Girlfriends (Season 6, Episode 20)
Premise: A senior is found dead in her college library, and the search for a campus rapist turns into a case about a student escort ring and a father’s shoe business.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 6, Episode 20
- 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
- Cara Buono as Shelly Taggert, James Naughton as Barry Taggert, Joelle Carter as Donna Richland
- Director
- Christopher Misiano
- Writers
- Story: Jeremy R. Littman; Teleplay: Suzanne O'Malley; Story & teleplay: Ed Zuckerman
Summary
The Investigation
“Girlfriends” opens with the body of Bridget Kaylin, a senior, on an upper floor of her college library. Her pants are pulled down, and campus police tie the death to a rapist who has attacked two women in recent weeks. A student anti-rape group gives Briscoe and Curtis a list of men it calls predators, but the medical examiner finds no sign of sexual assault: Bridget died from a blow to the head, and the thin band across her neck came afterward.
Diamond earrings her parents can’t explain and repeated charges at a hotel grill lead to a bartender who says Bridget met many different men there. Her fingerprints match a recent prostitution arrest under a false name. Her friend Donna Richland admits that she, Bridget and another student worked as escorts, with Shelly Taggert handling the bookings.
A warrant search of the apartment Shelly shares with her father, Barry, turns up her appointment book and a green cameo Bridget wore the day she died. The cameo’s band matches the neck marks, Shelly’s prints are on Bridget’s library desk, and Donna recalls the two women quarreling that afternoon. Before police can arrest her, her father sends Shelly to Europe.
The Trial
McCoy and Kincaid find that Taggert’s shoe company paid Shelly as a “consultant” and expensed $400 outings for visiting buyers, which were dates with Shelly’s friends. McCoy indicts Taggert for enterprise corruption and has a court-appointed receiver take over the company’s assets, cutting off Shelly’s money. Taggert brings her home, and she is tried for second-degree murder.
Jonathan Freeman, a shoe buyer, testifies that Shelly grew angry when Bridget stopped taking dates and promised to deal with it. On the stand, Shelly claims her father was having an affair with Bridget and admitted killing her by accident. In chambers, Taggert confirms the affair but takes the Fifth on the killing, which lets Shelly repeat his alleged confession to the jury. Under McCoy’s cross-examination, she breaks down and apologizes to her father.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury acquits Shelly Taggert. Outside court, Taggert is arrested again on the enterprise corruption charge McCoy had offered to drop if his daughter came back.
Why it stands out
- McCoy turns New York’s enterprise corruption law, which Schiff notes was meant for organized crime, on a shoe importer to seize his assets and force his fugitive daughter home.
- Hearsay rules shape the trial: Shelly can tell the jury about her father’s supposed confession only after he refuses to testify about the killing on Fifth Amendment grounds.