Tear Jerker / Law & Order

Watch out for spoilers.

Season 1

• In the episode "Indifference", Greevey and Logan confront a Child Services clerk about the case of a 6 year old victim not being followed up, despite the situation having been first reported months before the events of the episode by the child's teacher. The clerk's response is to simply pull up a listing of open cases on her terminal which runs continuously as she explains:
  Clerk: This is just the city, detective. Last I heard there were over 100,000 open cases in the state of New York. We kind of have our hands full.
• The entire episode "Mushrooms", in which the apartment of a normal law-abiding family is shot up with an automatic weapon because a Child Soldier was unable to read and realize he was at the wrong building. A young teenager became paralyzed from the waist down and a 11 month old baby was killed for no reason.
• The episode "Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die" lampshades how, at most, all the detectives and prosecutors could ever get is a Bittersweet Ending: Stone and Robinette were able to convict the man of the young college student's murder, but it comes down to this exchange:
  Robinette: This is why we do what we do, Ben: justice.
  (Stone looks back at the victim's grieving parents after the verdict is read)
  Stone: Yeah, but justice won't give you grandchildren.
• No one dies in "Sonata for a Solo Organ", but it still shows the depravity and horror of the defendant's actions and its aftermath. While testifying about the circumstances that lead to his kidney being illegally harvested, Drew McDaniel lifts up his shirt to reveal his scar to Ben and the jury, as the courtroom gasps in reaction and tears stream down his face. That coupled with the utter disregard that Philip Woodleigh had for his life as heard in a phone between him and the doctor who did the crime resulted in his conviction.

Season 2

• Any episode involving children, obviously, but one early episode, "Cradle To Grave" featured a baby freezing to death in his crib. In addition to the Never My Fault mentality being thrown around endlessly in the episode (mainly from the mother and the landlord), it's heartbreaking to see a victim that young, especially for anyone who is a parent.
• Greevey's murder in "Confession". Making it even worse is it all happened in front of his wife Marie and as Logan had to listen helplessly on the phone. Then his feelings as he's speaking with Olivet at the end of the episode:
  "Max's death. I accept it. But I'll never...accept it, you know what I mean?"
• The ending of "Heaven", when the judge reads off the names of all fifty-three people killed in the arson of a Latin club, cutting to shots of grieving family members in between.

Season 3

• In "Mother Love", a former honor student turned crack addict has been shot dead. The trail leads first to her dealer/boyfriend, but there is no evidence to link him to it. Stone and Robinette discover that the girl had stolen from her family, including bearer bonds from her grandmother, to support her habit and suspicion falls on her father. Ultimately, they discover that it was her mother who had killed her. Performed by the incomparable Mary Alice (the Oracle in The Matrix Revolutions).
  Virginia Bryant: I looked at her, it was so hard. Those little lines of blood in her eyes, her hands full of holes. My baby... It was so pitiful. She gave me the gun. She begged me, 'Mama...put me out of my misery. Do it for me...please.' I...I gave up. I gave her what she wanted. I killed my baby.
• The ending of "Manhood," when three cops are acquitted of murder, despite them willingly leaving their fellow police officer to die just because he was gay.
  Schiff: They used to ask, "How can a man put a sheet on his head and lynch somebody?" Usually he can't, by himself.
  Stone: But when there's more than one... Four cops let him die.
  Schiff: And twelve citizens did it again.
  Stone: And they voted their indifference.

Season 4

• The ending of "Mayhem." A very socially awkward but endearing man is on trial for a string of brutal murders—he's unable to provide an alibi but both the detectives and prosecutors feel he didn't do it. Eventually, his mother reveals his alibi: he's actually gay, and was seeing his lover when the murders took place. However he didn't tell the police because he didn't want his mother to find out. Ironically, his mother already knew, but had never told him because she didn't want to embarrass him. The obviously relieved detectives go to the prison where he's remanded to get him released—only to find out he was just killed by another prisoner.

