The Closer s02e09 Episode Script
Heroic Measures
excuse us.
uh, the 911 caller said the south tower.
right.
which you get to from the central plaza on the third floor.
no.
you cross around the corner.
well, you know what? we'll just see who gets there first.
hey.
there's no reason for you to have called the police.
i called the police because no one can explain what happened to my son.
ms.
langner, please.
let me get you a grief counselor.
i don't need a grief counselor! i want those doctors arrested.
let's discuss this in my office.
detective daniels, lapd.
priority homicide.
help me.
they murdered my son.
ok, just take a breath.
take a breath.
ok? so, what's going on here? i brought my son nicky in for a simple endoscopy.
and now he's dead.
they killed him.
detective.
if i may.
there's no question that we've had a terrible tragedy here tonight.
but the presence of police it just seems to be inflaming the situation.
it might be best for everyone if you just went home.
i'm sorry.
you do not tell the lapd to go home.
detective, please.
don't overreact to this situation.
it is common to hear accusations like this from people who have lost children.
but i can assure you, the doctors took all heroic measures to save the boy's life.
i'd like to hear that from them.
dr.
woods and dr.
sands are unavailable.
since you refuse to cooperate, and i have reasonable suspicion regarding this attended death- reasonable suspicion? i am designating the o.
r.
a crime scene.
oh, for god's- no one touches the body.
nothing is disturbed or removed.
please secure the operating suite.
let's go.
sorry to pull you guys away from dinner.
the speeches were endless.
the food never came.
i was about to eat my napkin.
what's going on here? well, we have a problem.
the mother over here, melissa langner, her son nicky came in for a routine procedure.
are you in charge? talk to the lady.
deputy chief brenda leigh johnson.
i'll be with you in a minute, sir.
go on.
so, her son went through surgery to stop some minor gastric bleeding, there were some complications, he died, and now she's saying that he was murdered.
ok.
thank you, sergeant.
and you are? howard pierce.
administrative director of southwest pacific university hospital.
one of your people has shut down our operating room.
that was daniels' call before i got here.
ok.
i'd be happy to address your concerns as soon as i get more information.
one moment, please.
oh, excuse me.
this is the woman i was speaking of.
ms.
langner.
i'm deputy chief brenda leigh johnson of the lapd.
i'm sorry to press you at a time like this, but i need to know why you think your son was murdered.
nicky started throwing up around 6:15.
there was a little blood.
i'm a fourth year medical student.
i knew it probably wasn't anything too serious, but i didn't want to misdiagnose him so i brought him here so that they could scope him.
he was in major surgery.
he was dead.
that's a that is a terrible story, ms.
langner, but what makes you think it was a crime? because when i questioned dr.
woods, the vascular surgeon, about the cause of death, he kept changing his answer.
and after the third response, he just looked at the other doctor, the g.
i.
specialist and i saw it in their eyes.
they are covering something up.
ms.
langner- please help me.
please? ok.
i'll be right back.
i hope that we are acting on good solid suspicions and not just sympathy.
chief, i initiated this investigation because i was being actively obstructed.
oh could the bruises be from how he was handled during surgery? no.
i doubt it.
the yellowing suggests they happened much earlier.
is that a video camera? you should know as soon as your grieving mother went to the bathroom, those guys appeared.
they've been huddling.
looks like they're planning their next play.
and they are leaving.
i don't think they're a flight risk.
mr.
pierce, i believe we've gotten off on the wrong foot.
i'm confident that with your cooperation, we can resolve this issue right now.
i agree.
all i need is the surgery video, the boy's charts, and to have a short conversation with the physicians.
well, that's not going to happen.
excuse me? you want to resolve this quickly? let me help you.
there was no murder.
you need to turn that operating suite back over to us right now.
sergeant gabriel, please notify building operations that we'll be shutting down this floor.
nothing goes in or out without our permission.
nothing.
you can't do that! one more word out of you, and i will padlock this entire hospital and arrest you for interfering with a murder investigation.
we don't know there was malpractice.
much less a crime, much less murder.
so let's be clear about what's going on here.
you're launching a full-fledged investigation into a nationally respected hospital based on the hunch of a hysterical woman.
daniels and i both felt she might be telling the truth.
ok.
make that three hysterical women.
i know you don't want me to respond to that.
no.
what it looks like to me is a grieving mother desperate to pin the blame for her son's death on somebody.
ever consider she might be pinning it on those responsible? todd woods is one of the top vascular surgeons in the country.
what possible motive could he or this other doctor have for murdering an 8-year-old boy? well, then, if there's no issue, why won't this mr.
pierce, this jerk of a hospital administrator help me? brenda, just because somebody doesn't share your agenda doesn't make them a jerk.
dr.
woods was decorated for his work as a trauma surgeon during the first gulf war.
he pioneered the use of carotid stents.
dr.
sands has performed over 2,000 endoscopic procedures.
he's been recognized- thank you.
i get it.
the attending physicians are geniuses.
now, like chief johnson, i am committed to resolving this with the least inconvenience for all involved.
then end the criminal inquiry.
if ms.
langner continues to harbor doubts about her son's treatment, she has numerous civil remedies available to her.
we are asking for minimal cooperation.
and i am telling you that these doctors' records are protected, and they will remain confidential.
and let me give you a word of warning, sir, the legal principles at stake in this case are more important than you seem to imagine.
now, i urge you to think very carefully about what you do next.
martha, get me martin garnett, please.
thank you.
garnett's the deputy district attorney.
i'm gonna ask him to have the grand jury issue subpoenas for everything related to the langner case.
just to satisfy my own stupid, uninformed curiosity.
there's no reason to involve a grand jury.
i can arrange for the doctors to speak with you and for the hospital to turn over the video.
but the charts remain sealed.
that's better.
and how long will this take? i hope we don't need to make an appointment.
i'll be back in 2 hours.
excellent.
thank you.
thank you so much.
wow.
the motto is first do no harm? they should add, second, don't be so obnoxious.
you realize that by limiting the information they turn over, they're trying to guide our conclusions.
you're welcome, brenda.
thank you.
as you can see, there was already significant bleeding when i began the egd.
brenda: the egd? esophago-gastro duodenoscopy.
it's when the doctors slide the scope down the patient's throat to get a visualization of the upper gastro intestinal tract.
what causes this kind of bleeding? hematemesis.
vomiting blood.
it can be caused by gastritis, or in rare cases, mallory-weiss tears.
which are? burst blood vessels in the mucosa of the esophagus.
i did a year in medical school.
cauterization should reduce that bleeding, but 3 minutes into the procedure, the patient's blood pressure dropped to 60 over 30, and i began transfusing with o-negative.
and called for surgical back-up.
i arrived less than and performed an emergency laparotomy.
exploring the abdominal cavity for hemorrhage.
at 19:16, the patient coded.
at 19:19, i discovered a bleed in the left gastric artery.
as i began suturing this perforation, the patient flatlined.
had no meaningful heart function for 3 minutes.
despite closing this rupture, the patient's diastolic pressure never rose above repeated attempts to establish a normal sinus rhythm failed, and we pronounced the patient dead at 19:31.
