Law & Order Special Victims Unit s04e24 Episode Script
Perfect
In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous.
In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit.
These are their stories.
He robbed me.
Guy came in to rob me.
Take it easy, take it easy.
Did you see where he went? Cops chased him into the alley.
Get back inside! Get down! Police! Drop it or you're dead.
Now! Bailey! Taylor! Where are you guys? Over here! We got him.
Two-two-Henry.
Slow everyone down.
We got one under.
Anyone hit? Just this mutt.
Winged him in the arm.
Bus is on the way.
Here's his piece.
Hey, guys, you better check this out.
What? Oh, man.
She's dead.
Police, coming through.
Thank you.
Hey.
Kind of strange, Cragen calling us in on an officer-involved shooting.
Maybe not.
Look who's over there.
Swell.
Stabler, Benson, thanks for coming.
Yeah.
It's the middle of the night.
I hope you're not jerking us around.
I'm not.
I've got a black female teenager, sleeping on the streets.
We think she's a runaway, then somebody worked her over.
Burn marks, both arms.
Braids, ribbon in her hair, covered by a pretty decent blanket.
Yeah, and a big hole in her head.
Not your average homeless kid.
Maybe not, but she's an abuse victim.
We think the perp shot her.
No, you think the cops accidentally shot her, and you're trying to pull us into your own mess by calling it an SVU case.
This girl was tortured and we have no idea who she is.
You want her parents to see her face in the morning news? That's your problem, not ours.
Come on, SVU knows how to protect victims and deal with families.
You mean you want us to keep this under wraps.
We want this to look clean from the beginning.
So I'm asking for a favor.
All the times that you people at IAB jammed us up and now you want to play nice? You've got a set of balls on you asking us for anything.
If we find out that a cop shot that girl, you expect us to keep it quiet? I expect you to do your job.
However this turns out, it turns out.
You don't want to do it for me, fine.
Do it for her.
Found seven slugs, all of them too badly damaged for any microscopic work.
Shell casings? Had better luck there.
Matched them to each weapon.
Well, they were all carrying nines, so the casings would have gone about 10 feet to the right and a little to the rear.
So we know approximately where each person fired from.
Number one is Officer Bailey, two is the perp and Officer Taylor is number three.
The bullet passed through this steel drum before hitting the victim, making a trajectory through two fixed points.
The ballistic alignment laser will tell us for sure who shot her.
They all fired on the run, so it could have been any one of them.
And there's our bullet path.
Hal, you be Officer Taylor.
Benson, you take Bailey.
Stabler, you're the perp.
We'll see where the laser lands.
El, it's on you.
The perp fired the shot that killed the girl.
Only problem is, your Jane Doe was already dead when the perp shot her.
That son-of-a-bitch lucked out.
The cops at the scene said she was still warm.
So did my assistants.
But by the time they got her back here, her lower extremities were already stiff.
She was going into rigor.
Well, she had to be dead four or five hours before the shooting, then.
That's about right.
Do you know what killed her? Hopefully we'll find out when I open her up.
But she was filthy, like she hadn't bathed in weeks.
I have her personal effects to put into evidence.
Anything good? Just some cheap clothes from one of your better discount stores.
And this necklace.
That's an infinity symbol on a chain.
What's up with these burns? That's what they look like, but they're actually cockroach bites.
Well, if she was homeless, she could have gotten them from living on the street or after she died.
Except the bites wouldn't swell if she was dead.
And the roaches wouldn't bite unless she was immobile.
You're thinking she was restrained? Or so sick she couldn't move.
It sounds like this girl was held captive in a very unpleasant place.
And then dumped at the scene.
Lab checked the ground where the girl was found.
No evidence of any bodily fluids.
So, if she was already dead, the new blanket is a care-giving gesture.
The same reason as the hair ribbons.
Whoever left her there loved her.
We've got an ID.
And you're not gonna believe it.
Who is she? Samantha Tassler.
The girl who disappeared from Philly? Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, to be exact.
Less than eight months ago.
Didn't we spend, like, two weeks last year searching for her? Maybe three.
Are they sure it's her? Cops there say our photo matches theirs.
The parents are coming in tonight.
Her friend's older brother was supposed to drive her home.
We called when it got late and Samantha hadn't come back yet.
That's when we find out she never got there.
We have some of Samantha's personal effects when she was found.
It would help us if you could take a look at them.
Are you up for that? I ain't never seen this.
I don't recognize this necklace, either.
Sharon, did you buy this for Samantha? No.
Are you sure that she didn't have this one when she was home? Positive.
You found her on the street.
I'm surprised she still had this necklace.
It's solid platinum.
It's probably worth close to a grand.
The girl's wearing dime store clothes and living on the street.
It doesn't make sense she wouldn't have sold this for food money.
You have any idea where this came from? You're not going to find it in a case at Tiffany's or any other mainstream retailer.
Here, have a look.
I don't notice anything unusual about it.
The X-ray fluorescence test did.
It's coated in rhodium to make it shine instead of the regular polishing and finishing.
That hasn't been popular in this country in decades.
So? So, it's definitely handmade.
And there are three tiny initials engraved on the back.
I just put it in our database.
What are you checking? Every jeweler in the Tri-State who makes his own jewelry with the three initials RSC.
Any hits? Yeah, here we go.
Ross St.
Clair.
Got a little shop down in the Village.
No, I don't remember her.
I don't get a lot of teenagers in my store.
My jewelry's too expensive.
What about this? How much does something like this run you? Eight hundred bucks.
It's custom-made.
Something happen to her? Actually, she's dead.
Geez.
And she was wearing my Infinity? That's why we're here.
Who'd you make it for? Garret Lang.
Who's he? Regular customer.
He sent his assistant over with a drawing.
Come on.
You know, I usually make my own stuff, but this guy, he orders a hundred of them.
Gave me 80 grand up front.
Where can we find this Lang? He left me a stack of business cards to hand out to my better-paying customers.
It's the symbol of eternal life.
I give the necklace to all my patients.
At $800 a piece, that's an expensive gift.
What exactly do you treat them for? You're what, early 40s, right, Detective? Late 30s, why? Do you ever feel that your stamina's declining? That you don't have the energy you used to or that you've lost your edge? No, but let's say that I was.
Well, then, I would put you on a course of human growth hormone and testosterone therapy.
I guarantee you'd be a new man in the squad room, not to mention the bedroom.
But you didn't come here to hear me pontificate.
How can I help you? You ever seen her? I don't think so.
Well, are you sure that she's not one of your patients? Human growth hormone is used to treat children of short stature, Detectives, but that's not what I do here and I don't treat children.
Well, what about Dr.
Foy? There is no Dr.
Foy.
It stands for Fountain of Youth.
Why would you think that I would know your victim? Well, because when she was found, your infinity symbol was hanging around her neck.
My God.
What happened? That's what we're trying to find out.
My patients who wear the necklace tell me that people often ask them where they can get one.
Any chance we can get a list of those patients? Detectives, you know that it would be unethical as well as illegal for me to give you that information.
Lang's summa cum laude from Stanford, MD and PhD from Yale, residency in OBGIGYN with a fellowship in infertility and reproductive endocrinology.
That's big credentials to be running some feel-good clinic.
He was one of the top researchers in his field until he left academia to open up shop.
Guy's had lots of magazine articles written about him.
Claims hormones can reverse the aging process.
The guy's a chick magnet for the society set.
Sounds like the lunatic fringe of medicine.
Well, it makes you feel good.
What's wrong with that? That's the same excuse people use to get high.
The doc's nothing more than a dealer with a license.
What he's doing is perfectly legal.
Don't tell me you're thinking about taking this stuff? I've considered it.
And why shouldn't I add some lean muscle to what you so lovingly call "my bony ass"? You can hit a gym when we close this case.
Otherwise, everybody, focus.
I mean, what's Lang looking for in a 14-year-old girl? If he's a pedophile, maybe his own fountain of youth.