Season 5

• Just the sad case of "Privileged". A downright honest and sweet couple were brutally murdered in their own bed, leaving behind a daughter who was to be married the next year. The team couldn't find a single person who would have a reason to do so. They learn that the couple were very generous and respectable people, fighting for their employees as well, even the one guy who legitimately hates them feels like they did him a favor. After the reveal that they were killed by mistake, it breaks everyone's heart.
• In the opening of "Seeds," a crazed woman is looking for her husband to shoot her, claiming he killed their unborn child and left her. When the husband goes to call the cops, the woman shoots at him, only for the nearest guard to shoot her dead. The look he gives is more of shocked horror rather than having to do what needed to be done at the moment. No one blames the guard, but he's still trying to justify his actions.
  • It turns out the woman only thought she was pregnant, but the autopsy revealed she was not. The specialist she and her husband had been going to, Dr. Delbert, either lied to them or misdiagnosed them. Either way, Dr. Delbert can't be held legally responsible and the husband is furious that the man who he blames for his wife's senseless death will suffer no consequences.
  • One family, who are the only witnesses left who can for sure have Dr. Delbert arrested for his fraud, and also want it badly, can't bring themselves to do it. Doing so will reveal the tragic truth about their son's birth. They were unable to find a compatible bone marrow donor for their daughter with leukemia. They tried conceiving a child with the chance of getting the marrow and Dr. Delbert helped. However, since he was using his own sperm, their attempt was doomed to fail. The son is born, but his marrow is not a match and the daughter dies. The parents don't want their son to know that they only had him for the parts.

Season 6

• In the episode "Savages," we see McCoy prosecuting embezzler Paul Sandig for killing a police officer, which is a capital offense. Eventually, with his guilt beyond doubt, Sandig finally breaks down, expressing remorse and tearfully begging for his life. The guy may have been guilty of murder, but it's still pitiful to see.
  Sandig: I was so ashamed of what I did to that detective. Do you know why I kept the gun? I was gonna kill myself.
  McCoy: So why didn't you?
  Sandig: [voice breaks] Because I don't wanna die. I'm sorry, okay? Please... [sobs] I don't wanna die!
• "Savior" has a woman and her son brutally murdered in their sleep and the father, an unemployed alcoholic in debt, arrested for the crime. At his trial, the man broke down in tears over what happened to his family yet in spite of his anguish, still did not confess to the crime. Turns out, he didn't have to as he was innocent; it was the teenaged daughter who also was "attacked" that convinced her boyfriend to kill them to get money from her mother's expensive jewelry and due to the troubled relationship between the two women.
  • Also sad is the daughter's reaction when confronted. YMMV, but she seems to have a genuine My God, What Have I Done? moment.
• In the episode "Slave," a young boy named Lonnie is involved in the Accidental Murder of a woman. The episode reveals that Lonnie was sold off by his mother to a drug dealer to pay off her drug habit. However, the boy is so loyal to his mother that he can't imagine her giving him up (he thought she was just letting him hang out with the dealer) and refuses to testify against the dealer. In one of the harshest actions in the series, McCoy and Kincaid show Lonnie his mother from behind dark glass, where she speaks dismissively of him and justifies her abuse of him. You can visibly see Lonnie's tears as he realizes how someone he loved has used him.
  • It gets even sadder with the episode's ending. The dealer is sent to prison, but Lonnie will be going to juvenile hall for several years. Before sentencing, the judge asks for any loved ones to stand. Lonnie looks back, with only McCoy in attendance and no sign of his mother. Even after what he'd seen, he still thought maybe his mother had some humanity toward him. The final shot sees Lonnie being taken away, crestfallen, and McCoy looking on with a noticeably saddened expression.
• "Jeopardy." Schiff has discovered that an old friend has become a corrupt judge when he learns that he let a guy get off on a triple murder rap once his wealthy mother offered him a large sum of money. After all the usual shenanigans that result in the bad guys being convicted and sent to prison, Jack, Claire, and Adam are in his office celebrating when Adam receives a phone call informing him that the judge Ate His Gun.
• The season finale "Aftershock." Claire Kincaid is killed in a car accident while driving Briscoe (who has fallen Off the Wagon) home. The music that plays in the background as Briscoe gets out of the car, goes to check on Claire, and realizes that she didn't make it...