thank you, buzz.
if you were to review your charts with our forensic pathologists, would they be entirely consistent with what you just told us? no.
no.
the charts would indicate something significant beyond that.
over the past 6 months, melissa langner brought her son to the e.
r.
repeatedly with complaints ranging from allergies to asthma to acute gastric distress.
the exact cause of these various ailments remains undetermined, but they share one common element.
they all could've been artificially induced.
and as you saw last night, melissa langner is emotionally unstable.
are you suggesting melissa langner deliberately made her son sick? i am.
and the treating physicians thought this might be a case of munchausen's by proxy and so listed it on the boy's charts.
doctors woods and sands were concerned that bringing these allegations to your attention would needlessly complicate a tragedy.
but if you're certain this is murder, then i'd consider melissa langner a serious suspect.
thank you so much for coming in on such a sad day.
do you have someone staying with you? no, but i-i'm managing.
thank you for fol- following through on this.
well, we are committed to discovering exactly what happened to nicholas.
i don't believe you've met lieutenant tao.
my condolences.
ms.
langner, this morning, dr.
woods and dr.
sands gave their statements, and they maintain your son died from severe internal bleeding.
despite dr.
woods having closed a perforation in the left gastric artery.
have you seen the charts yet? tao: we haven't, but we've been assured there's nothing in there that would contradict the video of your son's surgery.
i'm sorry to ask you questions on such a hard day, but, um we were also told that in recent months, nicky's made approximately a dozen trips to the e.
r.
is that true? nicky had always been a healthy kid.
and then his dad died last july, it was totally unexpected.
oh, my.
so nicky is the second family member you've lost in a year? that's so unfortunate.
after my husband died, i was almost suicidal.
i'm so sorry.
have you been talking to anyone about this? yes.
and with antidepressants, things improved, but nicky, suddenly, he was sick.
all the time.
it was like he picked up every germ.
the flu, the chicken pox.
yesterday, he was vomiting blood.
any idea what might have caused your son to throw up? there are a hundred different physical reasons.
or it could've been a lot of stress.
losing his dad, being in a new school.
was nicky being treated for anything that might have affected his motor coordination? no.
why? well, when we examined nicholas, he seemed to have several bruises.
was he bumping into objects or falling down a lot? how else do you think he might have sustained those injuries? are you suggesting i hurt nicky? we have to consider all the possibilities.
that isn't a possibility.
that is an insult.
my son was everything to me.
do you really believe i would have hit him? do you? maybe not hit him, but hurt him.
doctors have access to things that can make children sick, and you're a medical student.
well, thank you for your commitment to finding out what happened, ms.
johnson.
but i won't be needing your help anymore.
mrs.
langner.
we have to help.
whether you like it or not.
last 10 years, i've worked 3 cases of munchausen by proxy.
mothers are supposed to be making their kids sick to get sympathy for themselves.
it's bullshit.
really? and what about all the surveillance tapes of parents overdosing their kids and smothering them with pillows? hey, i'm not saying it never happens.
but every case i saw, there was always a sick kid, a pain in the ass mom, and a doctor who wanted them both to disappear.
easiest way to accomplish that is say the word munchausen.
ok, lieutenant flynn, we appreciate your perspective, but as you are our resident expert in munchausen's by proxy, please you want the profile? fine.
the fbi says that the vast majority of munchausen perpetrators are women.
have medical backgrounds, and most are under psychiatric treatment.
so far we're batting a thousand.
anything else? parent tends to keep their child from other adults and away from outside activities like playing with other kids.
do we know anything about nicholas langner's extended family? school, friends, anything? nicky attended robert hutchins academy.
it's an expensive private school, and the teacher said he's intelligent, hardworking, shy.
one last thing, chief.
when munchausen happens among medical people, it's to cause illness then save the kid to impress other doctors.
an added incentive for melissa langner.
the doctors treating her son were the same ones she'd have for medical rotations.
whatever happened to good old fashioned brown-nosing? except she didn't save the kid, did she? daniels: preliminary autopsy report.
nicholas langner died from massive internal bleeding.
dr.
crippen found 3 prescription drugs in his system all within acceptable levels, and none could've acted with that specificity on his gastric artery.
ok, lieutenant provenza, please get a warrant and search melissa langner's house.
keep a special eye out for any substances that might not have shown up in her son's blood work but could've made him sick.
lieutenant flynn, please keep looking for langner relatives.
sergeant gabriel, i think we ought to find out if nick langner played well with others.
what's the name of his school again? many of these kids haven't even lost a pet.
imagine trying to explain the death of a classmate.
my nicky was such a special little boy.
did you have much interaction with his mother? in 25 years of teaching, i've dealt with a lot of overprotective parents, but they pale in comparison to melissa langner.
what do you mean by that? well, for example, when nicky first arrived, he was placed with one of our younger instructors.
but ms.
langner reduced her to tears so often, with so many accusations of carelessness, that i moved him into my own class.
as we discussed, nicky hadn't been here very long, and he was shy.
tyler crosby wasn't just his best friend, he was his only friend.
i've gotten permission from tyler's mother to have him speak with you, but, of course, you will be sensitive to what he's going through.
absolutely, ma'am.
of course.
tyler? i'm brenda leigh johnson.
do you know why i'm here? nicky.
that's right.
we're here to talk about your friend.
it's hard when someone you care about passes away.
i'm sorry.
i didn't mean to.
i didn't.
i was only playing.
you didn't mean to what? i didn't mean to kill him.
i'm sorry.
please don't arrest me.
why-why do you think you killed him? his mom said not to wrestle.
he wanted to.
he came at me.
he made me.
what-what did you do? i turned him over and i held him down.
but he was laughing.
i didn't mean to hurt him.
please don't tell nicky's mom.
please, i'm afraid of her.
did nicky's mom threaten you? yeah.
yeah, she warned me.
she warned me not to hurt him.
oh langner's house has padding on every table corner and covers on all the electrical outlets.
i'm telling you, this is a mom who wanted to build a giant bubble around her kid.
all the medicine cabinets are full of vitamins.
not to mention of ipecac.
that induces vomiting.
you do that enough, and anybody's insides will start to bleed.
chief, i found melissa langner's in-laws in rancho palos verdes.
beverly and walter langner.
they're in your office, and they want to talk.
ok.
we were both horrified by nicky's death.
but not completely surprised.
this past year since our son died so unexpectedly, melissa's become increasingly well paranoid.
she refused to let us near nicky.
we had to sue her to get limited visitation with our own grandson.
it's so embarrassing.
what reasons did she give the judge for denying you visits? she claimed that nicky was too sick to spend time away from home.
and that my occasional cigar at dinner posed an unreasonable health risk.
if he was sickly, it was only because melissa made him that way.
but i don't blame her alone.
that boyfriend of hers played a part in this.
um, you didn't mention a boyfriend.
a couple of months after our son died, she took up with this guy she dated in high school.
jason higgins.
she never let us meet him, but the second that nicky told us about him, i had him checked out.
he has an ex, he owes alimony, he owes child support, and there's a restraining order against him, too.
years back, we set up a trust for our son.
