Encore (Season 6, Episode 15)
Premise: A jogger killed in Central Park proves to be Michael Dobson’s second wife, and years earlier the case over his first wife’s murder fell apart.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 15
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Larry Miller as Michael Dobson, Deborah Lee Johnson as Margaret Nash, Rafael Báez as Luis Cruz, Tony Darrow as Joey Giabone, Cecilia Hart as defense attorney Marcia Stamell
- Director
- Matthew Penn
- Writers
- Ed Zuckerman & Jeremy R. Littman
Summary
The Investigation
“Encore” opens with an attack on a woman jogging in Central Park. A passerby who chases the attacker is stabbed, and the woman dies of a head wound. The knife left behind is an expensive Mercer, and a Colombian coin, passed off as a subway token, carries the prints of street hustler Francis Murphy. A knife store owner recognizes the sketch as a debt collector for mobster Joey Giabone, who names his former enforcer, Luis Cruz.
The victim is Emily Dobson. Her husband, Michael Dobson, is a former comedy club owner whom Briscoe and his old partner arrested for his first wife’s murder; that trial fell apart when a junkie mugger proved to be the gunman, and only later did police learn the man had worked at Dobson’s club. Dobson was in San Francisco during the attack, but the couple’s struggling restaurant carried a $1 million partnership insurance policy that he kept after dropping other coverage.
Dobson’s old club used a garbage hauler owned by Giabone. Twenty minutes after the killing, a ten-second call reached Dobson’s cell phone from a Chelsea pay phone, charged to a stolen credit card number. Murphy, who peddles such numbers, steers the detectives to Cruz’s girlfriend, who says Cruz has fled to Mexico. Dobson is arrested for first-degree murder for hire.
The Trial
Over the prosecution’s Molineux argument, the judge bars any mention of the first Mrs. Dobson’s death. Schiff agrees to seek the death penalty. The detectives learn Dobson was involved with restaurant employee Margaret Nash, who says he planned a divorce, though no record shows he saw a lawyer. Dobson offers to plead to manslaughter, then balks at admitting the facts.
Immigration agents catch Cruz sneaking back in at JFK, and he says Dobson paid him $10,000 by mail to a private mailbox. The recovered cash carries Giabone’s fingerprints, not Dobson’s. Nash reveals that Dobson owed Giabone money, Dobson claims Giabone ordered the killing and threatened his children, and Cruz switches to that version in exchange for a better deal and federal protection.
McCoy finds that the mailbox company holds mail indefinitely, so the warning that drew Cruz home was false. Cruz’s girlfriend picks out Nash’s voice as the caller, and phone records show Nash also tipped off immigration officials, both at Dobson’s request. McCoy argues Dobson paid Cruz with money borrowed from Giabone so the cash would point to the mobster, and he threatens Nash with accomplice charges unless she testifies.
Spoiler, the ending: Dobson is convicted of Emily’s murder. In the final scene the prosecutors expect him to perform for the jury in the death-penalty phase and then through years of appeals.
Why it stands out
- The episode concludes a story begun in the season 5 episode “Coma,” with Larry Miller reprising his role as Michael Dobson.
- Double jeopardy bars retrying Dobson for his first wife’s death, and the judge rules that the jury cannot hear about it under the Molineux rule.
- Schiff approves seeking the death penalty, arguing it could make people think twice before hiring a killer.