Season 7

• The episode following "Aftershock," "Causa Mortis," has the case of a Happily Married schoolteacher who was abducted at gunpoint and found murdered. At the killer's trial, there was a recording of the poor woman's last moments alive as she begged the man not to kill her, telling her how much she loved her husband and showing him pictures of her children while her widower and young daughter weep openly in court. At the end of the episode, there was a moment where both Briscoe and McCoy share the feelings they have over their own mutual guilt over what happened, as well as each man wanting the other one not to have guilt:
  McCoy: You know, before it happened...she wanted to quit. I talked her out of it.
  Briscoe: Yeah, well...I could have kept walking past that bar.
• "Double Blind" has a mentally ill college student kill a janitor. After the dust had settled in finding him and getting him to trial, it's discovered that the kid didn't kill the man because he was mentally ill but rather because he had a tumor, which a doctor who was allegedly studying his brain for research didn't care to actually do; he used the man as a means to an end to look better. By the time his tumor was detected, it had become inoperable. Had the man actually done his job, then the murder wouldn't have happened and the young man would have survived. He even confronted the doctor saying "They say I have around a year to live, maybe two if I'm lucky."
• The season finale, "Terminal." Adam has been unavailable throughout much of the episode and not quite up to his usual Deadpan Snarker standard when he is around, because his wife is dying in the hospital. The final scene is him alone in the hospital room with her when he takes her off life support and she finally dies. He begins to cry.
• Judith Sandler, a witness and the doer from "Survivor." Already being the daughter of Holocaust survivors and being traumatized by what her parents went through, which affected her upbringing and being afraid of the world around her, she helped to carry on the pursuit of her father's lost possessions, namely, his coin collection, which he had put in storage before he was captured years earlier. She then was more or less harassed and tricked by Ross and the detectives into searching her apartment. It's later discovered that a Swiss billionaire had already sold the father's coins and that she had killed the victim, who she thought was withholding knowledge about them, for nothing.

Season 8

• Lennie Briscoe throughout the whole season. His daughter gets arrested for drug possession and is forced to testify against her dealer, and after his acquittal she ends up murdered. He goes to the crime scene and has to be restrained from cradling her body by his partner. To see this gruff, world-weary homicide detective on the verge of sobbing just makes you ache.
  Lennie: She was my baby, Rey. What am I gonna do?
  Rey: You're going home with me, partner.
  • The crime scene tells you all about her Undignified Death: she was shot in the head and her body abandoned like garbage in a dump with rats running around.
• In the episode "Ritual," the police investigate the murder of an Egyptian man, and learn that he'd been killed after trying to arrange a clitoridectomy for his American-born niece. Not only does the poor girl have to deal with the knowledge that her dad was the murderer, but she also faces the prospect of having to live with her Egyptian mother, who cannot withstand the pressure from her own mother to subject her child to a clitoridectomy for the sake of family tradition, despite the lifelong pain and anguish her own surgery caused her. Thankfully, the DA's office intervenes, but the end result still requires the girl to move out of state and live with relatives that she doesn't know very well.
• In "Under the Influence," McCoy is trying a banker named Bernard Dressler for killing several people while driving drunk. McCoy is going further than usual in his pursuit of justice, trying to give Dressler the death penalty. Everyone is telling him to back off, because Jack lost his lover to a drunk driver. Then Dressler breaks down and begs for forgiveness, and Jack realizes what he's doing. A defendant in tears and Jack pausing over a sheet of paper shouldn't be that evocative...
• The victims' impact statement of the slain police officer's widower in "Bad Girl":
  Mr. Flynn: Dana and I wanted to have children, but we decided to wait until she was more settled in her job. I could imagine...us sitting at the table for Sunday dinner and all the little happy faces around us. I've got nothing left...I want my wife back.

