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Recap / Cold Case S 5 E 13 Spiders

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The team reinvestigate the 1998 murder of Tamyra Bordon, finding out that she fell into dangerous territory after trying to escape her abusive father.

Tropes:

  • Abusive Parents: Tamyra and her three-year-old stepsister were both physically beaten by her dad.
  • Bad Samaritans: Spider and his mom, who took in Tamyra and Elliot from their abusive parents, only to try to initiate them into their white supremacist club.
  • Boomerang Bigot: Elliot's Jewish, but joined the neo-Nazi cult and tried to “burn out” the Jewish part of himself.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Truitt's reaction to being accused of murdering Tamyra (genuine anger and shock) implies that on some level, he did love her.
  • Evil Matriarch: Rayanne Leland, who raised her son to be a neo-Nazi, hosted a neo-Nazi cult in her basement, and commanded Elliot to kill Tamyra when she escaped.
  • From Bad to Worse: Spider beats up Tamyra's abusive father and finds her a safer place to stay, only for it to be a hideout for a group of neo-Nazis who are willing to murder innocent people of color.
  • Hypocrite: Despite being a neo-Nazi, two of Lindsay's children are half-black.
  • I Lied: Heroic example. Lilly and Jeffries convince Lindsay to rat out Spider, saying, "It’s you or them." When she obeys, they arrest her anyway, saying, "We said you and them."
  • I Never Said It Was Poison: Lindsay slipped that she was at the murder scene of a Hispanic woman. When told a witness saw her there, she replies, "That's impossible; it was pitch-dark!"
  • My Greatest Failure: Tamyra's lawyer Kate Carley asks for the case to be reopened, as she thinks at the time that her abusive father, whom Kate failed to emancipate Tamyra from, is the killer. Kate hopes that they can convict the father for the murder and put him away, avenging Tamyra. However, the father is not the killer.
  • Never My Fault: Tamyra's dad is sent to jail for beating his three-year-old stepdaughter into a coma, yet acts like he's the victim. He also acts the same way when reminded of how he abused Tamyra.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain: In his Motive Rant, the villain accuses Scotty of only getting his job from affirmative action and calls Lilly a race traitor.
  • Red Herring: Tamyra's abusive father has long been suspected to be her killer, and her lawyer wants the case to be reopened to convict him. However, the team dug out an alternate possibility...
  • Wham Line:

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