Well, there's nothing other than that infinity necklace to tie him to Samantha.
And there's no way to prove that she didn't get it from one of his patients.
And we can't find out who they are.
What about the autopsy? It's backlogged.
Internal exam's not done yet.
Well, then, wait at the M.
E.
's office until it is.
I found traces of facial tissue and dried saliva on her right cheek, which we're testing for DNA.
So it sounds like somebody was with her before she died.
Can we rule this a homicide yet? I need more information.
But I can tell you that Samantha died of a blood clot to her left lung.
Caused by? Severe dehydration.
I'd say she was deprived of fluids for between five and 10 days.
Turned her blood to sludge.
Well, it supports the theory that somebody locked her away.
That's probably where she got those cockroach bites.
That makes sense.
What I found when I examined her reproductive organs doesn't.
How so? When a woman goes through her menstrual cycle, one, maybe two eggs are released, leaving the follicles where the eggs came from empty.
And something was wrong with Samantha's ovaries? She had 12 visibly involuted follicles.
That means 12 eggs all released at the same time.
I've never seen that in a 14-year-old.
But I thought women were most fertile in their teenage years.
Usually this only happens when the ovaries are hyperstimulated by hormones, like, for in vitro fertilization.
So, assuming that she even wanted to, why does a 14-year-old girl need help getting pregnant? I don't know.
But whatever the reason, it worked.
Samantha was carrying an eight-week-old fetus.
You can't prove Samantha Tassler even knew Garret Lang.
She was wearing his necklace.
A trinket she could have gotten anywhere does not help me.
The guy's an infertility specialist, he's a big wheel in hormone research.
Now, can you think of a better candidate to help Samantha get pregnant? I wouldn't want to argue that in court.
Alex, we know that it's circumstantial, but this guy had to have something to do with Samantha's death.
I cannot get an arrest warrant based on supposition.
You have to find me a direct link.
So give us something that we can work with, subpoenas for his financials, phone records and a patient list.
No judge is going to give us a look at a doctor's patient list.
But the rest is doable.
I can also get you a look at his IRS records.
This guy doesn't have one phone listed in his own name.
All under the corporation, Infinity Partners.
This is gonna take a week to trace who made all these calls to and from his clinic.
That voodoo medicine he practices pays big bucks.
Between his personal and corporate accounts, he's got almost five mil cash.
His real estate holdings are worth at least five times that.
He owns his building and three brownstones and get this, he's applying for tax-exempt status on one of them.
Let me see that.
What's he claiming? Charitable organization.
"Foundation for Knowledge Expansion.
" Application says it's a non-profit educational enrichment program for young women at risk.
Where? Chelsea.
I wonder if he's enriching these girls like he did Samantha.
There's three more girls.
They don't look like your typical street kids at risk.
That makes four going in so far.
And there's another one.
Just like all the others.
I've seen that girl before.
Her face look familiar to you? Yeah.
That girl from the posters on the Upper East Side.
You shorten her hair and you change it back to dark brown, that's Jessica Morse.
Disappeared about the same time as Samantha, presumed kidnapped.
What the hell did we step into? Can I help you? Police department.
I I didn't call the police.
Where's Jessica Morse? I don't know who you're talking about.
She just walked in here.
Step aside.
Excuse me, please! You can't do this.
You have no right to do this.
We have every right.
This is a girl who's been missing since last year.
Elliot.
What is this? This is my school.
I am a licensed teacher.
These are my students.
How did they get here? I find them on the streets.
We run a foundation.
For knowledge expansion.
Yeah, we know all about that.
Who are you? I'm Paula Haggerty.
We give them a safe place to live, we give them food, we give them education.
And these kids are going back to their parents.
Mrs.
Haggerty, you're under arrest.
Is this really necessary? Oh, that's a nice tattoo you have here on your left wrist.
An infinity symbol.
For infinite potential.
I would like to call a lawyer, please.
You can do that at our precinct.
Can I talk to you a minute? Why? "Why"? Because you look a lot like a girl who disappeared last year.
I'm not who you think I am.
Jessica, your family wants you back.
My name is Marjorie and this is my family.
My client should be lauded for what she's done, not arrested.
Your client kept five 14-year-olds whose parents reported them as kidnapped or runaways.
I was just trying to help them.
They left home because their parents mistreated them.
And you know this how? Mrs.
Haggerty has a master's in child psychology.
Well, then, she understands that just because a teenager disagrees with her parents doesn't mean the parents did something wrong.
Who pays your salary, Mrs.
Haggerty? The foundation's board of directors.
The funds come from charitable contributions.
Well, Dr.
Garrett Lang owns the building.
So he on the board, too? No.
He started the foundation and provided the initial endowment.
But he has no other dealings with the foundation or the employees or clients.
Was she one of your clients, Mrs.
Haggerty? I never saw this girl before.
I'd like to know what charges, if any, are forthcoming? Let's start with kidnapping.
Can I get you something to eat or drink? I'm not hungry.
When can I go? Your parents are coming here to get you.
Jessica, they've missed you very much.
They can't wait to see you.
I've told you, my name is not Jessica.
It's Marjorie Maddox.
Jessica, we both know this is a picture of you.
When I talked to your mom, she said you'd missed your birthday.
Your family can't wait for you to come home, they want to celebrate it with you.
You cannot believe how sad they were.
They thought you were never gonna come home.
Okay.
Hey, Jessica.
Come on, it's gonna be okay.
No, it's not.
Mrs.
Haggerty's going to be so worried about me.
I have to go back to her.
You're 14 years old.
You belong with your parents.
I belong with Mrs.
Haggerty.
Can't you see that? I know everybody thinks that I was kidnapped.
But I ran away.
You did? Why? Because my parents Oh, they didn't understand me.
Mrs.
Haggerty does? Yes.
She saved my life.
She did? How'd she do that? She took me in off the street.
She feeds us, teaches us What does she teach you? Stuff we should learn in school.
And that all the girls should respect themselves and each other.
This is Samantha Tassler.
Is she one of the girls? No.
The other four girls are from Denver, Chicago, Omaha and Detroit.
All high-profile cases because they all come from wealthy or upper middle class families.
How did they react to being found? Oh, the same as Jessica.
They all denied their real names, they said they'd run away and that they weren't kidnapped and they all want to know when they can go back to Mrs.
Haggerty.
Is this Stockholm Syndrome? More than that.
These girls haven't just formed a bond with this Mrs.
Haggerty.
Their total devotion to her feels like they've been brainwashed.
So this is some kind of cult.
It explains why they were all wearing the infinity symbol.
And why they're all sticking to the same story.
Well, unless one of them starts talking, the best we can get Haggerty on is custodial interference for not returning the kids to their parents.
That's just a misdemeanor.
We can't even hold her.
What about Lang? Right now, he's untouchable.
If this is a cult, then maybe Samantha was being punished for misbehaving or wanting to leave.
Cults often re-educate their members by locking them up without food or water.
Which is how the M.
E.
Said that she died.
That's depraved indifference murder.
Including Samantha, we've only found five girls.
Maybe they're holding more somewhere else.
Like at the foundation's brownstone.
What the hell? This place was completely furnished when we found the girls.
I'll check upstairs.
They took every damn thing.
We need every piece of dirt off the floor in every room.
Any reasonable surface gets dusted for prints.
Second floor is empty.
This place has been sanitized.
Like no one was ever here.
Neighbors say three trucks pulled up, emptied the place out in two hours.
Somebody had to tip them off.
The call couldn't have come from any of the girls.
We made sure none of them got near a phone.
Well, it had to be Haggerty or her lawyer.
That's obstruction of justice.
You think she'd risk her law license? We'll ask her as soon as we're done processing the girls.
Already done.
ACS picked up the four from out of town, took them to the shelter waiting for their parents to arrive.
What about Jessica? Her folks just got here.
She looks real happy to see them.
This is a cult we're dealing with.
If we're gonna see Haggerty's lawyer, I want Huang along for the ride.
