Burned (Season 8, Episode 9)
Premise: A stray confession on an answering machine reopens a fatal fire blamed on a drunk father and points to his teenage son, whose powerful grandfather is an old friend of Adam Schiff.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 8, Episode 9
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Jamie Ross (Carey Lowell), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Robert Vaughn as Carl Anderton, Bob Dishy as defense attorney Larry Weaver, Sam Huntington as Terry Lawlor, Michael O’Hare as Roy Lawlor, J. K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Siobhan Byrne
Summary
The Investigation
“Burned” begins with a woman in a stranger’s apartment hearing an answering machine message in which a young voice says it killed someone called Dee-Dee. The tenant, Stan Kaminsky, denies knowing anyone by that name, and an ex-girlfriend who once got a protection order against him turns out to be alive. The message survives on the tape through print-through, and the phone number once belonged to Roy Lawlor, a salesman whose five-year-old daughter, Diane, known as Dee-Dee, died two years earlier in a fire he admitted starting while drunk.
The fire report shows the blaze began a few feet from where Lawlor lay passed out. His second wife, Sandra, Diane’s mother, has been making late-night calls to Lawlor and to his first wife, Elaine, who lives with her father, wealthy power broker Carl Anderton, and the confession call came from Anderton’s Park Avenue home. Elaine’s teenage son, Terry, is a 60 percent voice match. A child-sized print turns up on a London hotel matchbook from the fire scene, and a former household employee recalls Terry blaming his half-sister for turning his father against him and a smoky shirt thrown out after the fire. Terry is arrested.
The Trial
Anderton, Terry’s guardian, demands that the charges be dropped, and a judge suppresses the tape. He then asks Schiff, a friend from decades of New York politics, to make the case go away, and Schiff refuses. A former school counselor recalls Terry claiming he heard rival students whispering through the walls, and Dr. Emil Skoda suggests early bipolar disorder. The defense refuses an exam, and after questioning Terry in chambers with Skoda only observing, the judge denies McCoy’s request for one.
At trial, Sandra Lawlor describes Terry’s rough handling of the baby, and the counselor testifies over defense objections. Defense attorney Larry Weaver then offers a plea to second-degree manslaughter, but McCoy insists on a psychiatric disposition. Digging into Anderton’s past turns up a 1951 stay at a psychiatric hospital, long unexplained absences and an abandoned takeover bid he blamed on a conspiracy. With Elaine present, McCoy and Schiff threaten to seek a new guardian for Terry by questioning Anderton’s own competency, and Anderton breaks down.
Spoiler, the ending: Terry tells the court he set the fire believing a demon in his half-sister caused his father’s drinking, and that his grandfather told him to keep quiet. He is committed to a secure psychiatric facility until doctors find he is no longer dangerous.
Why it stands out
- Carl Anderton is an old friend of Adam Schiff, and his refusal to cooperate threatens a miscarriage of justice.
- The confession survives only because the original recording left a faint imprint on the tape after it was erased.
- McCoy breaks the grandfather’s hold on the case by raising the same mental illness that appears to run in the family.