and, uh after he died, it passed on to our grandson, and now that he's gone, too- that money it's $3 million today, goes to melissa, and if she marries him, this jason higgins.
according to langner's parents, higgins has anger issues, so we're gonna play good cop, bad cop.
you're not gonna make me be the good cop, are you? i don't think that's possible, lieutenant.
how bad do you want me to be? go for broke.
mr.
higgins, deputy chief brenda leigh johnson of the lapd.
i just can't believe he's dead.
i mean, the little guy got sick a lot, but i really thought he'd grow out of it.
i was the same way when i was his age.
yeah, and look at you now.
easy, lieutenant.
how would you describe melissa langner's behavior over the last several months? melissa and i have known each other since we were 15.
she's always been, i don't know, tightly wound.
and her husband goes and drops dead on his morning jog, i mean, that's enough to make anybody lose it a little bit.
do you believe melissa langner had lost it? you think melissa had something to do with nicky's death? no way.
oh, no.
melissa's whole life was about nicky.
she was totally obsessed with that kid.
and how's your financial situation, mr.
higgins? is this about my ex wife? 'cause i settled with her and i've made every payment since then.
i'll show you the cancelled checks if you want.
why, you got 'em on you? we understand your ex wife took out a restraining order on you.
yeah.
because she wouldn't tell me why she was leaving, and i got a little mad.
i sense that.
did you ever get mad like that with nick? no! do i look like the kind of guy who'd beat up on an 8-year-old kid? are we talking boy or girl? hey, screw you! well, if that's an offer, you might be a little friendlier about it.
lieutenant.
i asked you not to jump to conclusions.
it could be that mr.
higgins here had nothing to do with this crime.
when was the last time you saw nick langner? all of a sudden, i'm a suspect? i ain't seen nicky since last wednesday night when i broke up with melissa.
you broke up with melissa langner? why do you think i didn't know anything about what happened to nicky? i don't know, chief.
if this guy didn't want the kid but wanted the money, why break up with her? chief? this is something you should see.
geez, tao.
i'm starting to think you enjoy looking at this stuff.
these bruises are called purpura.
they can be caused spontaneously by some blood clotting disorders.
are you suggesting maybe nobody hit nicky at all? wouldn't a clotting disorder have been something that would've been diagnosed before surgery? or could this have been artificially induced as well? i won't know for sure unless i have dr.
crippen re-examine the body.
all right.
try and come back with a definite answer i can understand.
and print outs.
chief? pope's office just called.
he needs to see you right away.
oh chief johnson.
i don't know if you heard, but a couple of nights ago, a lady was strangled to death on laurel canyon.
an elderly woman living alone.
yeah.
right.
and last night, there was another homicide just around the corner.
could be the start of a spree, so you understand why this investigation has picked up greater urgency.
my detectives are already stretched a bit thin and since priority homicide isn't really doing much right now i appreciate the gravity of the situation, commander, but as it so happens, we are busy.
i'm close to resolving the nicholas langner investigation.
nicholas langner? the boy who died during surgery? yes, this past day has opened up new leads.
we are looking at a murder a night in the hollywood hills.
one more, and this jumps to the papers and all hell breaks loose.
look, i have kids.
and what happened to that boy is i can't even think about it.
it's every parent's worst nightmare.
is the mother suffering? of course.
does that make it murder? no.
is it a case for priority homicide? absolutely not.
i- it's not.
it just is not.
now, get your people to robbery/homicide as soon as possible.
if this is a spree killer, you could be taking over the case tonight.
ok, then.
thank you.
commander.
so we're just gonna let it go.
and we have to go to robbery/homicide.
this is complete crap.
we have momentum.
we're getting close to something here.
uh, chief? it's lieutenant tao.
he says it's urgent.
hold on a second.
chief johnson.
tao: chief.
we got a problem.
the morgue released nicholas langner's body.
all right.
well, get over to the funeral home before it gets cremated or embalmed.
well, that's the thing.
melissa langner didn't send the body to a funeral home.
she released it to her medical school.
ok.
thank you, lieutenant tao.
lieutenant flynn and provenza.
please report to robbery/homicide and give detective ross a hand.
ross, huh? yeah.
i'll give him a hand all right.
sawed off little runt.
i'll push him off the hollywood hills.
uh what about me, chief? yeah, you, too, sergeant gabriel.
but on your way there get the deputy d.
a.
to convene a grand jury to subpoena nicky langner's hospital records.
and also the doctor's schedules for last weekend, please.
thank you.
feel like driving, detective daniels? where are we going? robbery/homicide.
by way of southwest pacific university.
pardon me, ma'am? yes? can you tell me where the anatomy lab is? thank you.
oh my god.
mrs.
langner.
wait until you see this.
this is the subpoenaed paperwork for each of nicholas langner's please.
detective daniels and i have gone through all of them.
though the doctors said they'd be there, there is not a single notation on any of these charts indicating munchausen's by proxy.
so the reason howard pierce threw out that misdirect? see what time dr.
sands ordered the cbc and chem panel? uh-huh.
and look when he started the endoscopy.
now i've gone over these test results with forensics, cbc shows nicholas langner's platelet count at 5,000.
about 4 percent of what it would be in a healthy kid.
help me, lieutenant tao.
i have no idea what you're talking about.
it means he developed a clotting disorder.
he'd become sort of a hemophiliac.
so a doctor shoves a scope down his throat, makes a tear, and the kid bleeds to death.
how would he develop something like this? is it an illness? idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpora.
i'm not even gonna try and pronounce that.
also known as itp.
it was probably a temporary after effect of a viral infection like the chicken pox.
melissa langner said he contracted it a few months back.
and a platelet count that low would've caused spontaneous bruising.
so, in other words, maybe nobody hit him.
or maybe he wrestled when his mother told him not to.
all right, then.
thank y'all.
good job.
have you looked at my camcorder tape? not yet.
i will.
so, ms.
langner, i have to tell you, i have been a criminal investigator for almost 10 years.
and i had a very interesting life before that, but this afternoon, that was a first for me.
you have to look at the tape.
i know you still think i had something to do with nicky's death.
well, what am i supposed to think? your son contracts a series of unexplained illnesses, you intimidate his teacher, his 9-year-old friend, his grandparents, and then, on top of everything else, you perform an unsanctioned dissection of the boy you say you loved.
it was the only way to prove what i believed.
and what your coroner should've discovered.
woods told you he'd repaired the left gastric artery.
he lied.
don't believe me.
look at the tape.
i'm under the omentum.
and i have located the left gastric artery.
there there is the perforation.
there are only 2 stitches in a perforation which needed 8 to 10 for closure.
they never sealed the artery.
ok.
that's enough, buzz.
thank you.
can you play the hospital surgery footage now? can you magnify his hands? just give me one second.
what am i looking at? a man pretending to stitch while a little boy bleeds out.
thank you, buzz.
howard? i'm sorry, this has gone beyond the purview of the hospital.
i believe, at this point, you and dr.
woods would be better served by a lawyer.
excuse me, chief johnson.
if you gentlemen have seen enough, i'll have questions for you after i speak with deputy district attorney garnett here.