You can't come barging in.
I'm with clients.
I'll handle this, Joan.
Detectives Benson and Stabler.
And you are? FBI.
George Huang.
Can we help you? Who cleaned out your foundation's brownstone? How would we know? Oh, come on.
Somebody gave the order.
Now, it was either you or your attorney.
Are you accusing me of a crime? Well, I'd like you to explain why Dr.
Lang and Mrs.
Haggerty both have the same lawyer.
I had called Miss Quentin after you arrested Paula.
You've made a terrible mistake.
Do you know how much she's helped runaways? You mean after she kidnaps them? You're wrong, Detective.
And what about Samantha Tassler undergoing in vitro fertilization, which you happen to perform? Are we wrong about that, too? Any OBIGYN who's a fertility specialist could have done that.
Yeah, but she and the other girls weren't wearing any other fertility specialist's infinity necklace.
And you've got Miss Haggerty here who's got that symbol tattooed on her wrist.
Any questions from the FBI, Agent Huang? You enjoy this, don't you, Dr.
Lang? I enjoy helping those girls thrive and realize their full potential.
Because of you people, we may have to close down the foundation.
Joan? Unless you're going to arrest me or either of my clients, we're through.
Or my next call is to the Internal Affairs Bureau for harassment.
He's a narcissistic bastard and he's calling all the shots.
You saw the way his lawyer deferred to him.
I can understand a 14-year-old being taken in by Lang, but not a smart, educated woman like Quentin.
Jim Jones got hundreds of his disciples to drink poisoned Kool-Aid because he had a charismatic personality.
Lang uses his to get people like Quentin and Haggerty to love and obey him.
Those teenage girls couldn't be more vulnerable.
They're not that attractive.
Probably got bad grades in school.
They're just social outcasts.
So this cult is a place for them to fit in.
And inundate them with approval and affection.
It's called love bombing.
"You're perfect the way you are.
" Right, which is what every teenage girl wants to hear.
And Haggerty as a substitute mother is a perfect person to tell them that.
There's no way these girls got to her by accident.
No.
They were targeted.
We've got to find out how.
First you said Samantha was homeless and now you think she was murdered? We're not sure exactly, Mr.
Tassler.
That's what we're investigating.
It's possible that Samantha was starved to death and left in the alley.
Oh, my God.
We can still take her home for the funeral, can't we? Yes, you can.
But we need to know, at the time of Samantha's disappearance, were there any changes in her routine, different people she was hanging out with, friends? She only had a few friends, two or three girls.
They were a bad influence.
How so? They drank and smoked and got Samantha to do it, too.
Her grades started to drop but we couldn't get her to care.
We even enrolled her in one of those remedial tutoring centers.
You know, the kind with private instruction.
Help kids realize their full potential.
What did you just say? Help kids realize their full potential.
It was in the brochure.
What's the name of that center? You know this girl? No.
Never saw her before.
Now why are you here? She attended this center right before she disappeared last year.
Just like this girl who vanished right outside of Philly.
I don't like your insinuation, Detective.
I don't like liars, Miss Kinderski.
Well, now, if you're going to be rude, this conversation is ended.
What are you doing? Nice tattoo.
An infinity symbol.
Yes.
We believe in the infinite potential of our students to succeed.
Is that a crime? It is if Garret Lang paid for it.
Garret Lang? Yeah.
I bet if we pull your certificate of incorporation, his name's on it.
Doctor Lang is a forward-thinking, generous man who wants to help young people further their knowledge.
He's just an investor.
Sure, he is.
And you're just a teacher, right? Kinderski lawyered up.
Quentin's not letting her talk.
Yeah, but we found the connection.
All six girls, Samantha and Jessica included, attended a Knowledge Builders Center in their city.
Lang's at the top of the pyramid.
Quentin keeps him out of trouble, Haggerty keeps the girls in line and Kinderski recruits them from the learning centers.
I wouldn't be surprised if the initial test they give includes personality questions to identify the most susceptible girls.
We checked Kinderski's credit card statements.
She was in Philadelphia, Detroit, Omaha, Chicago and Denver three days before each of the girls disappeared.
Which leaves us with another coincidence but no smoking gun.
Well, the other girls have all gone home.
Means we're gonna have to get Jessica to talk.
Pretty tough coming home, isn't it? I guess.
Mrs.
Haggerty, she was good to you, wasn't she, at the foundation? Yeah.
I really miss her.
I bet you do.
You want to talk about it? You think she did something bad.
Hey, maybe I'm wrong.
If that's the case, I'd like to know about it.
Mrs.
Haggerty is the most wonderful person I ever met.
She and the other girls accepted me for who I am, and not who they thought I should be.
That's nice.
And how about Dr.
Lang? Am I wrong about him? He is a great man.
He's going to save the world.
Yeah? How's he gonna do that? Well, the ozone layer is disappearing.
Yeah.
And the ultraviolet rays will make everybody sterile.
So the only way our species will survive is by cloning living cells.
Jessica, are you pregnant? Yes.
He chose me to be one of the mothers of the future.
So he told you that you were carrying a cloned baby? To help a couple whose baby died.
I'm going to bring their child back to life.
Did Dr.
Lang have sex with you? No.
He'd never do such a horrible thing.
He took the baby's cells and put them in my eggs and then put the eggs back in me.
Where'd he do this? This is Lang's little shop of horrors.
I'm no expert, but this equipment looks like it cost millions.
Check this out.
Dr.
Frankenstein's doing his experiments.
Let's get a bus.
Elliot, put this on.
If my patient gets an infection because you've contaminated my sterile field, she could die.
Okay.
Is she cut open? No.
Of course not.
Then wake her up, safely.
You don't understand, do you? I'm going to make medical history here.
Not by using teenage girls as guinea pigs, you're not.
Wake her up.
You're under arrest.
So how many more girls do you have stashed away? Dr.
Lang has assured me Look, there are no more.
You endangered my patient's life when you entered my operating room.
We stopped you from experimenting on her.
All of those girls consented.
You have no idea how you've harmed our cause.
Oh, we've been through your records, Doctor.
Your "cause" is preying on the grief of parents who have lost a child by promising them a cloned baby in return for a donation.
We've got one here for half a million dollars.
Now I call that fraud.
I call it hope.
You can't prove Dr.
Lang intended to defraud anyone.
I believe that it is possible to clone a human being.
Well, that's now illegal in this country.
Well, it won't be once we start dying off.
So, we as a species are on our way out and cloning is our only chance at survival.
Is that it? Not just survival, Detective.
I'm talking about immortality.
And you use this idiotic crap to coerce girls into being human incubators.
Stabler, that's Irish Catholic, right? Hey, pal, this ain't about me, it's about you.
You believe a virgin gave birth.
You think that was a very popular theory in Jesus' time? What I believe has got nothing to do with your case.
Doesn't it? Heretics were burned at the stake for saying that the world is round.
Darwin was vilified for even suggesting that humans evolved from the primordial ooze.
Yet science and reason proved him right.
So you're saying that you're the new Darwin? Or maybe even the Messiah? I wouldn't take it that far.
What exactly is my client charged with? Fraud and aggravated sexual abuse.
You don't really think that either of those will stand up in court, do you? He's right.
We can't charge him.
Alex, he deceived those desperate parents and inseminated minors.
It's not fraud because there's no intent.
It's not rape because there's no penetration.
And if we arrest him for aggravated sex abuse, he'll argue that the contact was for a valid medical reason.
My ass.
What Lang is doing in the name of science is no different from what Mengele did for the Nazis.
Except these girls consented to the procedures.
They're not old enough to consent.
They are when it comes to reproductive rights.
They don't need permission to get pregnant, no matter how they do it.
So that's it? We can't touch him? Not unless we can prove he is in some way connected to Samantha Tassler's death.
I'm ruling this a homicide.
The DNA results are back.
The saliva on Samantha's cheek belongs to Paula Haggerty.