Season 9

• "Tabula Rasa" had a father who was a Manipulative Bastard that kept his wife and two daughters under lock and key by not allowing them to make friends outside of the home or really do anything without his permission. It eventually comes to light that he abducted his children from their biological mother, who had custody, years earlier and brainwashed them against her; he killed the victim by throwing her in the path of a train because she recognized him from back then. Furthermore, he admits that he never loved his second wife and only married her to give his children a mother. The girls' real mother then is able to find them all, but due to his lies, they hate her and after he goes to prison, the younger daughter, who's still a minor, is ordered to live with her, which upsets the girl as her older sister yells at her mom, "Are you happy now, you bitch?" The episode is a true Downer Ending that gives a realistic look at what happens in tragic situations like that.
• In "Sideshow", Jack McCoy is questioned by someone trying to get him to reveal the name of a confidential informant, and the person questioning him tries to discredit him by bringing up both Claire's death and her relationship with Jack. Jack just stares at the man looking horrified and asks, "Have you no shame, sir?"
• "Refuge (Part 2)":
  • Abby breaks down in the courtroom after Carlton Radford is convicted, knowing it will help bring down the Russian mobsters who killed her friend, Toni Ricci. She later mails a copy of the verdict slip to Ricci's parents.
  • As Rey Curtis prepares to leave the squad to care for his dying wife, Lennie gives him a goodbye hug:
  Lennie: Anything, Rey. I don't care what time it is. Just pick up the damn phone.

Season 10

• In "Gunshow," a group of female medical students is gunned down in Central Park by an applicant who was rejected by the program. As Greene and Briscoe come onto the scene, the mother of one of the victims runs onto the scene and starts cradling her daughter's body, sobbing about how her child is dead. Greene can do nothing but kneel down and hold the woman as she grieves.
• In "Stiff," a woman has become "locked-in" (fully conscious and aware of everything going on around her, but unable to move, speak or communicate in any way) after being given spiked insulin. After a last-ditch attempt to "unlock" her fails, the woman's daughter, who is responsible for her state, whispers tearfully "I'm so sorry, Mom."
• Denise Grobman, the victim from "DNR," who was left mortally wounded by an assassin hired by her husband, who was jealous of her burgeoning career as a judge. She is in strong denial over him trying to kill her and severely depressed over being left a paraplegic who cannot care for herself. At the trial to determine if she was competent to make a decision on her life, she suffers a breakdown on the stand:
  Denise: *to McCoy, tearfully* Why do you keep on hammering and hammering?! Can't you see that it's all my fault? Please, please. Leave Walter alone. I've loved him for more than half of my life. Everything is my fault. When is this over? When is this over?! *turns around to face the sitting judge presiding over the case, who is also a good friend of hers* Lisa! Please, please make them stop! Just let me die!
  • Also of note, in spite of what a bastard Walter is, after seeing his wife break down on the stand he confesses to everything while in chambers to his lawyer's chagrin. Shortly after, Denise gets her wish to withdraw all treatment (to the presiding judge and close friend's obvious pain as she renders her decision) and dies sometime later in the company of her husband.
• In "Endurance," a mother has been put on trial for murdering her son, who suffered from severe physical and mental health problems which had obviously taken their toll on her. Upon his cross-examination, McCoy inadvertently prompts the mother to break down on the stand and admit that she had watched him have what she thought was a fatal seizure, unable to bear saving him only to force him to endure the pain and suffering he was forced to live through, and actually attempted to kill herself with her son's pills so that they would both die together before coming to her senses. The woman's tearful breakdown as she insists that she couldn't bear to see her son suffer any more is so affecting that even the hard-assed, seen-it-all-before McCoy looks shaken by it. And notably, it marks one of the few times he deliberately enables a technically guilty party to receive a lighter sentence.
• "Mother's Milk" has two incompetent new parents who are raising a baby boy when he goes missing. After giving the detectives the run-around and blaming each other, the little boy is found dead. Although he was buried in a garden by the father, he wasn't technically murdered; he instead starved to death because his mother couldn't properly breastfeed him. Worse, she went to a clinic to get assistance, only for the consultant to guilt her and tell her she just wasn't trying hard enough and that using formula would be a horrible thing. There was formula in the apartment, but she didn't use it because she thought it would make her a bad mother and possibly harm her baby.

