Justice is the 10th case of the fifth season of the series and is the 103rd overall.
Description
The 1982 murder of a popular college student is reopened after someone defaces his grave. The detectives have no shortage of suspects after the victim is linked to the rape of several girls on campus.
Synopsis
The episode opens on May 18, 1982. A man named Mike Delaney, who is in college, gives the valedictorian speech for his graduating class. Three girls are angry and depressed as they listen. The next shot shows Mike's lifeless body, as he was shot on the school quad during graduation celebrations. The box is titled Delaney, M.
Lilly Rush and Scotty Valens go to the cemetery, where they see somebody has vandalized Mike Delaney's grave and spray-painted the word "RAPIST" on it.
The detectives find out that Mike Delaney raped a girl back in 1982. Kat Miller and Nick Vera go to Maggie Lafferty, who was a police officer in 1982 and handled the girl's case. They both find out that the victim was Tessie Bartram.
Lilly and Scotty go to see Tessie. Tessie tells them how she met Mike in the school library. She regrets that day.
The detectives look into Mike's yearbook. They see that he drew a rose on four girls' pictures. They soon see that more girls were targets of Mike, and of course the victims of rape.
Will and Nick call all of the girls whose pictures Mike Delaney drew a rose on. Though they could not bring in Shaina McNulty, who committed suicide in 1982.
Lilly first talks to Melinda Levy. Melinda chose not to tell anybody what happened, because she thought that it was her fault.
Kat talks to Karin Hensley. Karin says that she told her roommate and best friend, Lisa, about what happened, but she believed Karen asked for it because "a guy like Mike doesn't need to rape anyone".
Then, Lilly talks to Regie Kunze. She tells Lilly that she met up again with Mike after the incident outside of the school, where he denied any wrongdoing and taunted her. Later on, Regie told the Dean of what Mike did, but nothing happened.
The detectives talk to Shaina's father, Jason McNulty, and he admits to not believing that his daughter was raped back then, which he regrets. Jason also tells them that when he arrived at the scene of Shaina's suicide, he saw a female cop, Maggie Lafferty, outside of his daughter's room, holding her diary.
Lilly and Kat come to talk to Maggie, who explains she felt bad that Mike raped more than one girl and there still wasn't enough to charge him. She reveals that she went into Tessie's apartment to explain to her that if she was in imminent danger, she could kill Mike in self-defense and wouldn't be put in jail. Maggie then discreetly revealed she put a gun in Tessie's mailbox to allow her to "protect herself".
The detectives talk to Tessie once more, along with her lawyer and younger brother, Jimmy Bartam. Jimmy refuses to let Tessie speak to the detectives of what happened. They leave the interview room.
Lilly and Will go to the old women's bathroom at the university, where the students kept notes for each other and such. The four girls all left messages on the wall, referring to the aftermath of their rapes. Shaina wrote: "MD Raped Me, I told my dad and he said it was my fault". Regie wrote: "I told the Dean and nothing happened", Tessie wrote: "I told the cops and nothing happened", Karin wrote: "I told my roommate and she said I asked for it", Melinda wrote: "I didn't tell anyone because it was my fault". Also, all the girls wrote "We must stop him together FOREVER".
The police talk to Melinda, Karin, and Regie. They admit that they did confront Mike in the school quad the night of graduation, with Tessie holding the gun. But Tessie didn't shoot him and recalls, "I don't want to be like him". She threw the gun into the trash and walked away, along with Regie, Karin and Melinda.
Lilly and Scotty go and talk to Jimmy and Tessie, having realised that Jimmy lied about being home the night Mike Delaney was murdered. Jimmy, who was 12 years old back then and being raised by Tessie since their parents died, admits that when Mike raped his sister at their home, he heard it from the nearby room but could not react out of fear. Tessie frantically orders her brother to stop talking and tries to confess to killing Mike.