Saliva and facial tissue.
It's like a mother wiping her child's face, the brushing of the hair, the wrapping in the blanket Now what about Samantha's fetus? I mean, you're not going to tell us that that's the clone of some family's dead child, are you? Until someone proves otherwise, that's science fiction.
The cloned fetus would only have DNA from that child.
Samantha's had DNA from herself and a father.
So this whole cloning thing is a scam.
Samantha's eggs were fertilized by someone's sperm.
And I wonder who's that could be? We'll need DNA from Lang to prove it's his child.
Well, Cabot got us a blood order for Haggerty.
It shouldn't be a problem getting one for Lang.
So, if Samantha's baby was Lang's, and she found out, that sure would give Lang a motive to kill her.
And if Lang fathered Samantha's baby, who do you think fathered Jessica's? My parents want me to give the baby up for adoption.
They took you to test your baby's DNA.
Do you know why? To make sure that it's okay.
Mmm-hmm.
And to find out who the father is.
Dr.
Lang says my baby doesn't have a father.
Has he ever lied to you? No.
Why are you asking me this? Because the DNA from your baby tells us that it does have a father.
That's impossible.
Dr.
Lang told me that it was a cloned child.
We tested Dr.
Lang.
He's the father of your baby.
No! Yeah.
That's the truth and I'm sorry about it.
No, I believe in him.
I love him.
He fertilized your egg with his own sperm.
He did the same thing to Samantha.
I I was helping a couple whose baby died.
He lied to them, too.
Jessica, they gave him a lot of money No, please don't! He betrayed them.
He betrayed you, he betrayed Samantha, and then he killed her.
No.
It's my fault she's dead.
What do you mean it's your fault? Samantha said that Dr.
Lang was a fake, and that she was going to report him to the police.
And I told Mrs.
Haggerty.
What did Mrs.
Haggerty say to you when you told her that? That Samantha had to be reasoned with.
And then one day, right in front of all of us, she took Samantha away.
Jessica, could you please describe the room where Mrs.
Haggerty took Samantha Tassler? It was empty.
No chair, no bed, no toilet.
Just four walls, a floor and a bucket.
When was the next time you saw Samantha? Never.
I didn't even know she was dead until a week ago when the police took us away.
Thank you, Jessica.
Nothing further.
Was there a lock on the door to the room? I don't know.
So for all we know, Samantha could have been free to leave at any time.
Objection.
Sustained.
Did you believe that Dr.
Lang could clone a baby? Yes.
Did you believe that the human race would become extinct unless he cloned children? Yes.
And you believed that Samantha should be punished, didn't you? Yes, but not like that.
So you're just as responsible for her death as anyone.
Objection.
Withdrawn.
Jessica, did you ever, at any time, see Dr.
Lang around Samantha or at the foundation home? No.
We always went to see him alone.
Did Dr.
Lang ever ask you to do anything that you didn't want to do? No, but You loved him very much, didn't you, Jessica? Yes.
Nothing further.
I was on one of the first teams to successfully clone a cat.
I'm close to cloning a human being.
Dolly the sheep only lived for six years.
And experts say that cloned human babies could be sick or deformed.
So, isn't it irresponsible to even try? Medical visionaries throughout history have been ridiculed.
Not only do you not know how this is going to turn out, you don't even know how to do it, do you? So why did you promise cloned babies to parents who had lost their children? Oh, I have every intention of delivering on that promise.
But you testified on direct examination that you used your sperm to fertilize the eggs you had taken from Samantha Tassler and the other girls.
So you were going to give your children to those parents? Until I'm able to clone their babies, yes.
But you were going to continue taking their money.
The money was crucial for me to continue.
I have no other way to fund my research.
Research that is now against the law.
What were you going to tell those mothers and those fathers? I would have told those parents to be patient.
And they would have had other children to love.
Children who belonged to girls like Samantha whose eggs you took.
Those girls, Samantha included, consented to the procedures.
Really? Did Samantha also consent to being locked in a room without food or water? Objection.
Withdrawn.
Dr.
Lang, isn't it true you were afraid the money would dry up when the parents who paid you to clone their children found out that you had lied to them? You're treating me like a criminal, when I'm trying to give life, not destroy it.
You destroyed Samantha Tassler's.
You knew if she exposed what you were really doing, your research would be all washed up.
Objection.
Withdrawn.
No further questions.
Re-direct, Your Honor.
Dr.
Lang, did you ever set foot in the Foundation for Knowledge Expansion? Only in the beginning, when we were setting it up and never when the girls were there.
Who took care of the girls? Paula Haggerty.
Did you ever tell Mrs.
Haggerty how to handle the girls? No.
She was more than qualified to take care of them on her own.
When did you last see Samantha Tassler? When I confirmed her pregnancy a week before she died.
So Mrs.
Haggerty is the only one who could have known what happened to her? Mrs.
Haggerty sets her own rules at the foundation house.
I can't speak to what took place there.
Thank you, Doctor.
No further questions.
The defense rests, Your Honor.
I don't need another lawyer.
Miss Quentin is on her way.
I have asked Mr.
Langan to represent you until she gets here.
I'd rather wait.
Why? So your attorney can tell you to keep your mouth shut? Don't you understand? They are sacrificing you.
I don't have to answer that, do I? No, but I'd advise you to consider what Ms.
Cabot is saying.
What's the difference? I'm guilty.
You'd spend the rest of your life in prison so Garret Lang is free to continue his work? Yes, if that's what it takes.
Why would you martyr yourself for him? He gave me back something I had lost.
You mean your daughter? Who told you about Carrie? We found the missing persons report from 1975.
When she ran away.
You never saw her again, did you? No.
That's why I wanted to work with teenage girls.
I wanted to help them find a place that they could always call home.
And Dr.
Lang gave that to you? Yes.
He told me that I could love and help teenage girls and that they would bring back to life these dead children of these poor parents.
But those girls have parents, too.
Those parents should have treated them better! Better than you treated your own daughter? Carrie was very little when my husband left us.
And I didn't handle it well.
We fought constantly and then one day I woke up and she was gone.
In her note she said that she had to leave me because she had She had to find a mother.
Paula? We brought you a visitor.
It's Jessica.
You're not mad at me? No.
They told me all about your little girl.
I love my parents, but I still love you, too.
All Lang has done is manipulated your pain.
He's used you to help him experiment on girls who love you.
They trust you.
You're the only one who can stop him.
Marcie Kinderski at Knowledge Builders identified each girl at her individual learning center.
That's where the indoctrination began.
Who brought the girls to you? They were told to leave and come to New York on their own.
Dr.
Lang said it was to avoid kidnapping charges.
But Marcie gave them money for the trip and false IDs if they were coming by plane.
And once the girls arrived, what was your role? I was I was their mother and teacher and nurse.
I gave them hormone injections to prepare them for the procedures.
When Samantha Tassler wanted to leave, what did you do? Reasoned with her.
I put her in a room in the basement, as is the doctrine.
Did you give her any food or water? No.
I was ordered not to.
By whom? By Dr.
Lang.
He said she had to be re-programmed.
Who did the re-programming? He did.
He came over at night after they had gone to sleep.
What happened on the sixth night of Samantha's re-programming? I went to check on her.
She She She could barely move.
And just as I was about to give her some water, Dr.
Lang walked in and took it away from me.
Samantha died in my arms.
What happened next? She was so dirty.
I tried to wipe her face with tissue, I fixed her hair and I put a blanket around her.
And then we carried her out to my car.
Dr.
Lang said that I should leave her.
As if As if she were homeless.
But I tried to make her as comfortable as possible.
Paula, why are you doing this? Why would you betray me like this? Dr.
Lang, you are out of order! This entire trial is out of order.
Don't you understand? I'm trying to save you.
I'm trying to save the human race.
Sit down, Dr.
Lang, or I will have you removed! The cat's out of the bag, folks! Remove the defendant! Science and the future wait for no one.