Season 11

• "Phobia" had a gay man brutally murdered by someone acting on behalf of his adoptive child's biological mother to take the baby back. Hearing the testimony of the man's distraught partner is hard to watch and the fact that they were devoted not just to each other, but to their son as well.

Season 12

• "Armed Forces" begins with a homeless man being murdered. During the investigation, they learn that he was a Vietnam vet who was still haunted by the war and his actions. Turns out, a few of the men in his platoon had killed him out of silence, as he wanted to turn in his medals and tell the papers what they all did. Aside from the woman who was flown over to testify about the deaths of her mother and young daughter during the war, the end of the episode has his funeral where the flag was presented to his elderly aunt and uncle and was attended by another friend from the platoon not involved in the murder, two military soldiers and Briscoe and McCoy as a tape of "Taps" is played.
  • Even worse, it was revealed that the man had terminal non-Hodgkin's lymphoma a year earlier that he wasn't treating, meaning that in addition to his substance abuse he likely would have died before the year was over. They killed the man for nothing.
• "Formerly Famous" ends with a washed-up, alcoholic lounge singer breaking down under questioning from McCoy over the death of his wife. Turns out he didn't kill his wife because of the pending divorce, the fact that she lied about the paternity of their daughter, or the thousands of dollars she was costing him. He killed his wife because she threatened to expose the fact their daughter was not biologically his and take custody away. His daughter was the only one in the world who didn't see him as a failure. She was his second chance, and "guys like me don't get second chances."

Season 13

• The young man, Sammy Mireles, from "Smoke" learned that his parents sold him out to a known pedophile to pay for his younger brother's medical bills and live comfortably. The look of horror and devastation on his face when he learns the truth is unforgettable:
  Sammy: You sold me?!
  Mrs. Mireles: It wasn't like that!
  Sammy: Well, what was it like?!
  Mrs. Mireles: It was only one time, Sammy. We did it for Davey!
  Sammy: What about me?! I was 11 years old! You knew what he was gonna do to me?!
  Mr. Mireles: You weren't gonna die!
  Sammy: Well, what do you call this?
• In "Sheltered," it turns out that the criminal abducted his "son" a decade earlier. The man had brainwashed the kid into believing that his family was either dead or no longer loved him. When he's reunited with his mother and sister, he's downright horrified and screams at them to get away from him, not believing that they're his relatives. He spends the remainder of the episode shunning them, and even as his kidnapper is convicted and taken away, he still wants nothing to do with them. Stockholm Syndrome is real and can be incredibly hard to break.
• In "House Calls", it turns out that the victim didn't die because of malpractice by her doctor as the authorities believed, but because of a Tragic Mistake: the victim, a Russian model who could not speak English, asked her younger sister (who only spoke English as a second language) to help administer the model's pain medication. The sister mistranslated the instructions to give the medication to her sister every 24 hours, mishearing it as 2-4 hours. As a result, the pain medication mixed in with the model's inhaler and caused her to die of cardiac arrest. The sister breaks down upon realizing this on the witness stand, and everyone else in the courtroom is shocked by the development. (The doctor ends up being acquitted on a technicality as a result.)

