A student nurse is murdered at her dorm and her roommate is attacked but survives. Logan and Briscoe connect the case to the recent murder of another nurse in Brooklyn. Lt. Brian Torelli, on the Brooklyn force, receives a confession from Davey Zifrin; an intellectually disabled man who attends a methadone clinic both victims worked at. Zifrin has studied forensics and homicide investigation and knew how to plan the murders, so he is charged. Shambala Green takes his case and successfully gets his confession suppressed. Zifrin says he killed the nurses because they "took drugs", something he should have had no way of knowing.
Sure enough, Stone discovers that the victims were stealing prescription drugs and then having a dealer, Marty Lake, sell them on. Lake's now awaiting trial on unrelated narcotics charges. He says that another man killed the nurses so he could steal the drugs and take over their "business." Lake offered this information in exchange for a plea, but Torelli ignored him. Brooklyn DA Frank Lazar (Mark Blum) insists on pursuing the case against Zifrin, who Torelli denies framing. Lake won't name the killer unless offered a deal, but Lazar refuses. Shambala subpoenas Stone as a witness in the Brooklyn trial of Zifrin, but Zifrin is found guilty on all charges.
Stone convinces a friend in the Brooklyn DA's office to give Lake a plea. Lake identifies the killer as Jimmy Paul, and Paul is arrested. With Stone's friend offering him jurisdiction over the Brooklyn murder, Paul accepts a 25-year sentence for both murders rather than face life for all of his numerous drug-related felonies. Zifrin admits he falsely confessed to the murders. He wants to be seen as smart and capable, and is in denial that he is disabled; Torelli convinced him that everyone would appreciate his intelligence if they thought he were the killer. Zifrin will now face an appeals process, and Torelli is arrested by Internal Affairs. Ending text reveals that Lazar swiftly resigned as DA and returned to private practice.
Tropes present in this episode
- Corrupt Cop: Lt. Torelli (Dan Hedaya) colludes in having Zifrin charged even though he could not have committed the crime. Earlier on, he had figured he would be a good patsy.
- Crusading Lawyer: Shambala Green, Zifrin's lawyer, to the point she subpoena's Stone in order to prove Zifrin has been framed.
- Deal with the Devil: To find the real killer, Stone has to agree a plea to drop all charges against Lake, who is a violent drug dealer. Then, in order to exonerate Zifrin, he must get Paul to accept a plea for 25 years for the murders - when Paul is already looking at a life sentence just for drug offences.
- Glory Hound: Torelli coached Zifrin into confessing just to get credit for solving a high-profile case.
- Good Victims, Bad Victims: Zifrin thinks the nurses deserved to die because they were drug abusers.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Much of the plot rests on who has jurisdiction to try Zifrin, and then to make plea deals with Lake and Paul.
- Ripped from the Headlines:
- The 1963 "Career Girls Murders"
- The 1966 murders of eight student nurses by Richard Speck.
- Several then-recent cases of disputed jurisdiction between police forces.
- You Are What You Hate: Zifrin has a very contemptuous attitude towards intellectually disabled people, despite being one himself. He is also a recovering addict but thinks drug users deserve to be murdered.