If not for me, someone will clone a human being.
You wait and see!
In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit.
These are their stories.
He robbed me.
Guy came in to rob me.
Take it easy, take it easy.
Did you see where he went? Cops chased him into the alley.
Get back inside! Get down! Police! Drop it or you're dead.
Now! Bailey! Taylor! Where are you guys? Over here! We got him.
Two-two-Henry.
Slow everyone down.
We got one under.
Anyone hit? Just this mutt.
Winged him in the arm.
Bus is on the way.
Here's his piece.
Hey, guys, you better check this out.
What? Oh, man.
She's dead.
Police, coming through.
Thank you.
Hey.
Kind of strange, Cragen calling us in on an officer-involved shooting.
Maybe not.
Look who's over there.
Swell.
Stabler, Benson, thanks for coming.
Yeah.
It's the middle of the night.
I hope you're not jerking us around.
I'm not.
I've got a black female teenager, sleeping on the streets.
We think she's a runaway, then somebody worked her over.
Burn marks, both arms.
Braids, ribbon in her hair, covered by a pretty decent blanket.
Yeah, and a big hole in her head.
Not your average homeless kid.
Maybe not, but she's an abuse victim.
We think the perp shot her.
No, you think the cops accidentally shot her, and you're trying to pull us into your own mess by calling it an SVU case.
This girl was tortured and we have no idea who she is.
You want her parents to see her face in the morning news? That's your problem, not ours.
Come on, SVU knows how to protect victims and deal with families.
You mean you want us to keep this under wraps.
We want this to look clean from the beginning.
So I'm asking for a favor.
All the times that you people at IAB jammed us up and now you want to play nice? You've got a set of balls on you asking us for anything.
If we find out that a cop shot that girl, you expect us to keep it quiet? I expect you to do your job.
However this turns out, it turns out.
You don't want to do it for me, fine.
Do it for her.
Found seven slugs, all of them too badly damaged for any microscopic work.
Shell casings? Had better luck there.
Matched them to each weapon.
Well, they were all carrying nines, so the casings would have gone about 10 feet to the right and a little to the rear.
So we know approximately where each person fired from.
Number one is Officer Bailey, two is the perp and Officer Taylor is number three.
The bullet passed through this steel drum before hitting the victim, making a trajectory through two fixed points.
The ballistic alignment laser will tell us for sure who shot her.
They all fired on the run, so it could have been any one of them.
And there's our bullet path.
Hal, you be Officer Taylor.
Benson, you take Bailey.
Stabler, you're the perp.
We'll see where the laser lands.
El, it's on you.
The perp fired the shot that killed the girl.
Only problem is, your Jane Doe was already dead when the perp shot her.
That son-of-a-bitch lucked out.
The cops at the scene said she was still warm.
So did my assistants.
But by the time they got her back here, her lower extremities were already stiff.
She was going into rigor.
Well, she had to be dead four or five hours before the shooting, then.
That's about right.
Do you know what killed her? Hopefully we'll find out when I open her up.
But she was filthy, like she hadn't bathed in weeks.
I have her personal effects to put into evidence.
Anything good? Just some cheap clothes from one of your better discount stores.
And this necklace.
That's an infinity symbol on a chain.
What's up with these burns? That's what they look like, but they're actually cockroach bites.
Well, if she was homeless, she could have gotten them from living on the street or after she died.
Except the bites wouldn't swell if she was dead.
And the roaches wouldn't bite unless she was immobile.
You're thinking she was restrained? Or so sick she couldn't move.
It sounds like this girl was held captive in a very unpleasant place.
And then dumped at the scene.
Lab checked the ground where the girl was found.
No evidence of any bodily fluids.
So, if she was already dead, the new blanket is a care-giving gesture.
The same reason as the hair ribbons.
Whoever left her there loved her.
We've got an ID.
And you're not gonna believe it.
Who is she? Samantha Tassler.
The girl who disappeared from Philly? Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, to be exact.
Less than eight months ago.
Didn't we spend, like, two weeks last year searching for her? Maybe three.
Are they sure it's her? Cops there say our photo matches theirs.
The parents are coming in tonight.
Her friend's older brother was supposed to drive her home.
We called when it got late and Samantha hadn't come back yet.
That's when we find out she never got there.
We have some of Samantha's personal effects when she was found.
It would help us if you could take a look at them.
Are you up for that? I ain't never seen this.
I don't recognize this necklace, either.
Sharon, did you buy this for Samantha? No.
Are you sure that she didn't have this one when she was home? Positive.
You found her on the street.
I'm surprised she still had this necklace.
It's solid platinum.
It's probably worth close to a grand.
The girl's wearing dime store clothes and living on the street.
It doesn't make sense she wouldn't have sold this for food money.
You have any idea where this came from? You're not going to find it in a case at Tiffany's or any other mainstream retailer.
Here, have a look.
I don't notice anything unusual about it.
The X-ray fluorescence test did.
It's coated in rhodium to make it shine instead of the regular polishing and finishing.
That hasn't been popular in this country in decades.
So? So, it's definitely handmade.
And there are three tiny initials engraved on the back.
I just put it in our database.
What are you checking? Every jeweler in the Tri-State who makes his own jewelry with the three initials RSC.
Any hits? Yeah, here we go.
Ross St.
Clair.
Got a little shop down in the Village.
No, I don't remember her.
I don't get a lot of teenagers in my store.
My jewelry's too expensive.
What about this? How much does something like this run you? Eight hundred bucks.
It's custom-made.
Something happen to her? Actually, she's dead.
Geez.
And she was wearing my Infinity? That's why we're here.
Who'd you make it for? Garret Lang.
Who's he? Regular customer.
He sent his assistant over with a drawing.
Come on.
You know, I usually make my own stuff, but this guy, he orders a hundred of them.
Gave me 80 grand up front.
Where can we find this Lang? He left me a stack of business cards to hand out to my better-paying customers.
It's the symbol of eternal life.
I give the necklace to all my patients.
At $800 a piece, that's an expensive gift.
What exactly do you treat them for? You're what, early 40s, right, Detective? Late 30s, why? Do you ever feel that your stamina's declining? That you don't have the energy you used to or that you've lost your edge? No, but let's say that I was.
Well, then, I would put you on a course of human growth hormone and testosterone therapy.
I guarantee you'd be a new man in the squad room, not to mention the bedroom.
But you didn't come here to hear me pontificate.
How can I help you? You ever seen her? I don't think so.
Well, are you sure that she's not one of your patients? Human growth hormone is used to treat children of short stature, Detectives, but that's not what I do here and I don't treat children.
Well, what about Dr.
Foy? There is no Dr.
Foy.
It stands for Fountain of Youth.
Why would you think that I would know your victim? Well, because when she was found, your infinity symbol was hanging around her neck.
My God.
What happened? That's what we're trying to find out.
My patients who wear the necklace tell me that people often ask them where they can get one.
Any chance we can get a list of those patients? Detectives, you know that it would be unethical as well as illegal for me to give you that information.
Lang's summa cum laude from Stanford, MD and PhD from Yale, residency in OBGIGYN with a fellowship in infertility and reproductive endocrinology.
That's big credentials to be running some feel-good clinic.
He was one of the top researchers in his field until he left academia to open up shop.
Guy's had lots of magazine articles written about him.
Claims hormones can reverse the aging process.
The guy's a chick magnet for the society set.
Sounds like the lunatic fringe of medicine.
Well, it makes you feel good.
What's wrong with that? That's the same excuse people use to get high.
The doc's nothing more than a dealer with a license.
What he's doing is perfectly legal.
Don't tell me you're thinking about taking this stuff? I've considered it.
And why shouldn't I add some lean muscle to what you so lovingly call "my bony ass"? You can hit a gym when we close this case.
Otherwise, everybody, focus.
I mean, what's Lang looking for in a 14-year-old girl? If he's a pedophile, maybe his own fountain of youth.
Well, there's nothing other than that infinity necklace to tie him to Samantha.
