Agony (Season 9, Episode 5)
Premise: The torture of a recently separated woman leads to a traveling serial killer who trades six bodies for a plea deal, before new evidence shows he may not be the man who attacked her.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 9, Episode 5
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Christopher Patrick Mullen as Matt Bergstrom, Christina Haag as Katharine “Kitty” Lansing, Alexander Robert Scott as Michael Ashford, Elizabeth Connors as Michelle Ashford, J. K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Kathy McCormick
Summary
The Investigation
“Agony” begins with a mail carrier stabbed to death in the elevator of a loft building by a weapon that left U-shaped wounds. Upstairs, Briscoe and Curtis find Katharine “Kitty” Lansing barely alive after she was bound, cut, strangled and stabbed over about a day and a half by an attacker who scrubbed the scene. Her mother blames her husband, Roger Lansing, who abused her for years and now dates Michelle Ashford. His friend admits giving him a false alibi, but a call girl confirms he spent the night at a hotel with five call girls.
Dr. Skoda describes an organized, meticulous sadist early in his career who travels for work. A woman found dazed with marks on her neck, Erica Davies, says a man called Matt tried to strangle her during sex, and a rental agency leads to Matt Bergstrom, a Seattle video game consultant who keeps restraints and violent tapes. He has no alibi, and Houston police once suspected him in a woman’s disappearance. After Davies agrees to file a complaint, Bergstrom is charged with assault.
The Trial
Creosote and wood on his shoe and repeated dinners overlooking Fort Tryon Park point to hidden graves. McCoy raises the Texas death penalty, and Bergstrom trades a map to six women’s remains for a plea to second-degree murder of the mail carrier and assault on Lansing at 25 to life, a promise he won’t be sent to any capital-punishment state, and no admissions on the other cases.
Then a note addressed to “Kitty” appears under Lansing’s door. A woodworking gouge from the Ashford family’s carpentry shop matches the mail carrier’s wounds, and Michelle’s brother Michael admits she asked him to remove her rival and make it look like a psycho’s work. Carmichael wants the U.S. Attorney to try the Ashfords for the federal killing while Bergstrom’s plea stands, but McCoy refuses to convict a man of a crime he did not commit.
Spoiler, the ending: When Bergstrom recants, Carmichael tells him that Houston has found Anna Lasky’s remains and is seeking his extradition, after McCoy asks whether she still has Houston D.A. letterhead, then taunts him about execution. Bergstrom insists on pleading guilty to first-degree murder in one of the six killings, the body by the train tracks, for life without parole.
Why it stands out
- Footage from this episode turns up in an episode of Friends.
- Dr. Skoda urges McCoy to take Bergstrom’s deal as possibly the last chance to stop him.
- McCoy rejects letting a serial killer plead to an attack he did not commit, even to keep him locked up.