lieutenant tao, would you please escort doctors woods and sands into interview room 1 and read them their rights? thank you so much.
right this way, doctors.
you have the right to remain silent i'm a little lost.
what do you want me to do with these guys? uh, well, to start with, you could indict them for second degree murder or conspiracy to commit grievous bodily injury, negligent homicide? are you joking? dr.
woods didn't try to help that boy out at all.
he's clearly putting on a show for the camera.
or he's a surgeon with poor aim after 16 hours on his feet.
listen, before i can prosecute a crime, i need to establish a crime has been committed.
what you're describing so far- the mother's video indicates that he didn't do- oh, yeah.
the freak show amateur autopsy.
putting aside how the jury's gonna react to watching a mother dissect her own son, once the body was released by the morgue, it was outside of the chain of evidence.
that tape is completely inadmissible.
nick langner was an 8 year old boy who went into the er vomiting and came out dead.
and those men did that to him.
well, prove that's what they intended, and we'll talk.
sorry for the hold up.
we try not to keep people waiting so long.
i should tell you that i never speak without a lawyer present, so you'll understand if i respectfully decline to answer your questions.
you've both invoked your right to counsel which makes an interview impossible.
so i'll just have a theoretical discussion with lieutenant tao here.
i don't really have any questions anyway.
just some good news for one of you, and some very bad news for the other.
lieutenant tao, which should i give them first? i'm thinking they'd like to hear the good news.
ok.
dr.
sands, last sunday night, you killed a young boy due to acts of negligence and malpractice and then lied about it.
gosh.
now that i've said that out loud, the good news doesn't sound so great.
it gets better though.
nicholas langner was admitted to the er at 18:42.
at 18:48, dr.
sands ordered a cbc, chem panel, and coags.
coags were to measure how well nicky's blood would clot.
about how long do these tests take, lieutenant tao? at least 20 minutes.
and yet, dr.
sands, you began the endoscopy at 18:55, only 7 minutes later.
before you could've possibly seen the results of nicky's blood test.
which is a shame.
because those coags would've shown that nicky's platelets were extremely low, indicating a condition called lieutenant tao? idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.
itp.
actually, if you had looked him over at the er, you might have noticed nicky had itp simply by looking at the bruises on his torso.
i know how to diagnose itp.
oh, i'm sorry, are you speaking? have you revoked your right to counsel? no.
ok.
my guess is the reason you didn't notice the bruising was because you just finished a 24-hour shift.
if you hadn't had one foot out the door, you might have given nicholas plasma for clotting.
had a surgeon standing by and everything might have been fine.
instead, you rushed in to your endoscopy, and considering how tired you were, and how much blood was in nicky's stomach, it's not so surprising that you perforated the kid's gastric artery, is it? don't answer that, dr.
sands.
you don't speak without a lawyer.
well, the good news about all of this is that everything that we've just described is merely malpractice.
oh, your insurance premiums may go up, and you may have some bad publicity, but malpractice is not a criminal offense.
so you are free to go, dr.
sands.
unfortunately, dr.
woods, i can't say the same thing about you.
you are aware that melissa langner's videotape directly contradicts what you told us.
you did not repair nicky's gastric artery, though why, i have no idea.
it doesn't really matter.
the surgeon's report clearly states you sutured the artery closed.
you even billed for it, and that's your signature on the bottom.
it's quite legible, actually, considering what they say about doctor's handwriting.
anyway i'm sure you are aware that falsifying medical records for fraudulent purposes is a felony.
i think i see what she's trying to do, but if he speaks without a lawyer, nothing he says can be used in court.
she's trying to get him- where's everybody at? i thought you were going to see ross? what the- what is she doing in there? oh, my.
dr.
sands, you're still here.
i got so wrapped up in giving dr.
woods his bad news, that i completely forgot you were here.
run along now.
make sure to get your parking validated on the way out.
you're not going anywhere.
dr.
woods, i have to advise you not to speak without an attorney.
this is ridiculous.
i don't need an attorney.
i'm revoking my right to counsel.
it was his fault.
i never expected that you'd do anything but find the bleeding.
you knew the kid was hypoxic when he hit the table.
i had 3 minutes to find your mistake and that left me then what? the boy had no blood pumped to his brain for almost 4 minutes.
so he would've woke up paralyzed.
maybe blind.
mentally handicapped for the rest of his life.
at best.
you didn't know that.
ugh ok, ok.
let me see if i've got this straight, doctor.
mm-hmm? are you saying you could have repaired the artery, but knowing it would take another minute, you chose to let nicholas langner die rather than bring him back in less than pristine condition? no, no, no.
not less than pristine condition.
irreparably damaged.
but it's possible that he might have been fine, and you wouldn't have known that until you resuscitated him.
i had both my hands in that boy's abdomen with seconds, seconds to weigh the likely outcome, death, or severe disability.
not to mention, exposing your carelessness.
i never asked you to cover for me.
only because you lack the guts.
given the options, i was presented with, ms.
johnson, i made absolutely the right choice.
to kill nicholas langner? to let him die.
yes.
yes, i let him die because as it so happens, ms.
johnson, that's my job.
is it? i make more life and death decisions before 10 o'clock in the morning than most people make in a lifetime.
on the rare occasion that i can't save someone, i don't have time to weep and wail and point fingers because in the next room, there's another patient whose life is on the line.
i made the right choice with nicholas langner.
the only choice that made any sense.
and i'd do it again.
if you were so certain that you made the right choice, why did you try to blame nicky's mother for her son's death? you knew that munchausen's by proxy was not in any of that boy's charts.
did i not tell you to help robbery/homicide? what are you doing here? getting a physician to admit to manslaughter.
you heard him, mr.
garnett.
todd woods said he chose to let nick langner die.
no, that's not what i heard.
what i heard was a doctor say, in his opinion, he could not save that child's life.
and no jury is ever going to convict this man and no judge is ever gonna let it go to trial, and malpractice is not a crime, so at the risk of repeating myself, what do you want me to do? you tell me exactly what you want those doctors to say in order to try them for manslaughter and i will go back in there, and i will get them to say it.
i'm sorry, chief johnson.
i don't prosecute cases i know i can't win.
excuse me, fellows.
you're just like dr.
woods.
unless you're assured a perfect outcome, you walk away.
and you're just like this crazy mother here.
insisting we treat tragedy as murder.
so how about this, ma'am.
you pick your battles, i'll pick mine.
all right.
this case is officially over.
now.
how soon can you get your people to laurel canyon? lieutenant tao.
please report to robbery/homicide.
and detective daniels, if you could wait for me.
before i let these doctors go, i want to apologize to melissa langner for the world we live in.
excuse me.
brenda: ms.
langner.
i am so very sorry to have to tell you buzz, turn the volume down, please.
i can't listen to this.
melissa: what? sorry, daniels.
did you want to split it? oh, no, thanks, chief.
um look, detective.
i know you're upset, but we did everything we could.
we don't- punish.
we don't prosecute.
we just we just find out the truth.
it's around the corner.
drop your weapon! right now! drop your weapon.
right there.
drop it.
turn around! should be a much easier case for you to prosecute, ms.
johnson.
you know, i think dr.
