Season 1, Episode 7 of Cold Case.
Directed by Deran Sarafian
Written by Jan Oxenberg
Per the request of a dying mother, the team reopens the 1964 murder of Daniel Holtz, a college baseball player who had been beaten to death in an alley behind a gay bar. As they investigate further, they discover that a policeman had a hand in the homicide.
Tropes for the episode:
- Ambiguously Bi: Daniel admits that he loves Deborah, but not as much as he loves Hank.
- Batter Up!: Daniel was beaten to death with his own baseball bat.
- Blatant Lies: When the one who killed Daniel is arrested, he tries to claim it was "self-defense". As a flashback immediately shows, he and his friends were the ones who were harassing Daniel and chasing him down, until he pulled out a baseball bat to defend himself. But they took it from him and beat him to death with it.
- Bury Your Gays: Daniel was killed in a hate crime by some men who witnessed him in a secret gay bar.
- Commonality Connection: Anthony, the gay bar bartender, was Only in It for the Money and is willing to drop gay slurs about most of his former customers in the present day, but says he genuinely got along with Daniel due to their shared interest in baseball.
- Cool Old Guy: George "Tinkerbell" Polk was a drag queen singer in the 60s, and still cross-dresses with pride, in spite of enduring decades of assaults and abuse. He offers the detectives information that eventually led to the arrest of Daniel's killers.
- Determinator: When asked by Scotty why Tinkerbell withstood decades of ridicule, prejudice, and physical harm over his sexuality, the old man just answers that he "was never a practical girl".
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Terrible Trio of homophobic bullies was constantly egged on by the ringleader's mother, who never appears in person.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Run! Hide! Never confront your problems, or you'll end up dead like Daniel.
- Honor Before Reason: Daniel decides to defend himself against three bigots who are harassing him. Unfortunately, he is easily overpowered and has his bat turned against him.
- My Greatest Failure: One of the police who saw the murder happening was convinced to look the other way and leave Daniel to his fate. Forty years later, it’s one of his biggest regrets.
- Police Are Useless: Patrolling cops saw Daniel get harassed and beaten up by the thugs, but since they had caught Daniel at a gay bar earlier, and it was the 1960s, they simply walked away and left Daniel at the hands of his tormentors.
- Retired Monster: The head of the homophobic bullies is still homophobic and uneager to accept responsibility for his actions in the present day, but is a blue-collar worker who doesn't seem to be an active gay basher anymore and says his kids would be upset to learn about his past.
- Trauma Conga Line: Daniel last day alive was also his worst. He is outed and forced to quit the baseball team. He goes his local gay bar to have a drink but the place gets raided. Outside, he is confronted by a bunch of bigots who have been harassing him and is killed when he stands up to them.
- The Un-Reveal: Why the Dirty Cops raided the gay bar they had been accepting money to leave alone in the lead-up to the murder and who sent the cops a note saying to talk to Tinkerbell (and exactly what they hoped she would tell the cops) are never confirmed.
