Black Tie (Season 4, Episode 5)
Premise: An anonymous caller says a Manhattan millionaire was murdered, and a hard-won exhumation points to his wife, until a ruling on a private investigator’s search undoes the case.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 5
- 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
- Caroline Lagerfelt as Danielle Keyes, Viveca Lindfors as Helga Holtz, Jeffrey DeMunn as defense attorney Norman Rothenberg, Beverly Johnson as Marcela Di Portago, Malcolm Gets as Lance Keyes, Hudson Leick as Kathy Rogers
- Ripped from the headlines
- Reportedly inspired by the Claus von Bülow insulin case, with the sexes of the accused spouse and the victim reversed.
- Director
- Arthur W. Forney
- Writers
- Walon Green & Michael S. Chernuchin
Summary
The Investigation
“Black Tie” begins with an anonymous call reporting that millionaire Jonathan Keyes was murdered in his penthouse at Keyes Towers. The family lawyer and the widow, Danielle Keyes, say he died of natural causes after a charity dinner and the ballet, and the family doctor has blamed heart failure. Danielle fights an autopsy, and Van Buren agrees to a non-invasive exam at a funeral home, which leads to a clash with Logan.
The body has been embalmed before the medical examiner can draw blood, and the detectives notice Keyes was dressed after death. Model Kathy Rogers says she left him healthy and that Danielle came into his room while they were on the phone. In the apartment the detectives find a cotton ball with Keyes’s blood and traces of insulin. Housekeeper Helga Holtz admits she placed the anonymous call and dressed the body on Danielle’s orders.
Keyes’s son, Lance, hands over an insulin-coated syringe bearing Danielle’s fingerprints, found in her bathroom by a private investigator he hired, plus pharmacy records of her insulin purchase. Writer Whit Ferguson says Danielle used his insulin to lose weight and that Keyes was too timid to inject himself. Judge Mooney orders the body exhumed, the autopsy finds a large amount of insulin, and Danielle is arrested for murder.
The Trial
Defense attorney Norman Rothenberg leaves most of the trial to an associate, Gerald Austin, while building an appeal over the private search. The investigator admits Lance told him to tear open a locked bag and paid him $20,000. The defense suggests Keyes injected himself after a heavy meal, and Stone’s cross-examination of Danielle focuses on his affairs and the divorce he was planning.
The jury convicts Danielle of second-degree murder. On appeal, Rothenberg argues that a state-licensed private investigator acted as an agent of the government, while Stone answers that the Fourth Amendment limits only government searches. The appellate court reverses the conviction 3–2, and without the syringe the prosecutors weigh a retrial on a depraved-indifference theory.
Spoiler, the ending: The DA’s office decides it cannot outlast Danielle’s money through endless appeals and closes the case. She sells the Manhattan apartment for $6 million and moves to a French country estate.
Why it stands out
- The case turns on whether evidence found by a privately hired investigator can be excluded under the Fourth Amendment.
- A murder conviction is reversed 3–2 on appeal, and the DA’s office declines to retry the case.
- Reportedly modeled on the Claus von Bülow insulin case, with the roles of husband and wife reversed.