woods thought he was god.
turns out he was wrong.
uh, the 911 caller said the south tower.
right.
which you get to from the central plaza on the third floor.
no.
you cross around the corner.
well, you know what? we'll just see who gets there first.
hey.
there's no reason for you to have called the police.
i called the police because no one can explain what happened to my son.
ms.
langner, please.
let me get you a grief counselor.
i don't need a grief counselor! i want those doctors arrested.
let's discuss this in my office.
detective daniels, lapd.
priority homicide.
help me.
they murdered my son.
ok, just take a breath.
take a breath.
ok? so, what's going on here? i brought my son nicky in for a simple endoscopy.
and now he's dead.
they killed him.
detective.
if i may.
there's no question that we've had a terrible tragedy here tonight.
but the presence of police it just seems to be inflaming the situation.
it might be best for everyone if you just went home.
i'm sorry.
you do not tell the lapd to go home.
detective, please.
don't overreact to this situation.
it is common to hear accusations like this from people who have lost children.
but i can assure you, the doctors took all heroic measures to save the boy's life.
i'd like to hear that from them.
dr.
woods and dr.
sands are unavailable.
since you refuse to cooperate, and i have reasonable suspicion regarding this attended death- reasonable suspicion? i am designating the o.
r.
a crime scene.
oh, for god's- no one touches the body.
nothing is disturbed or removed.
please secure the operating suite.
let's go.
sorry to pull you guys away from dinner.
the speeches were endless.
the food never came.
i was about to eat my napkin.
what's going on here? well, we have a problem.
the mother over here, melissa langner, her son nicky came in for a routine procedure.
are you in charge? talk to the lady.
deputy chief brenda leigh johnson.
i'll be with you in a minute, sir.
go on.
so, her son went through surgery to stop some minor gastric bleeding, there were some complications, he died, and now she's saying that he was murdered.
ok.
thank you, sergeant.
and you are? howard pierce.
administrative director of southwest pacific university hospital.
one of your people has shut down our operating room.
that was daniels' call before i got here.
ok.
i'd be happy to address your concerns as soon as i get more information.
one moment, please.
oh, excuse me.
this is the woman i was speaking of.
ms.
langner.
i'm deputy chief brenda leigh johnson of the lapd.
i'm sorry to press you at a time like this, but i need to know why you think your son was murdered.
nicky started throwing up around 6:15.
there was a little blood.
i'm a fourth year medical student.
i knew it probably wasn't anything too serious, but i didn't want to misdiagnose him so i brought him here so that they could scope him.
he was in major surgery.
he was dead.
that's a that is a terrible story, ms.
langner, but what makes you think it was a crime? because when i questioned dr.
woods, the vascular surgeon, about the cause of death, he kept changing his answer.
and after the third response, he just looked at the other doctor, the g.
i.
specialist and i saw it in their eyes.
they are covering something up.
ms.
langner- please help me.
please? ok.
i'll be right back.
i hope that we are acting on good solid suspicions and not just sympathy.
chief, i initiated this investigation because i was being actively obstructed.
oh could the bruises be from how he was handled during surgery? no.
i doubt it.
the yellowing suggests they happened much earlier.
is that a video camera? you should know as soon as your grieving mother went to the bathroom, those guys appeared.
they've been huddling.
looks like they're planning their next play.
and they are leaving.
i don't think they're a flight risk.
mr.
pierce, i believe we've gotten off on the wrong foot.
i'm confident that with your cooperation, we can resolve this issue right now.
i agree.
all i need is the surgery video, the boy's charts, and to have a short conversation with the physicians.
well, that's not going to happen.
excuse me? you want to resolve this quickly? let me help you.
there was no murder.
you need to turn that operating suite back over to us right now.
sergeant gabriel, please notify building operations that we'll be shutting down this floor.
nothing goes in or out without our permission.
nothing.
you can't do that! one more word out of you, and i will padlock this entire hospital and arrest you for interfering with a murder investigation.
we don't know there was malpractice.
much less a crime, much less murder.
so let's be clear about what's going on here.
you're launching a full-fledged investigation into a nationally respected hospital based on the hunch of a hysterical woman.
daniels and i both felt she might be telling the truth.
ok.
make that three hysterical women.
i know you don't want me to respond to that.
no.
what it looks like to me is a grieving mother desperate to pin the blame for her son's death on somebody.
ever consider she might be pinning it on those responsible? todd woods is one of the top vascular surgeons in the country.
what possible motive could he or this other doctor have for murdering an 8-year-old boy? well, then, if there's no issue, why won't this mr.
pierce, this jerk of a hospital administrator help me? brenda, just because somebody doesn't share your agenda doesn't make them a jerk.
dr.
woods was decorated for his work as a trauma surgeon during the first gulf war.
he pioneered the use of carotid stents.
dr.
sands has performed over 2,000 endoscopic procedures.
he's been recognized- thank you.
i get it.
the attending physicians are geniuses.
now, like chief johnson, i am committed to resolving this with the least inconvenience for all involved.
then end the criminal inquiry.
if ms.
langner continues to harbor doubts about her son's treatment, she has numerous civil remedies available to her.
we are asking for minimal cooperation.
and i am telling you that these doctors' records are protected, and they will remain confidential.
and let me give you a word of warning, sir, the legal principles at stake in this case are more important than you seem to imagine.
now, i urge you to think very carefully about what you do next.
martha, get me martin garnett, please.
thank you.
garnett's the deputy district attorney.
i'm gonna ask him to have the grand jury issue subpoenas for everything related to the langner case.
just to satisfy my own stupid, uninformed curiosity.
there's no reason to involve a grand jury.
i can arrange for the doctors to speak with you and for the hospital to turn over the video.
but the charts remain sealed.
that's better.
and how long will this take? i hope we don't need to make an appointment.
i'll be back in 2 hours.
excellent.
thank you.
thank you so much.
wow.
the motto is first do no harm? they should add, second, don't be so obnoxious.
you realize that by limiting the information they turn over, they're trying to guide our conclusions.
you're welcome, brenda.
thank you.
as you can see, there was already significant bleeding when i began the egd.
brenda: the egd? esophago-gastro duodenoscopy.
it's when the doctors slide the scope down the patient's throat to get a visualization of the upper gastro intestinal tract.
what causes this kind of bleeding? hematemesis.
vomiting blood.
it can be caused by gastritis, or in rare cases, mallory-weiss tears.
which are? burst blood vessels in the mucosa of the esophagus.
i did a year in medical school.
cauterization should reduce that bleeding, but 3 minutes into the procedure, the patient's blood pressure dropped to 60 over 30, and i began transfusing with o-negative.
and called for surgical back-up.
i arrived less than and performed an emergency laparotomy.
exploring the abdominal cavity for hemorrhage.
at 19:16, the patient coded.
at 19:19, i discovered a bleed in the left gastric artery.
as i began suturing this perforation, the patient flatlined.
had no meaningful heart function for 3 minutes.
despite closing this rupture, the patient's diastolic pressure never rose above repeated attempts to establish a normal sinus rhythm failed, and we pronounced the patient dead at 19:31.
thank you, buzz.