And there's no way to prove that she didn't get it from one of his patients.
And we can't find out who they are.
What about the autopsy? It's backlogged.
Internal exam's not done yet.
Well, then, wait at the M.
E.
's office until it is.
I found traces of facial tissue and dried saliva on her right cheek, which we're testing for DNA.
So it sounds like somebody was with her before she died.
Can we rule this a homicide yet? I need more information.
But I can tell you that Samantha died of a blood clot to her left lung.
Caused by? Severe dehydration.
I'd say she was deprived of fluids for between five and 10 days.
Turned her blood to sludge.
Well, it supports the theory that somebody locked her away.
That's probably where she got those cockroach bites.
That makes sense.
What I found when I examined her reproductive organs doesn't.
How so? When a woman goes through her menstrual cycle, one, maybe two eggs are released, leaving the follicles where the eggs came from empty.
And something was wrong with Samantha's ovaries? She had 12 visibly involuted follicles.
That means 12 eggs all released at the same time.
I've never seen that in a 14-year-old.
But I thought women were most fertile in their teenage years.
Usually this only happens when the ovaries are hyperstimulated by hormones, like, for in vitro fertilization.
So, assuming that she even wanted to, why does a 14-year-old girl need help getting pregnant? I don't know.
But whatever the reason, it worked.
Samantha was carrying an eight-week-old fetus.
You can't prove Samantha Tassler even knew Garret Lang.
She was wearing his necklace.
A trinket she could have gotten anywhere does not help me.
The guy's an infertility specialist, he's a big wheel in hormone research.
Now, can you think of a better candidate to help Samantha get pregnant? I wouldn't want to argue that in court.
Alex, we know that it's circumstantial, but this guy had to have something to do with Samantha's death.
I cannot get an arrest warrant based on supposition.
You have to find me a direct link.
So give us something that we can work with, subpoenas for his financials, phone records and a patient list.
No judge is going to give us a look at a doctor's patient list.
But the rest is doable.
I can also get you a look at his IRS records.
This guy doesn't have one phone listed in his own name.
All under the corporation, Infinity Partners.
This is gonna take a week to trace who made all these calls to and from his clinic.
That voodoo medicine he practices pays big bucks.
Between his personal and corporate accounts, he's got almost five mil cash.
His real estate holdings are worth at least five times that.
He owns his building and three brownstones and get this, he's applying for tax-exempt status on one of them.
Let me see that.
What's he claiming? Charitable organization.
"Foundation for Knowledge Expansion.
" Application says it's a non-profit educational enrichment program for young women at risk.
Where? Chelsea.
I wonder if he's enriching these girls like he did Samantha.
There's three more girls.
They don't look like your typical street kids at risk.
That makes four going in so far.
And there's another one.
Just like all the others.
I've seen that girl before.
Her face look familiar to you? Yeah.
That girl from the posters on the Upper East Side.
You shorten her hair and you change it back to dark brown, that's Jessica Morse.
Disappeared about the same time as Samantha, presumed kidnapped.
What the hell did we step into? Can I help you? Police department.
I I didn't call the police.
Where's Jessica Morse? I don't know who you're talking about.
She just walked in here.
Step aside.
Excuse me, please! You can't do this.
You have no right to do this.
We have every right.
This is a girl who's been missing since last year.
Elliot.
What is this? This is my school.
I am a licensed teacher.
These are my students.
How did they get here? I find them on the streets.
We run a foundation.
For knowledge expansion.
Yeah, we know all about that.
Who are you? I'm Paula Haggerty.
We give them a safe place to live, we give them food, we give them education.
And these kids are going back to their parents.
Mrs.
Haggerty, you're under arrest.
Is this really necessary? Oh, that's a nice tattoo you have here on your left wrist.
An infinity symbol.
For infinite potential.
I would like to call a lawyer, please.
You can do that at our precinct.
Can I talk to you a minute? Why? "Why"? Because you look a lot like a girl who disappeared last year.
I'm not who you think I am.
Jessica, your family wants you back.
My name is Marjorie and this is my family.
My client should be lauded for what she's done, not arrested.
Your client kept five 14-year-olds whose parents reported them as kidnapped or runaways.
I was just trying to help them.
They left home because their parents mistreated them.
And you know this how? Mrs.
Haggerty has a master's in child psychology.
Well, then, she understands that just because a teenager disagrees with her parents doesn't mean the parents did something wrong.
Who pays your salary, Mrs.
Haggerty? The foundation's board of directors.
The funds come from charitable contributions.
Well, Dr.
Garrett Lang owns the building.
So he on the board, too? No.
He started the foundation and provided the initial endowment.
But he has no other dealings with the foundation or the employees or clients.
Was she one of your clients, Mrs.
Haggerty? I never saw this girl before.
I'd like to know what charges, if any, are forthcoming? Let's start with kidnapping.
Can I get you something to eat or drink? I'm not hungry.
When can I go? Your parents are coming here to get you.
Jessica, they've missed you very much.
They can't wait to see you.
I've told you, my name is not Jessica.
It's Marjorie Maddox.
Jessica, we both know this is a picture of you.
When I talked to your mom, she said you'd missed your birthday.
Your family can't wait for you to come home, they want to celebrate it with you.
You cannot believe how sad they were.
They thought you were never gonna come home.
Okay.
Hey, Jessica.
Come on, it's gonna be okay.
No, it's not.
Mrs.
Haggerty's going to be so worried about me.
I have to go back to her.
You're 14 years old.
You belong with your parents.
I belong with Mrs.
Haggerty.
Can't you see that? I know everybody thinks that I was kidnapped.
But I ran away.
You did? Why? Because my parents Oh, they didn't understand me.
Mrs.
Haggerty does? Yes.
She saved my life.
She did? How'd she do that? She took me in off the street.
She feeds us, teaches us What does she teach you? Stuff we should learn in school.
And that all the girls should respect themselves and each other.
This is Samantha Tassler.
Is she one of the girls? No.
The other four girls are from Denver, Chicago, Omaha and Detroit.
All high-profile cases because they all come from wealthy or upper middle class families.
How did they react to being found? Oh, the same as Jessica.
They all denied their real names, they said they'd run away and that they weren't kidnapped and they all want to know when they can go back to Mrs.
Haggerty.
Is this Stockholm Syndrome? More than that.
These girls haven't just formed a bond with this Mrs.
Haggerty.
Their total devotion to her feels like they've been brainwashed.
So this is some kind of cult.
It explains why they were all wearing the infinity symbol.
And why they're all sticking to the same story.
Well, unless one of them starts talking, the best we can get Haggerty on is custodial interference for not returning the kids to their parents.
That's just a misdemeanor.
We can't even hold her.
What about Lang? Right now, he's untouchable.
If this is a cult, then maybe Samantha was being punished for misbehaving or wanting to leave.
Cults often re-educate their members by locking them up without food or water.
Which is how the M.
E.
Said that she died.
That's depraved indifference murder.
Including Samantha, we've only found five girls.
Maybe they're holding more somewhere else.
Like at the foundation's brownstone.
What the hell? This place was completely furnished when we found the girls.
I'll check upstairs.
They took every damn thing.
We need every piece of dirt off the floor in every room.
Any reasonable surface gets dusted for prints.
Second floor is empty.
This place has been sanitized.
Like no one was ever here.
Neighbors say three trucks pulled up, emptied the place out in two hours.
Somebody had to tip them off.
The call couldn't have come from any of the girls.
We made sure none of them got near a phone.
Well, it had to be Haggerty or her lawyer.
That's obstruction of justice.
You think she'd risk her law license? We'll ask her as soon as we're done processing the girls.
Already done.
ACS picked up the four from out of town, took them to the shelter waiting for their parents to arrive.
What about Jessica? Her folks just got here.
She looks real happy to see them.
This is a cult we're dealing with.
If we're gonna see Haggerty's lawyer, I want Huang along for the ride.