Season 14

• "Identity" had an elderly man who had gunned down the greedy unemployed executive who stole his identity and entire his life savings of $400,000. How did he steal the man's money? Through an email scam he used to bilk unsuspecting people, namely the elderly, out of their money. And why did the old man have a computer in the first place, in spite of the fact he really didn't know how to use it? It was given to him by his son so he wouldn't have to deal with him or visit him, which the man brought up to him. In the end, Southerlyn felt bad for him, even believing that the son should serve some time with him.
• In "Compassion," similar to "Endurance," McCoy is cross-examining a pediatric oncologist who killed a man who had conned her out of money by claiming he could speak to the dead, and who is going for an Insanity Defense. The woman breaks down and begins babbling uncontrollably and McCoy is shocked to realize that for once, the insanity was for real, even getting teary eyes from it. Years and years of watching children die despite her best efforts had taken its toll on her, to the point where she began blaming herself for their deaths, and this man scamming her was the final blow. It is much worst when considering that the doctor truly believes every word she is saying, which was enough to convince McCoy to ask for recess. McCoy can't bring himself to send her to jail since she truly needs help, makes a deal with her lawyer to instead sent her to a private hospital to give her that help, but also keeping his tough exterior while doing it. The ending exchange perfectly sums up the end.
  Swift: It's not a bad thing, Jack.
  McCoy: What?
  Swift: Having a heart.
• "Married With Children" focuses on whether a woman murdered her ex-wife for denying her custody of their daughter; the victim had applied to adopt as a single mother and had sole parental rights, since the state they lived in at the time doesn't allow gay couples to adopt. On the stand, the little girl says the defendant told her the victim is just on a business trip and will be back soon—she's confident that soon, she'll have both her beloved moms back with her. The child's grandmother is in tears, and several others in the courtroom look close to it.
• "Evil Breeds" had a murdered Holocaust survivor who was about to give testimony that would had led to a suspected Nazi officer getting deported. At the man's murder trial during her videotaped deposition, she spoke about an incident of his cruelty during her imprisonment: he killed an elderly woman who could not physically march by shooting her in the face and then shot five other girls in line who cried while ordering the survivors to carry on like nothing happened. She then tearfully said that the fifth girl who was killed was her little sister. This causes the woman's granddaughter as well as other attendees in the gallery to begin sobbing themselves.

Season 15

• "License To Kill" has a young teenage boy being severely injured when he's in an SUV that's chased off the road and crashes into a restaurant. His mother breaks down when she's told that the driver, presumably her husband, was killed. The driver is not her husband, and in fact had kidnapped her son—but her hope soon turns to despair as the detectives find that her husband was one of a hunting party all murdered by the driver. Later in the episode, the boy wakes up in hospital and, after being questioned by the detectives, eagerly asks to see his dad; Green and Fontana leave his mother to explain to him. On top of everything else, the boy dies from complications of his injuries. The vigilante who ran the car off the road gets away scot-free, since the media hailed him as a hero and the jury is firmly on his side.
• "Fluency" has a conman selling saline as flu vaccine during a particularly bad flu season, causing 19 people who got it to die from the flu. While questioning the con man in court, McCoy brings up the film The Third Man, which is about a conman who steals and dilutes penicillin with similar consequences. McCoy talks about a scene where the conman is on a Ferris wheel and points out the faceless dots below and asks someone if they would care if one stopped moving. The conman is broken-voiced and tearing up in the witness box.
• In "Sport of Kings," the perp bought a race horse for $3 million dollars, and subsequently had its jockey murdered. Where did all that money come from? Robbing his own company blind and stripping hundreds of workers of their retirement pension funds from under their noses, and the horse wasn't even the only thing he bought. The worker that found out about it, a man easily in his sixties or seventies, is utterly devastated at the betrayal.