On that fateful night, Jimmy followed Tessie and witnessed her and the girls' confrontation with Mike... but after the girls left, he picked up the gun from the trash can. Then, Jimmy confronted Mike himself and when Mike even taunted the boy about what he did to his sister, Jimmy shot him dead - as a way to both avenge his sister and make up for not having been able to help her. As Tessie pleads with the detectives, Lilly and Scotty coax Jimmy into saying he picked up the gun because he was scared and he felt Mike was a threat to his life; Will and Nick are observing and, for once, they choose to ignore the coaxing. As a consequence, Jimmy didn't get arrested and the murder was ruled to be a justifiable homicide.
After Jimmy's testimony and the end of the whole nightmare, he and Tessie hug each other tightly. As Nick puts away the documents of the now-resolved case, he briefly "sees" Mike's ghost in the file room and shoots him a cold glance before the ghost fades away. Maggie is at work, overseeing a bunch of female rookies in the shooting grounds; Jason is on his own in the harbor, thoughtfully drinking from a beer bottle. Will brings a huge pile of papers to his desk and sighs, under the watch of Kat and Scotty. At the very end, Regie, Melinda, and Karin meet up in the streets, share a hug, and walk away together, as Lilly watches them from afar.
Cast
Main Cast
- Kathryn Morris as Lilly Rush
- Danny Pino as Scotty Valens
- John Finn as John Stillman
- Jeremy Ratchford as Nick Vera
- Thom Barry as Will Jeffries
- Tracie Thoms as Kat Miller
Guest Cast
- Justin Hartley as Mike Delaney
- Betsy Beutler as Regie Kunze (1982)
- Annie Campbell as Karin Hensley (1982)
- Diane Delano as Maggie Lafferty (2007)
- Nikki DeLoach as Tessie Bartram (1982)
- Michele Greene as Tessie Bartram (2007)
- Eve Gordon as Melinda Levy (2007)
- Mark Hutter as Jason McNulty (2007)
- Deirdre Lovejoy as Regie Kunze (2007)
- Brian Poth as Jimmy Bartram (2007)
- Elizabeth Sampson as Karin Hensley (2007)
- Zoe Perry as Melinda Levy (1982)
- Kristin Proctor as Maggie Lafferty (1982)
Co-Starring
- Clint Carmichael as Jason McNulty (1982)
- J. Teddy Garces as Uniform Cop (1982)
- Stephanie Katz as Lisa
- Jack Weber as Jimmy Bartram (1982)
Notes
- The ending song "Save a Prayer" by Duran Duran was also heard in the second season episode "Schadenfreude", which also took place in 1982.
- Lilly mentions at the start that the twenty-fifth anniversary of Mike's death was coming up, but Mike was killed in May of 1982, while this episode aired in the fall of 2007, so the twenty-fifth anniversary would have already come and gone months earlier.
- Mike was explicitly said to have been killed on the night of graduation, which was dated May 18, 1982. However, his headstone gives his date of death as May 29, 1982.
- Justin Hartley (playing Mike Delaney), revealed that he does also hate his character on this episode, as he was really against abuse to all women out there.
- At twelve years old, Jimmy Bartram is tied with Ariel Shuman from "The Sleepover", Darnell Odoms from "Time to Crime", Chuck Pierce from "One Small Step", and George Marks from "Mind Hunters"/ "The Woods" as the youngest doer seen on the show.
- The episode was remade as the twenty-sixth episode of Cold Case - Door of Truth.
Music
- A Flock of Seagulls "Space Age Love Song"
- Psychedelic Furs "Sister Europe"
- Joy Division "Love Will Tear Us Apart"
- The Cure "Secrets"
- Psychedelic Furs "Love My Way"
- Closing Song: Duran Duran "Save A Prayer"
| Season 5 Episodes |
| Thrill Kill | That Woman | Running Around | Devil Music | Thick as Thieves | Wunderkind | World's End | It Takes a Village | Boy Crazy | Justice | Family 8108 | Sabotage | Spiders | Andy in C Minor | The Road | Bad Reputation | Slipping | Ghost of My Child |