if you were to review your charts with our forensic pathologists, would they be entirely consistent with what you just told us? no.
no.
the charts would indicate something significant beyond that.
over the past 6 months, melissa langner brought her son to the e.
r.
repeatedly with complaints ranging from allergies to asthma to acute gastric distress.
the exact cause of these various ailments remains undetermined, but they share one common element.
they all could've been artificially induced.
and as you saw last night, melissa langner is emotionally unstable.
are you suggesting melissa langner deliberately made her son sick? i am.
and the treating physicians thought this might be a case of munchausen's by proxy and so listed it on the boy's charts.
doctors woods and sands were concerned that bringing these allegations to your attention would needlessly complicate a tragedy.
but if you're certain this is murder, then i'd consider melissa langner a serious suspect.
thank you so much for coming in on such a sad day.
do you have someone staying with you? no, but i-i'm managing.
thank you for fol- following through on this.
well, we are committed to discovering exactly what happened to nicholas.
i don't believe you've met lieutenant tao.
my condolences.
ms.
langner, this morning, dr.
woods and dr.
sands gave their statements, and they maintain your son died from severe internal bleeding.
despite dr.
woods having closed a perforation in the left gastric artery.
have you seen the charts yet? tao: we haven't, but we've been assured there's nothing in there that would contradict the video of your son's surgery.
i'm sorry to ask you questions on such a hard day, but, um we were also told that in recent months, nicky's made approximately a dozen trips to the e.
r.
is that true? nicky had always been a healthy kid.
and then his dad died last july, it was totally unexpected.
oh, my.
so nicky is the second family member you've lost in a year? that's so unfortunate.
after my husband died, i was almost suicidal.
i'm so sorry.
have you been talking to anyone about this? yes.
and with antidepressants, things improved, but nicky, suddenly, he was sick.
all the time.
it was like he picked up every germ.
the flu, the chicken pox.
yesterday, he was vomiting blood.
any idea what might have caused your son to throw up? there are a hundred different physical reasons.
or it could've been a lot of stress.
losing his dad, being in a new school.
was nicky being treated for anything that might have affected his motor coordination? no.
why? well, when we examined nicholas, he seemed to have several bruises.
was he bumping into objects or falling down a lot? how else do you think he might have sustained those injuries? are you suggesting i hurt nicky? we have to consider all the possibilities.
that isn't a possibility.
that is an insult.
my son was everything to me.
do you really believe i would have hit him? do you? maybe not hit him, but hurt him.
doctors have access to things that can make children sick, and you're a medical student.
well, thank you for your commitment to finding out what happened, ms.
johnson.
but i won't be needing your help anymore.
mrs.
langner.
we have to help.
whether you like it or not.
last 10 years, i've worked 3 cases of munchausen by proxy.
mothers are supposed to be making their kids sick to get sympathy for themselves.
it's bullshit.
really? and what about all the surveillance tapes of parents overdosing their kids and smothering them with pillows? hey, i'm not saying it never happens.
but every case i saw, there was always a sick kid, a pain in the ass mom, and a doctor who wanted them both to disappear.
easiest way to accomplish that is say the word munchausen.
ok, lieutenant flynn, we appreciate your perspective, but as you are our resident expert in munchausen's by proxy, please you want the profile? fine.
the fbi says that the vast majority of munchausen perpetrators are women.
have medical backgrounds, and most are under psychiatric treatment.
so far we're batting a thousand.
anything else? parent tends to keep their child from other adults and away from outside activities like playing with other kids.
do we know anything about nicholas langner's extended family? school, friends, anything? nicky attended robert hutchins academy.
it's an expensive private school, and the teacher said he's intelligent, hardworking, shy.
one last thing, chief.
when munchausen happens among medical people, it's to cause illness then save the kid to impress other doctors.
an added incentive for melissa langner.
the doctors treating her son were the same ones she'd have for medical rotations.
whatever happened to good old fashioned brown-nosing? except she didn't save the kid, did she? daniels: preliminary autopsy report.
nicholas langner died from massive internal bleeding.
dr.
crippen found 3 prescription drugs in his system all within acceptable levels, and none could've acted with that specificity on his gastric artery.
ok, lieutenant provenza, please get a warrant and search melissa langner's house.
keep a special eye out for any substances that might not have shown up in her son's blood work but could've made him sick.
lieutenant flynn, please keep looking for langner relatives.
sergeant gabriel, i think we ought to find out if nick langner played well with others.
what's the name of his school again? many of these kids haven't even lost a pet.
imagine trying to explain the death of a classmate.
my nicky was such a special little boy.
did you have much interaction with his mother? in 25 years of teaching, i've dealt with a lot of overprotective parents, but they pale in comparison to melissa langner.
what do you mean by that? well, for example, when nicky first arrived, he was placed with one of our younger instructors.
but ms.
langner reduced her to tears so often, with so many accusations of carelessness, that i moved him into my own class.
as we discussed, nicky hadn't been here very long, and he was shy.
tyler crosby wasn't just his best friend, he was his only friend.
i've gotten permission from tyler's mother to have him speak with you, but, of course, you will be sensitive to what he's going through.
absolutely, ma'am.
of course.
tyler? i'm brenda leigh johnson.
do you know why i'm here? nicky.
that's right.
we're here to talk about your friend.
it's hard when someone you care about passes away.
i'm sorry.
i didn't mean to.
i didn't.
i was only playing.
you didn't mean to what? i didn't mean to kill him.
i'm sorry.
please don't arrest me.
why-why do you think you killed him? his mom said not to wrestle.
he wanted to.
he came at me.
he made me.
what-what did you do? i turned him over and i held him down.
but he was laughing.
i didn't mean to hurt him.
please don't tell nicky's mom.
please, i'm afraid of her.
did nicky's mom threaten you? yeah.
yeah, she warned me.
she warned me not to hurt him.
oh langner's house has padding on every table corner and covers on all the electrical outlets.
i'm telling you, this is a mom who wanted to build a giant bubble around her kid.
all the medicine cabinets are full of vitamins.
not to mention of ipecac.
that induces vomiting.
you do that enough, and anybody's insides will start to bleed.
chief, i found melissa langner's in-laws in rancho palos verdes.
beverly and walter langner.
they're in your office, and they want to talk.
ok.
we were both horrified by nicky's death.
but not completely surprised.
this past year since our son died so unexpectedly, melissa's become increasingly well paranoid.
she refused to let us near nicky.
we had to sue her to get limited visitation with our own grandson.
it's so embarrassing.
what reasons did she give the judge for denying you visits? she claimed that nicky was too sick to spend time away from home.
and that my occasional cigar at dinner posed an unreasonable health risk.
if he was sickly, it was only because melissa made him that way.
but i don't blame her alone.
that boyfriend of hers played a part in this.
um, you didn't mention a boyfriend.
a couple of months after our son died, she took up with this guy she dated in high school.
jason higgins.
she never let us meet him, but the second that nicky told us about him, i had him checked out.
he has an ex, he owes alimony, he owes child support, and there's a restraining order against him, too.
years back, we set up a trust for our son.
and, uh after he died, it passed on to our grandson, and now that he's gone, too- that money it's $3 million today, goes to melissa, and if she marries him, this jason higgins.
