Precious (Season 5, Episode 7)
Premise: A reported baby kidnapping turns into a murder case against a mother whose earlier infants also died suddenly.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 7
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Julie Boyd as Eileen Willick, Kevin O’Rourke as Marty Willick, Maria Tucci as Helen Brolin, Becky Borczon as Theresa Tritch
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- René Balcer & I.C. Rapoport
Summary
The Investigation
“Precious” begins when Marty Willick tells police his three-month-old daughter, Emily, vanished from a park bench while he dozed. A nanny describes a bald man who photographs children, but when Briscoe and Logan find him, he turns out to be using a fake talent-agent pitch to meet nannies.
Searchers find a brand-new baby backpack in bushes near the park entrance with only Marty’s prints on it, and the building super says the family stroller never left the lobby. Under questioning, Marty leads police to Riverside Park, where Emily is found buried in a cooler. He and his wife, Eileen, say they found her dead in her crib and hid the body to avoid blame.
The medical examiner finds asphyxia but cannot rule out crib death. Doctors at Mount Sinai say Eileen brought Emily in eight times for problems they never found. The family’s New Jersey pediatrician reveals that two earlier children, Daniel and Caroline, also died as infants, which he blamed on an inherited disorder, and a foster child, Gary, was removed from the couple after he needed resuscitation and a doctor suspected suffocation. Kincaid has Eileen arrested for murder and Marty for hindering prosecution.
The Trial
A specialist says smothering can mimic crib death and that three children inheriting a fatal disorder is statistically insignificant, and another expert describes Munchausen syndrome. Marty’s sister tells the prosecutors she has long suspected Eileen. Despite Schiff’s doubts, McCoy tries both parents for murder, arguing that Marty had a legal duty to save his daughter.
On the stand, Marty cannot explain why he, a light sleeper, did not hear Emily struggle. McCoy edges Eileen’s cross toward her dead children, drawing a sharp warning from the judge, and the jury hangs nine to three for conviction.
McCoy then offers a plea only if Eileen agrees to a tubal ligation. Kincaid objects, citing Skinner v. Oklahoma, and Judge Leon threatens to remove McCoy from the case. A defense affidavit reveals that Eileen is seeing an obstetrician, and she turns out to be pregnant, which Marty did not know. He finally says he saw Eileen standing by Emily’s crib holding a pillow.
Spoiler, the ending: Eileen Willick pleads guilty to first-degree manslaughter with a sentence recommendation and is headed to Bedford. She asks to delay sentencing until after she gives birth.
Why it stands out
- McCoy tries to make sterilization a condition of the plea, a demand the judge refuses to accept.
- The first trial ends in a hung jury, nine to three for conviction.
- McCoy charges the father too, on the theory that a parent who stands by while a child is killed shares the guilt.