Directed by Martha Mitchell
Written by Barry Schindel & Matt Witten
Briscoe and Green investigate when Dorothy Graham is found strangled to death in the trunk of her car. Her affair with a college student she taught makes her husband a top suspect until it emerges that her father-in-law, Harlan Graham, had hired a private detective to follow her. Graham is a psychotherapist who has made millions of dollars advocating "surrendered wives" as the path to a happy marriage. His books frequently cite his son and Dorothy as the perfect example, and the threat of a divorce might be a motive for murder.
Graham produces a suicide note and claims that Dorothy hanged herself whilst in his home; he says he had tried to make it look like a murder to spare her husband and daughter the truth. From the evidence, the DAs conclude that Graham used the proof of Dorothy's affair to drive her to suicide for the sake of his professional reputation. They further learn that Dorothy met Graham as a teenager, when she had treatment with him for her suicidal urges. He has since spent the rest of her life manipulating her, including into marrying his son. McCoy proceeds with manslaughter charges.
On the stand, Graham dramatically changes his testimony to say he murdered her. McCoy suspects Graham is trying to throw the evidence into doubt so the jury will acquit; under double jeopardy laws he could then not be tried for murder. Faced with a series of unappealing choices, McCoy decides to go ahead with the manslaughter charge. He highlights the evidence for suicide, and Graham's constant manipulation of Dorothy for over a decade. The jury convicts but Schiff privately reflects that if Graham did murder her, he's again got what he wanted by earning himself a light sentence.
This episode contains examples of:
- Broken Bird: Dorothy
- Driven to Suicide: Apparently both Dorothy and Graham's wife, although he may have actually murdered either or both of them.
- Manipulative Bastard: Harlan Graham.
- Oh, Crap!: One of the few times that McCoy is utterly flabbergasted with a horrified look on his face in the middle of a court case revelation. Given that Graham just suddenly changed his entire testimony without warning to proclaiming he strangled Dorothy to death instead of her committing suicide in an attempt to ruin the evidence he presented and get acquitted, it's an understandable reaction.
- Proper Lady: What Graham's philosophy encouraged women to be.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Based on the then-current popularity of "surrendered wife" advocates such as Dr Laura Schlessinger.
- Suicide, Not Murder: Apparently the case, although the ending hints that there's no way of knowing for certain
