chinese name for online crowds that track down and expose people.
- Director
- Darnell Martin
- Writers
- Ed Zuckerman & Matthew McGough
Summary
The Investigation
“Human Flesh Search Engine” opens with Sid Maxwell, founder of a clothing brand built on sex appeal, found hanging in his apartment with his wrists bound behind him by knotted tights after a photo shoot he finished alone with his model, Allie. It looks like erotic asphyxiation, but Allie says his hands were free when she left, and video and an ATM record back her. Prints from his vandalized car prove to be his own, on file from a public lewdness arrest under his former name, Todd Bissell.
That name leads to flashposse.net, a self-styled social-justice forum whose members saw him texting at the wheel on the FDR Drive, traced his car through hacked DMV records and posted his address, some calling for his death. Its operator, Jim Leary, refuses to name members, and a judge quashes the subpoena despite testimony from a widow the site hounded. When the forum targets Bernard and posts his unlisted number, police use his replies as bait and trace the angry posters.
One is Carrie Sands, who says a texting cab driver killed her daughter. In fact the state took the girl after Sands tried to offer her as a human sacrifice. Her apartment holds printouts from the site showing Maxwell’s door code and his propped-open door, and the forum’s server shows she opened them just after midnight, minutes before a car service took her to his building. She admits the killing, saying the devil sends texting drivers orders to kill. A psychiatrist finds her schizophrenic and unfit for trial.
The Trial
Under the reckless murder statute, the prosecutors indict everyone behind the forum’s campaign, saying it armed a mentally ill woman. A judge rules that their comments are protected speech that cannot be used, so Cutter drops the commenters and pursues Leary, Keegan, who hacked the building’s cameras, and Andrew Mason, who cracked and posted the code. Dr. Elizabeth Olivet contrasts Sands’s 400-plus posts about Satan with everyone else’s, and Bernard testifies that Leary admitted knowing about her delusions.
On cross, defense attorney Nick Margolis produces an old photo and records showing Bernard fathered a son and missed early support payments, and Bernard confronts him outside court. Lupo then calls a friend in the Shanghai police, whose online volunteers comb taxi logs and street cameras until they find footage of Sands attacking a cab driver on 42nd Street with Leary beside her. Confronted with the image, Leary insists he never told her to kill anyone.
Spoiler, the ending: Leary and his co-defendants plead guilty to manslaughter. Bernard tells Lupo that the boy’s mother married another man and that they agreed it would be less confusing for the child if Bernard stayed out of his life.
Why it stands out
- This is Carolyn McCormick’s last episode as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet on the original series, and Ernie Hudson debuts as Frank Gibson, Van Buren’s boyfriend.
- Cutter’s bid to charge an entire online forum with murder is cut down when a judge rules that the members’ comments are protected free speech.
- Bernard’s private life becomes evidence when the defense reveals on cross-examination that he has a son he does not see.