according to langner's parents, higgins has anger issues, so we're gonna play good cop, bad cop.
you're not gonna make me be the good cop, are you? i don't think that's possible, lieutenant.
how bad do you want me to be? go for broke.
mr.
higgins, deputy chief brenda leigh johnson of the lapd.
i just can't believe he's dead.
i mean, the little guy got sick a lot, but i really thought he'd grow out of it.
i was the same way when i was his age.
yeah, and look at you now.
easy, lieutenant.
how would you describe melissa langner's behavior over the last several months? melissa and i have known each other since we were 15.
she's always been, i don't know, tightly wound.
and her husband goes and drops dead on his morning jog, i mean, that's enough to make anybody lose it a little bit.
do you believe melissa langner had lost it? you think melissa had something to do with nicky's death? no way.
oh, no.
melissa's whole life was about nicky.
she was totally obsessed with that kid.
and how's your financial situation, mr.
higgins? is this about my ex wife? 'cause i settled with her and i've made every payment since then.
i'll show you the cancelled checks if you want.
why, you got 'em on you? we understand your ex wife took out a restraining order on you.
yeah.
because she wouldn't tell me why she was leaving, and i got a little mad.
i sense that.
did you ever get mad like that with nick? no! do i look like the kind of guy who'd beat up on an 8-year-old kid? are we talking boy or girl? hey, screw you! well, if that's an offer, you might be a little friendlier about it.
lieutenant.
i asked you not to jump to conclusions.
it could be that mr.
higgins here had nothing to do with this crime.
when was the last time you saw nick langner? all of a sudden, i'm a suspect? i ain't seen nicky since last wednesday night when i broke up with melissa.
you broke up with melissa langner? why do you think i didn't know anything about what happened to nicky? i don't know, chief.
if this guy didn't want the kid but wanted the money, why break up with her? chief? this is something you should see.
geez, tao.
i'm starting to think you enjoy looking at this stuff.
these bruises are called purpura.
they can be caused spontaneously by some blood clotting disorders.
are you suggesting maybe nobody hit nicky at all? wouldn't a clotting disorder have been something that would've been diagnosed before surgery? or could this have been artificially induced as well? i won't know for sure unless i have dr.
crippen re-examine the body.
all right.
try and come back with a definite answer i can understand.
and print outs.
chief? pope's office just called.
he needs to see you right away.
oh chief johnson.
i don't know if you heard, but a couple of nights ago, a lady was strangled to death on laurel canyon.
an elderly woman living alone.
yeah.
right.
and last night, there was another homicide just around the corner.
could be the start of a spree, so you understand why this investigation has picked up greater urgency.
my detectives are already stretched a bit thin and since priority homicide isn't really doing much right now i appreciate the gravity of the situation, commander, but as it so happens, we are busy.
i'm close to resolving the nicholas langner investigation.
nicholas langner? the boy who died during surgery? yes, this past day has opened up new leads.
we are looking at a murder a night in the hollywood hills.
one more, and this jumps to the papers and all hell breaks loose.
look, i have kids.
and what happened to that boy is i can't even think about it.
it's every parent's worst nightmare.
is the mother suffering? of course.
does that make it murder? no.
is it a case for priority homicide? absolutely not.
i- it's not.
it just is not.
now, get your people to robbery/homicide as soon as possible.
if this is a spree killer, you could be taking over the case tonight.
ok, then.
thank you.
commander.
so we're just gonna let it go.
and we have to go to robbery/homicide.
this is complete crap.
we have momentum.
we're getting close to something here.
uh, chief? it's lieutenant tao.
he says it's urgent.
hold on a second.
chief johnson.
tao: chief.
we got a problem.
the morgue released nicholas langner's body.
all right.
well, get over to the funeral home before it gets cremated or embalmed.
well, that's the thing.
melissa langner didn't send the body to a funeral home.
she released it to her medical school.
ok.
thank you, lieutenant tao.
lieutenant flynn and provenza.
please report to robbery/homicide and give detective ross a hand.
ross, huh? yeah.
i'll give him a hand all right.
sawed off little runt.
i'll push him off the hollywood hills.
uh what about me, chief? yeah, you, too, sergeant gabriel.
but on your way there get the deputy d.
a.
to convene a grand jury to subpoena nicky langner's hospital records.
and also the doctor's schedules for last weekend, please.
thank you.
feel like driving, detective daniels? where are we going? robbery/homicide.
by way of southwest pacific university.
pardon me, ma'am? yes? can you tell me where the anatomy lab is? thank you.
oh my god.
mrs.
langner.
wait until you see this.
this is the subpoenaed paperwork for each of nicholas langner's please.
detective daniels and i have gone through all of them.
though the doctors said they'd be there, there is not a single notation on any of these charts indicating munchausen's by proxy.
so the reason howard pierce threw out that misdirect? see what time dr.
sands ordered the cbc and chem panel? uh-huh.
and look when he started the endoscopy.
now i've gone over these test results with forensics, cbc shows nicholas langner's platelet count at 5,000.
about 4 percent of what it would be in a healthy kid.
help me, lieutenant tao.
i have no idea what you're talking about.
it means he developed a clotting disorder.
he'd become sort of a hemophiliac.
so a doctor shoves a scope down his throat, makes a tear, and the kid bleeds to death.
how would he develop something like this? is it an illness? idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpora.
i'm not even gonna try and pronounce that.
also known as itp.
it was probably a temporary after effect of a viral infection like the chicken pox.
melissa langner said he contracted it a few months back.
and a platelet count that low would've caused spontaneous bruising.
so, in other words, maybe nobody hit him.
or maybe he wrestled when his mother told him not to.
all right, then.
thank y'all.
good job.
have you looked at my camcorder tape? not yet.
i will.
so, ms.
langner, i have to tell you, i have been a criminal investigator for almost 10 years.
and i had a very interesting life before that, but this afternoon, that was a first for me.
you have to look at the tape.
i know you still think i had something to do with nicky's death.
well, what am i supposed to think? your son contracts a series of unexplained illnesses, you intimidate his teacher, his 9-year-old friend, his grandparents, and then, on top of everything else, you perform an unsanctioned dissection of the boy you say you loved.
it was the only way to prove what i believed.
and what your coroner should've discovered.
woods told you he'd repaired the left gastric artery.
he lied.
don't believe me.
look at the tape.
i'm under the omentum.
and i have located the left gastric artery.
there there is the perforation.
there are only 2 stitches in a perforation which needed 8 to 10 for closure.
they never sealed the artery.
ok.
that's enough, buzz.
thank you.
can you play the hospital surgery footage now? can you magnify his hands? just give me one second.
what am i looking at? a man pretending to stitch while a little boy bleeds out.
thank you, buzz.
howard? i'm sorry, this has gone beyond the purview of the hospital.
i believe, at this point, you and dr.
woods would be better served by a lawyer.
excuse me, chief johnson.
if you gentlemen have seen enough, i'll have questions for you after i speak with deputy district attorney garnett here.
lieutenant tao, would you please escort doctors woods and sands into interview room 1 and read them their rights? thank you so much.
