Breeder (Season 4, Episode 13)
Premise: A young woman who gave birth alone says her newborn has vanished, and the search for the baby uncovers several couples who each paid her expecting to adopt it.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 13
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Angie Phillips as Debra Elkins, Ann Dowd as Dorothy Baxter, Deirdre O’Connell as Jane Schuman, Judson Mills as Stephen Shaw, Carolyn McCormick as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet
- Director
- Arthur W. Forney
- Writers
- Michael S. Chernuchin & René Balcer
Summary
The Investigation
“Breeder” opens in a hospital emergency room, where Debra Elkins, 22, from Poughkeepsie, is found unconscious and bleeding after giving birth. She tells the detectives she went into labor while shopping in the city, a stranger put her in a cab and her baby is missing. She says the pregnancy resulted from a rape at work.
Blood in a taxi leads to a hotel where Debra stayed for a week after checking in with a man registered as Stephen Shaw. Her calls lead to adoption lawyer Bill Wendyll and to Les and Gwen Savitt, a couple who paid her expenses. A $10,000 wire takes the detectives to Shaw, who has the baby in a hotel room. Debra says she hid the child because Child Welfare had taken a previous baby from her.
The newborn goes to the Foundling Hospital, where a woman posing as nurse Dorothy Hemmerick takes him with transfer papers. Debra identifies her as Dorothy Baxter, another woman hoping to adopt her child, and police find Baxter holding the baby at her sister’s house in Queens.
The Trial
Dr. Olivet finds Baxter legally sane but sympathetic after years of failed adoptions, and Baxter pleads to first-degree custodial interference with a suspended sentence and therapy. Her remarks lead Kincaid to a third couple, the Cushmans. Stone learns the penal law does not make selling a baby a crime, so he charges Debra with grand larceny and later extortion, treating her talk of abortion as a threat to the fetus.
Judge Sanderson lets the extortion count go to a jury. Mrs. Baxter and Mrs. Cushman say Debra raised abortion when they hesitated to pay, but Les Savitt, who now has the baby, defends her. The Savitts later tell Stone that Debra sent them photos of fetuses and that Shaw, the baby’s father, is demanding $100,000 or he will contest the adoption.
Spoiler, the ending: Facing his own charges, Shaw turns on Debra, saying she planned the scheme before getting pregnant and took bids while in labor. Her lawyer asks for second-degree grand larceny with minimum time, and Stone insists on 4 to 12 years. The Savitts leave New York with the baby.
Why it stands out
- Stone finds that New York’s penal law did not make selling a baby a crime; only the contract was void under domestic relations law.
- The prosecution’s extortion theory treats a threatened abortion as a threat of physical injury, and the judge sends it to the jury expecting an appeal.
- Dr. Olivet evaluates the woman who took the baby and finds her legally sane.