You can't come barging in.
I'm with clients.
I'll handle this, Joan.
Detectives Benson and Stabler.
And you are? FBI.
George Huang.
Can we help you? Who cleaned out your foundation's brownstone? How would we know? Oh, come on.
Somebody gave the order.
Now, it was either you or your attorney.
Are you accusing me of a crime? Well, I'd like you to explain why Dr.
Lang and Mrs.
Haggerty both have the same lawyer.
I had called Miss Quentin after you arrested Paula.
You've made a terrible mistake.
Do you know how much she's helped runaways? You mean after she kidnaps them? You're wrong, Detective.
And what about Samantha Tassler undergoing in vitro fertilization, which you happen to perform? Are we wrong about that, too? Any OBIGYN who's a fertility specialist could have done that.
Yeah, but she and the other girls weren't wearing any other fertility specialist's infinity necklace.
And you've got Miss Haggerty here who's got that symbol tattooed on her wrist.
Any questions from the FBI, Agent Huang? You enjoy this, don't you, Dr.
Lang? I enjoy helping those girls thrive and realize their full potential.
Because of you people, we may have to close down the foundation.
Joan? Unless you're going to arrest me or either of my clients, we're through.
Or my next call is to the Internal Affairs Bureau for harassment.
He's a narcissistic bastard and he's calling all the shots.
You saw the way his lawyer deferred to him.
I can understand a 14-year-old being taken in by Lang, but not a smart, educated woman like Quentin.
Jim Jones got hundreds of his disciples to drink poisoned Kool-Aid because he had a charismatic personality.
Lang uses his to get people like Quentin and Haggerty to love and obey him.
Those teenage girls couldn't be more vulnerable.
They're not that attractive.
Probably got bad grades in school.
They're just social outcasts.
So this cult is a place for them to fit in.
And inundate them with approval and affection.
It's called love bombing.
"You're perfect the way you are.
" Right, which is what every teenage girl wants to hear.
And Haggerty as a substitute mother is a perfect person to tell them that.
There's no way these girls got to her by accident.
No.
They were targeted.
We've got to find out how.
First you said Samantha was homeless and now you think she was murdered? We're not sure exactly, Mr.
Tassler.
That's what we're investigating.
It's possible that Samantha was starved to death and left in the alley.
Oh, my God.
We can still take her home for the funeral, can't we? Yes, you can.
But we need to know, at the time of Samantha's disappearance, were there any changes in her routine, different people she was hanging out with, friends? She only had a few friends, two or three girls.
They were a bad influence.
How so? They drank and smoked and got Samantha to do it, too.
Her grades started to drop but we couldn't get her to care.
We even enrolled her in one of those remedial tutoring centers.
You know, the kind with private instruction.
Help kids realize their full potential.
What did you just say? Help kids realize their full potential.
It was in the brochure.
What's the name of that center? You know this girl? No.
Never saw her before.
Now why are you here? She attended this center right before she disappeared last year.
Just like this girl who vanished right outside of Philly.
I don't like your insinuation, Detective.
I don't like liars, Miss Kinderski.
Well, now, if you're going to be rude, this conversation is ended.
What are you doing? Nice tattoo.
An infinity symbol.
Yes.
We believe in the infinite potential of our students to succeed.
Is that a crime? It is if Garret Lang paid for it.
Garret Lang? Yeah.
I bet if we pull your certificate of incorporation, his name's on it.
Doctor Lang is a forward-thinking, generous man who wants to help young people further their knowledge.
He's just an investor.
Sure, he is.
And you're just a teacher, right? Kinderski lawyered up.
Quentin's not letting her talk.
Yeah, but we found the connection.
All six girls, Samantha and Jessica included, attended a Knowledge Builders Center in their city.
Lang's at the top of the pyramid.
Quentin keeps him out of trouble, Haggerty keeps the girls in line and Kinderski recruits them from the learning centers.
I wouldn't be surprised if the initial test they give includes personality questions to identify the most susceptible girls.
We checked Kinderski's credit card statements.
She was in Philadelphia, Detroit, Omaha, Chicago and Denver three days before each of the girls disappeared.
Which leaves us with another coincidence but no smoking gun.
Well, the other girls have all gone home.
Means we're gonna have to get Jessica to talk.
Pretty tough coming home, isn't it? I guess.
Mrs.
Haggerty, she was good to you, wasn't she, at the foundation? Yeah.
I really miss her.
I bet you do.
You want to talk about it? You think she did something bad.
Hey, maybe I'm wrong.
If that's the case, I'd like to know about it.
Mrs.
Haggerty is the most wonderful person I ever met.
She and the other girls accepted me for who I am, and not who they thought I should be.
That's nice.
And how about Dr.
Lang? Am I wrong about him? He is a great man.
He's going to save the world.
Yeah? How's he gonna do that? Well, the ozone layer is disappearing.
Yeah.
And the ultraviolet rays will make everybody sterile.
So the only way our species will survive is by cloning living cells.
Jessica, are you pregnant? Yes.
He chose me to be one of the mothers of the future.
So he told you that you were carrying a cloned baby? To help a couple whose baby died.
I'm going to bring their child back to life.
Did Dr.
Lang have sex with you? No.
He'd never do such a horrible thing.
He took the baby's cells and put them in my eggs and then put the eggs back in me.
Where'd he do this? This is Lang's little shop of horrors.
I'm no expert, but this equipment looks like it cost millions.
Check this out.
Dr.
Frankenstein's doing his experiments.
Let's get a bus.
Elliot, put this on.
If my patient gets an infection because you've contaminated my sterile field, she could die.
Okay.
Is she cut open? No.
Of course not.
Then wake her up, safely.
You don't understand, do you? I'm going to make medical history here.
Not by using teenage girls as guinea pigs, you're not.
Wake her up.
You're under arrest.
So how many more girls do you have stashed away? Dr.
Lang has assured me Look, there are no more.
You endangered my patient's life when you entered my operating room.
We stopped you from experimenting on her.
All of those girls consented.
You have no idea how you've harmed our cause.
Oh, we've been through your records, Doctor.
Your "cause" is preying on the grief of parents who have lost a child by promising them a cloned baby in return for a donation.
We've got one here for half a million dollars.
Now I call that fraud.
I call it hope.
You can't prove Dr.
Lang intended to defraud anyone.
I believe that it is possible to clone a human being.
Well, that's now illegal in this country.
Well, it won't be once we start dying off.
So, we as a species are on our way out and cloning is our only chance at survival.
Is that it? Not just survival, Detective.
I'm talking about immortality.
And you use this idiotic crap to coerce girls into being human incubators.
Stabler, that's Irish Catholic, right? Hey, pal, this ain't about me, it's about you.
You believe a virgin gave birth.
You think that was a very popular theory in Jesus' time? What I believe has got nothing to do with your case.
Doesn't it? Heretics were burned at the stake for saying that the world is round.
Darwin was vilified for even suggesting that humans evolved from the primordial ooze.
Yet science and reason proved him right.
So you're saying that you're the new Darwin? Or maybe even the Messiah? I wouldn't take it that far.
What exactly is my client charged with? Fraud and aggravated sexual abuse.
You don't really think that either of those will stand up in court, do you? He's right.
We can't charge him.
Alex, he deceived those desperate parents and inseminated minors.
It's not fraud because there's no intent.
It's not rape because there's no penetration.
And if we arrest him for aggravated sex abuse, he'll argue that the contact was for a valid medical reason.
My ass.
What Lang is doing in the name of science is no different from what Mengele did for the Nazis.
Except these girls consented to the procedures.
They're not old enough to consent.
They are when it comes to reproductive rights.
They don't need permission to get pregnant, no matter how they do it.
So that's it? We can't touch him? Not unless we can prove he is in some way connected to Samantha Tassler's death.
I'm ruling this a homicide.
The DNA results are back.
The saliva on Samantha's cheek belongs to Paula Haggerty.
Saliva and facial tissue.
