Property (Season 26, Episode 4)
Premise: An auction-house antiquities expert is beaten to death at home, and his ex-wife admits the killing but says she was defending the frozen embryos he threatened to destroy.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 26, Episode 4
- Detectives
- Det. Rob Calvino (James Badge Dale), Det. Theo Walker (David Ajala)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), ADA Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi)
- Guest stars
- Kate Siegel as Caroline Sanders, Roslyn Ruff as defense attorney Theresa Roland, Pamela Gold as Dr. Jocelyn Stanton, Joe Budden as Big Switty, Sevan as Abdul-Ahad Farhadi
- Director
- Carlos Bernard
- Writers
- Jennifer Vanderbes
Summary
The Investigation
“Property” opens at Meridien Auction House, where antiquities head Andrew “Andy” Carson oversees a sale that ends with a $420,000 bid. The next morning his cleaner finds him dead at home, struck with a stone piece from his own collection. Nothing is taken, a woman’s hair is on his shirt, and his smartwatch shows his heart stopping by 9:14 p.m.
A call from the Manhattan DA’s office had delayed Carson before the sale: conservator Abdul-Ahad Farhadi had complained that a sixth-century Buddha on offer was looted from Afghanistan by the Taliban. Video shows Farhadi slipping into the building at 9:22, after Carson died, and he is released. The rapper Big Switty, who left a threatening voicemail over a fake Egyptian mask, was at dinner. Former girlfriend Lucy Butler, who says she left Carson after he secretly met his ex-wife, has an alibi too.
The ex-wife, Caroline Sanders, says she met Carson only to tell him about her memoir, “Jilted,” about his cheating during her chemotherapy for breast cancer. Her phone and car place her in the Hamptons, but street video puts her near his home, and she is arrested just before her first interview about the book.
The Trial
Video shows her using the door code eight minutes before the killing, and her DNA matches the hair. Their fertility doctor explains that the couple froze embryos before her chemotherapy, now stored in Pennsylvania, under forms requiring both partners’ consent. Defense attorney Theresa Roland admits the killing but argues defense of others: Caroline was protecting her unborn children. The judge allows the defense because Pennsylvania, where the embryos were kept, has a fetal homicide law.
Dr. Jocelyn Stanton testifies that Caroline never objected to destroying unused embryos, though Roland gets her to call a zygote a living organism. Caroline says Carson refused to sign the consent form and threatened to have the embryos destroyed. When Price notes that the clinic and storage site were closed that night, she announces she is pregnant with twins, implanted while on bail. The judge tells the jury to set sympathy aside.
A former graduate-school roommate says Caroline did clinic defense and turned to the church after an abortion. After debating whether to use it, and whether a man should ask, the prosecution asks Caroline in court if she has had an abortion. She says yes, and calls it murder.
The ending
Spoiler: The jury finds Caroline Sanders guilty of second-degree murder. Afterward, Maroun goes to a fertility clinic, telling the doctor she is finally ready to begin.
Case outcome: Caroline Sanders, guilty verdict. Prosecuted by Nolan Price. Conviction rates
Why it stands out
- Director Carlos Bernard and James Badge Dale, who plays Calvino, previously worked together on the third season of 24.
- The case turns on where the embryos were kept: the judge rules that New York law governs the murder charge but lets the jury hear a defense-of-others claim because Pennsylvania, where they were stored, treats killing a fetus as homicide.