right this way, doctors.
you have the right to remain silent i'm a little lost.
what do you want me to do with these guys? uh, well, to start with, you could indict them for second degree murder or conspiracy to commit grievous bodily injury, negligent homicide? are you joking? dr.
woods didn't try to help that boy out at all.
he's clearly putting on a show for the camera.
or he's a surgeon with poor aim after 16 hours on his feet.
listen, before i can prosecute a crime, i need to establish a crime has been committed.
what you're describing so far- the mother's video indicates that he didn't do- oh, yeah.
the freak show amateur autopsy.
putting aside how the jury's gonna react to watching a mother dissect her own son, once the body was released by the morgue, it was outside of the chain of evidence.
that tape is completely inadmissible.
nick langner was an 8 year old boy who went into the er vomiting and came out dead.
and those men did that to him.
well, prove that's what they intended, and we'll talk.
sorry for the hold up.
we try not to keep people waiting so long.
i should tell you that i never speak without a lawyer present, so you'll understand if i respectfully decline to answer your questions.
you've both invoked your right to counsel which makes an interview impossible.
so i'll just have a theoretical discussion with lieutenant tao here.
i don't really have any questions anyway.
just some good news for one of you, and some very bad news for the other.
lieutenant tao, which should i give them first? i'm thinking they'd like to hear the good news.
ok.
dr.
sands, last sunday night, you killed a young boy due to acts of negligence and malpractice and then lied about it.
gosh.
now that i've said that out loud, the good news doesn't sound so great.
it gets better though.
nicholas langner was admitted to the er at 18:42.
at 18:48, dr.
sands ordered a cbc, chem panel, and coags.
coags were to measure how well nicky's blood would clot.
about how long do these tests take, lieutenant tao? at least 20 minutes.
and yet, dr.
sands, you began the endoscopy at 18:55, only 7 minutes later.
before you could've possibly seen the results of nicky's blood test.
which is a shame.
because those coags would've shown that nicky's platelets were extremely low, indicating a condition called lieutenant tao? idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.
itp.
actually, if you had looked him over at the er, you might have noticed nicky had itp simply by looking at the bruises on his torso.
i know how to diagnose itp.
oh, i'm sorry, are you speaking? have you revoked your right to counsel? no.
ok.
my guess is the reason you didn't notice the bruising was because you just finished a 24-hour shift.
if you hadn't had one foot out the door, you might have given nicholas plasma for clotting.
had a surgeon standing by and everything might have been fine.
instead, you rushed in to your endoscopy, and considering how tired you were, and how much blood was in nicky's stomach, it's not so surprising that you perforated the kid's gastric artery, is it? don't answer that, dr.
sands.
you don't speak without a lawyer.
well, the good news about all of this is that everything that we've just described is merely malpractice.
oh, your insurance premiums may go up, and you may have some bad publicity, but malpractice is not a criminal offense.
so you are free to go, dr.
sands.
unfortunately, dr.
woods, i can't say the same thing about you.
you are aware that melissa langner's videotape directly contradicts what you told us.
you did not repair nicky's gastric artery, though why, i have no idea.
it doesn't really matter.
the surgeon's report clearly states you sutured the artery closed.
you even billed for it, and that's your signature on the bottom.
it's quite legible, actually, considering what they say about doctor's handwriting.
anyway i'm sure you are aware that falsifying medical records for fraudulent purposes is a felony.
i think i see what she's trying to do, but if he speaks without a lawyer, nothing he says can be used in court.
she's trying to get him- where's everybody at? i thought you were going to see ross? what the- what is she doing in there? oh, my.
dr.
sands, you're still here.
i got so wrapped up in giving dr.
woods his bad news, that i completely forgot you were here.
run along now.
make sure to get your parking validated on the way out.
you're not going anywhere.
dr.
woods, i have to advise you not to speak without an attorney.
this is ridiculous.
i don't need an attorney.
i'm revoking my right to counsel.
it was his fault.
i never expected that you'd do anything but find the bleeding.
you knew the kid was hypoxic when he hit the table.
i had 3 minutes to find your mistake and that left me then what? the boy had no blood pumped to his brain for almost 4 minutes.
so he would've woke up paralyzed.
maybe blind.
mentally handicapped for the rest of his life.
at best.
you didn't know that.
ugh ok, ok.
let me see if i've got this straight, doctor.
mm-hmm? are you saying you could have repaired the artery, but knowing it would take another minute, you chose to let nicholas langner die rather than bring him back in less than pristine condition? no, no, no.
not less than pristine condition.
irreparably damaged.
but it's possible that he might have been fine, and you wouldn't have known that until you resuscitated him.
i had both my hands in that boy's abdomen with seconds, seconds to weigh the likely outcome, death, or severe disability.
not to mention, exposing your carelessness.
i never asked you to cover for me.
only because you lack the guts.
given the options, i was presented with, ms.
johnson, i made absolutely the right choice.
to kill nicholas langner? to let him die.
yes.
yes, i let him die because as it so happens, ms.
johnson, that's my job.
is it? i make more life and death decisions before 10 o'clock in the morning than most people make in a lifetime.
on the rare occasion that i can't save someone, i don't have time to weep and wail and point fingers because in the next room, there's another patient whose life is on the line.
i made the right choice with nicholas langner.
the only choice that made any sense.
and i'd do it again.
if you were so certain that you made the right choice, why did you try to blame nicky's mother for her son's death? you knew that munchausen's by proxy was not in any of that boy's charts.
did i not tell you to help robbery/homicide? what are you doing here? getting a physician to admit to manslaughter.
you heard him, mr.
garnett.
todd woods said he chose to let nick langner die.
no, that's not what i heard.
what i heard was a doctor say, in his opinion, he could not save that child's life.
and no jury is ever going to convict this man and no judge is ever gonna let it go to trial, and malpractice is not a crime, so at the risk of repeating myself, what do you want me to do? you tell me exactly what you want those doctors to say in order to try them for manslaughter and i will go back in there, and i will get them to say it.
i'm sorry, chief johnson.
i don't prosecute cases i know i can't win.
excuse me, fellows.
you're just like dr.
woods.
unless you're assured a perfect outcome, you walk away.
and you're just like this crazy mother here.
insisting we treat tragedy as murder.
so how about this, ma'am.
you pick your battles, i'll pick mine.
all right.
this case is officially over.
now.
how soon can you get your people to laurel canyon? lieutenant tao.
please report to robbery/homicide.
and detective daniels, if you could wait for me.
before i let these doctors go, i want to apologize to melissa langner for the world we live in.
excuse me.
brenda: ms.
langner.
i am so very sorry to have to tell you buzz, turn the volume down, please.
i can't listen to this.
melissa: what? sorry, daniels.
did you want to split it? oh, no, thanks, chief.
um look, detective.
i know you're upset, but we did everything we could.
we don't- punish.
we don't prosecute.
we just we just find out the truth.
it's around the corner.
drop your weapon! right now! drop your weapon.
right there.
drop it.
turn around! should be a much easier case for you to prosecute, ms.
johnson.
you know, i think dr.
woods thought he was god.
turns out he was wrong.