Season 16

• Joe Fontana's mistake in "Ghosts," where a homicide case from ten years ago made him assume it was the father that raped and killed his daughter. It ruined the man's life even after he was acquitted, and the case of the episode picks it back up and forces Fontana to realize he was effectively the root cause of the man's misery with his assumptions. He tries to apologize to the widowed father at the end with a hand extended.. and the man just slowly closes the door in Joe's face, not even saying anything. The look on Joe's face before the episode fade-out sells how badly he knows he messed up.
• The horribly Undignified Death of Alexandra Borgia in "Invaders". While investigating the murder of a family and the father's counterfeit DEA badge racket, she's kidnapped by robbers that the father had been aiding and is savagely beaten and left in the trunk of a car to suffocate, but chokes to death on her own vomit before that can happen.

Season 17

• The victim from "Captive," Tory Quinlann, suffers from a hellish existence. He was originally from an abusive home, only to then be kidnapped, sexually molested by his captor, forced to abduct another young boy, killed the boy instead of leaving this "stable" home and because he saw the boy as a competitor, then finally convicted of the murder.
• The secondary victim in "The Family Hour" comes from a very screwed up past. She was habitually abused by her father, a powerful politician, and her socialite stepmother, she then abused her younger half-brother, she develops a drinking problem by the time she's 11 due to her father pimping her out to his friends, she ends up marrying an abusive man herself, she ends up killing the stepmother and ends up being brutally murdered by her father.

Season 18

• The reveal towards the end of "Personae Non Grata" where Chrissy, the young girl that had supposedly flirted with Bob and caused him to murder some supposed interference in their relationship, was Dead All Along, murdered by her mother who then used the girl's online identity to mastermind the victim's murder. Bob is willing to take himself in a guilty admission to protect her to the death, until he's shown the truth by the way of Cutter uncovering Chrissy's bones to prove the point. Bob thusly breaks down hard realizing the person he loved was never actually the one he talked with.
• After years of a clean record, even compared to his partners and Lupo who tries to save him regardless of the risk to his own career, Ed Greene ends up discharged from the force in "Burn Card" after killing a drugged-up hustler to save his girlfriend, said kill also being his prime suspect in his current case. He also ends up doing everything he can to make sure to try to divert the investigation from her even if he has to go down with a murder charge for it. Thankfully her coming clean helps save the both of them from serious charges, but it's Greene's departure from the series with all the somberness it required.

Season 19

• In "Pledge" a boy and his nanny are murdered. The cops at first think it was linked to the parents' business. Nope. Turns out a vengeful man wanted to take something the mother loved because when they were in college, she rejected him entry into a fraternity and he didn't get to hang out with the "girl of his dreams" and in his head never got to be with her. Yes, really. He murdered a child and a nanny because he was angry at woman from over 20 years ago. The lady he was pining for? Died 8 years ago from being shot by her drug addled boyfriend. So not only was the murder pointless, the woman he wanted wasn't even alive!

Season 20

• "Memo from the Dark Side" has the side-plot of the revelation that Van Buren, after all of her years in the precinct, is suffering from cancer. Treatable but potentially problematic. No one knows how to react to it, but it does begin a long series of hard moments between her chemotherapy and the pain she has to suffer over the course of the season. As much of a strict but efficient Reasonable Authority Figure as she is, even she's entirely human.
• "Boy on Fire" has the ending. The culprit is a young black man named Abel, who told his younger brother Marcus about it, and who snitched to the police in order to get an information reward. The real tearjerker comes during the final scene. Abel & Marcus' mother has been desperately pleading that her children are innocent. When the truth finally comes out, she completely breaks down as her oldest child is led away. She is so broken by having to face reality that, while it's not brought up in-episode, one wonders if she is going to be able to move on in any way, shape, or form.
• "Dignity" has a woman explain to the jury of how her terminal child was born and eventually died in her arms. The jury, Connie, and an officer are seen wiping away tears.
• "Fed" has Anita attending the funeral of Rey's wife who wanted to be buried in New York. It's already sad but gets worse when they talk about their last conversations with Briscoe before his death.