Scrambled (Season 9, Episode 6)
Premise: An embryologist dies when she walks in on a break-in at a fertility clinic, and the trail leads to a wealthy woman who wanted her late ex-husband’s frozen embryos gone before his young widow could carry them.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 9, Episode 6
- 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
- Lisa Eichhorn as Arlene Galvin, Jean Louisa Kelly as Coral Galvin, Brian O’Neill as Francis Curran, David Garrison as defense attorney Richard Billings, Frank Wood as Dr. Rutland
- Director
- Martha Mitchell
- Writers
- Story: Judith Hooper & Dick Teresi; Teleplay: Ed Zuckerman
Summary
The Investigation
“Scrambled” opens with a fertility clinic murder: embryologist Sarah Purcell is found dead in the clinic’s cold-storage room, struck with a liquid-nitrogen tank, and the contents of one tank have been poured into a sink. The clinic’s founder, Dr. Rutland, suspects opponents of in-vitro work, and the detectives chase an earlier sabotaged power line, a fired electrician’s helper and an activist newsletter that sells its mailing list. None of it leads anywhere.
Staff recall a couple calling themselves the Wilsons who toured the clinic, asked about its alarms and cameras, and left a false address. He later approached several employees, and indebted maintenance worker William O’Rourke admits he sold him a key, the alarm code and a chart of which embryos sat in which tank for $5,000. Realizing the intruder wanted one couple’s embryos, the detectives reach Coral Galvin, a young widow who planned to carry embryos her late husband, Joe, had made with his first wife, Arlene.
O’Rourke identifies Arlene Galvin’s chauffeur, Francis Curran, a former detective, and his prints match the scene. A surrogate judge explains that Joe’s will placed most of an estate of about $11 million in trust for his children, including any born later, so a baby born to Coral would share it with Arlene’s son. Under pressure from McCoy, Curran accepts 15 years and says Arlene paid him $50,000 to destroy the embryos.
The Trial
Arlene’s lawyer, Richard Billings, argues the embryos were her property, so destroying them was no burglary and cannot support felony murder. The judge denies dismissal but leaves the question to the jury. Rutland calls the embryos microscopic, yet concedes under cross that they are a basic form of human life. Coral admits an earlier abortion, and an emergency-room doctor recalls her asking about preserving her dying husband’s sperm while he was still being treated.
Clinic records then turn up two more Galvin embryos, intact in a different tank, and both women go to court over them. McCoy has them held as evidence though he privately doubts a child should be born from the feud. To prove other couples’ embryos were destroyed without consent, he leans on the Laskys, who fear revealing that one of their twin pregnancies was reduced, and Mrs. Lasky testifies that she never gave permission.
Spoiler, the ending: No verdict is shown. Billings offers a plea to criminally negligent homicide with two to four years; the standing offer was second-degree manslaughter, and Carmichael counters with five to ten. Coral begs McCoy to keep the last two embryos from Arlene, and he replies that the fight now moves to civil court, where it may outlast Arlene’s prison term.
Why it stands out
- The defense claims that if the embryos were Arlene Galvin’s property, destroying them was legal, which would remove the burglary that felony murder requires.
- Two surviving Galvin embryos surface in the middle of the trial, leaving McCoy uneasy about deciding whether a child should be born from the dispute.
- McCoy threatens a reluctant couple with a second-degree abortion charge theory to push them into testifying.