It's like a mother wiping her child's face, the brushing of the hair, the wrapping in the blanket Now what about Samantha's fetus? I mean, you're not going to tell us that that's the clone of some family's dead child, are you? Until someone proves otherwise, that's science fiction.
The cloned fetus would only have DNA from that child.
Samantha's had DNA from herself and a father.
So this whole cloning thing is a scam.
Samantha's eggs were fertilized by someone's sperm.
And I wonder who's that could be? We'll need DNA from Lang to prove it's his child.
Well, Cabot got us a blood order for Haggerty.
It shouldn't be a problem getting one for Lang.
So, if Samantha's baby was Lang's, and she found out, that sure would give Lang a motive to kill her.
And if Lang fathered Samantha's baby, who do you think fathered Jessica's? My parents want me to give the baby up for adoption.
They took you to test your baby's DNA.
Do you know why? To make sure that it's okay.
Mmm-hmm.
And to find out who the father is.
Dr.
Lang says my baby doesn't have a father.
Has he ever lied to you? No.
Why are you asking me this? Because the DNA from your baby tells us that it does have a father.
That's impossible.
Dr.
Lang told me that it was a cloned child.
We tested Dr.
Lang.
He's the father of your baby.
No! Yeah.
That's the truth and I'm sorry about it.
No, I believe in him.
I love him.
He fertilized your egg with his own sperm.
He did the same thing to Samantha.
I I was helping a couple whose baby died.
He lied to them, too.
Jessica, they gave him a lot of money No, please don't! He betrayed them.
He betrayed you, he betrayed Samantha, and then he killed her.
No.
It's my fault she's dead.
What do you mean it's your fault? Samantha said that Dr.
Lang was a fake, and that she was going to report him to the police.
And I told Mrs.
Haggerty.
What did Mrs.
Haggerty say to you when you told her that? That Samantha had to be reasoned with.
And then one day, right in front of all of us, she took Samantha away.
Jessica, could you please describe the room where Mrs.
Haggerty took Samantha Tassler? It was empty.
No chair, no bed, no toilet.
Just four walls, a floor and a bucket.
When was the next time you saw Samantha? Never.
I didn't even know she was dead until a week ago when the police took us away.
Thank you, Jessica.
Nothing further.
Was there a lock on the door to the room? I don't know.
So for all we know, Samantha could have been free to leave at any time.
Objection.
Sustained.
Did you believe that Dr.
Lang could clone a baby? Yes.
Did you believe that the human race would become extinct unless he cloned children? Yes.
And you believed that Samantha should be punished, didn't you? Yes, but not like that.
So you're just as responsible for her death as anyone.
Objection.
Withdrawn.
Jessica, did you ever, at any time, see Dr.
Lang around Samantha or at the foundation home? No.
We always went to see him alone.
Did Dr.
Lang ever ask you to do anything that you didn't want to do? No, but You loved him very much, didn't you, Jessica? Yes.
Nothing further.
I was on one of the first teams to successfully clone a cat.
I'm close to cloning a human being.
Dolly the sheep only lived for six years.
And experts say that cloned human babies could be sick or deformed.
So, isn't it irresponsible to even try? Medical visionaries throughout history have been ridiculed.
Not only do you not know how this is going to turn out, you don't even know how to do it, do you? So why did you promise cloned babies to parents who had lost their children? Oh, I have every intention of delivering on that promise.
But you testified on direct examination that you used your sperm to fertilize the eggs you had taken from Samantha Tassler and the other girls.
So you were going to give your children to those parents? Until I'm able to clone their babies, yes.
But you were going to continue taking their money.
The money was crucial for me to continue.
I have no other way to fund my research.
Research that is now against the law.
What were you going to tell those mothers and those fathers? I would have told those parents to be patient.
And they would have had other children to love.
Children who belonged to girls like Samantha whose eggs you took.
Those girls, Samantha included, consented to the procedures.
Really? Did Samantha also consent to being locked in a room without food or water? Objection.
Withdrawn.
Dr.
Lang, isn't it true you were afraid the money would dry up when the parents who paid you to clone their children found out that you had lied to them? You're treating me like a criminal, when I'm trying to give life, not destroy it.
You destroyed Samantha Tassler's.
You knew if she exposed what you were really doing, your research would be all washed up.
Objection.
Withdrawn.
No further questions.
Re-direct, Your Honor.
Dr.
Lang, did you ever set foot in the Foundation for Knowledge Expansion? Only in the beginning, when we were setting it up and never when the girls were there.
Who took care of the girls? Paula Haggerty.
Did you ever tell Mrs.
Haggerty how to handle the girls? No.
She was more than qualified to take care of them on her own.
When did you last see Samantha Tassler? When I confirmed her pregnancy a week before she died.
So Mrs.
Haggerty is the only one who could have known what happened to her? Mrs.
Haggerty sets her own rules at the foundation house.
I can't speak to what took place there.
Thank you, Doctor.
No further questions.
The defense rests, Your Honor.
I don't need another lawyer.
Miss Quentin is on her way.
I have asked Mr.
Langan to represent you until she gets here.
I'd rather wait.
Why? So your attorney can tell you to keep your mouth shut? Don't you understand? They are sacrificing you.
I don't have to answer that, do I? No, but I'd advise you to consider what Ms.
Cabot is saying.
What's the difference? I'm guilty.
You'd spend the rest of your life in prison so Garret Lang is free to continue his work? Yes, if that's what it takes.
Why would you martyr yourself for him? He gave me back something I had lost.
You mean your daughter? Who told you about Carrie? We found the missing persons report from 1975.
When she ran away.
You never saw her again, did you? No.
That's why I wanted to work with teenage girls.
I wanted to help them find a place that they could always call home.
And Dr.
Lang gave that to you? Yes.
He told me that I could love and help teenage girls and that they would bring back to life these dead children of these poor parents.
But those girls have parents, too.
Those parents should have treated them better! Better than you treated your own daughter? Carrie was very little when my husband left us.
And I didn't handle it well.
We fought constantly and then one day I woke up and she was gone.
In her note she said that she had to leave me because she had She had to find a mother.
Paula? We brought you a visitor.
It's Jessica.
You're not mad at me? No.
They told me all about your little girl.
I love my parents, but I still love you, too.
All Lang has done is manipulated your pain.
He's used you to help him experiment on girls who love you.
They trust you.
You're the only one who can stop him.
Marcie Kinderski at Knowledge Builders identified each girl at her individual learning center.
That's where the indoctrination began.
Who brought the girls to you? They were told to leave and come to New York on their own.
Dr.
Lang said it was to avoid kidnapping charges.
But Marcie gave them money for the trip and false IDs if they were coming by plane.
And once the girls arrived, what was your role? I was I was their mother and teacher and nurse.
I gave them hormone injections to prepare them for the procedures.
When Samantha Tassler wanted to leave, what did you do? Reasoned with her.
I put her in a room in the basement, as is the doctrine.
Did you give her any food or water? No.
I was ordered not to.
By whom? By Dr.
Lang.
He said she had to be re-programmed.
Who did the re-programming? He did.
He came over at night after they had gone to sleep.
What happened on the sixth night of Samantha's re-programming? I went to check on her.
She She She could barely move.
And just as I was about to give her some water, Dr.
Lang walked in and took it away from me.
Samantha died in my arms.
What happened next? She was so dirty.
I tried to wipe her face with tissue, I fixed her hair and I put a blanket around her.
And then we carried her out to my car.
Dr.
Lang said that I should leave her.
As if As if she were homeless.
But I tried to make her as comfortable as possible.
Paula, why are you doing this? Why would you betray me like this? Dr.
Lang, you are out of order! This entire trial is out of order.
Don't you understand? I'm trying to save you.
I'm trying to save the human race.
Sit down, Dr.
Lang, or I will have you removed! The cat's out of the bag, folks! Remove the defendant! Science and the future wait for no one.
If not for me, someone will clone a human being.
You wait and see!