Running Around is the 3rd case of the fifth season of the series and is the 96th overall.
Description
An Amish girl approaches Lilly asking for help in the murder of her older sister, who went missing in Philadelphia in 2006 during the custom of "Rumspringa" (which literally means "running around"), when Amish teens are sent out to experience the outside world and given a choice to stay there or return to the life they were raised in.
Synopsis
The episode begins with a 16-year-old Amish girl, Anna Gunden, being picked up by her friends, also 16, to begin Rumspringa on July 21, 2006 (her birthday). Before leaving, Anna is given a vial of dirt from their settlement by her mother, Miriam Gunden, and she promises to write home every day to her younger sister, Sarah Gunden. After getting in the car, Anna takes off her bonnet and lets it flow in the wind.
Anna is shown dead in an alley outside a club, wearing a party dress. She is marked as a Jane Doe.
Fast forward to a year later on October 7, 2007. Sarah, now 16 and on a Rumspringa herself, comes to the PPD to solve the disappearance of her sister. She approaches Detectives Lilly Rush and Nick Vera. They first tell her that they only work on homicides, not missing persons cases, but Sarah insists that something happened to Anna and she wouldn't just run out on her family and friends. Sarah explains that her sister wrote letters to her every day, but one day they just stopped. She tells them Anna has a missing back tooth to help identify her. Lilly and the team look into unsolved murder cases of Jane Does and find someone who matches Anna's description.
To be sure it is Anna, the team prints out a picture of the young Jane Doe, which Lilly and Nick take to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the heart of Amish Country, to have the Gundens identify her. After Miriam and Sarah see the picture, they confirm the deceased girl is Anna, leaving them heartbroken. Sarah tells them that Anna went to celebrate Rumspringa with her best friend, Rachel Wagler, who lives nearby.
The detectives go to see Rachel, but her husband Mose Wagler only allows Lilly to go inside the house to talk to his wife and has Nick stay outside with him and their infant son. Lilly meets Rachel, now 17, and asks her about Anna and their stay in Philadelphia. Rachel recalls how Anna loved being free and out in the urbanized world, while she hated the entire experience and wanted to go home. Rachel also tells Lilly that they stayed with their friend, a former Amish boy named Jakob Beachy who still resides in Philadelphia.
Detectives Will Jeffries and Scotty Valens talk to Jakob, who is clearly on drugs. He says that after Rachel and Anna came to the city, they went to a party where Anna met the neighborhood tough guy, a teenage boy named Vince Patrielli.
Scotty and Detective Kat Miller find Vince standing on the sidewalk and confront him. When he finds out they’re police, he runs. He is soon caught and questioned. Vince talks about how he and Anna met, connected and became inseparable. Then Scotty gets a call about another witness in the case.
The witness, a pharmacist named Phil Corado, is brought to the precinct and questioned. He knows about the case because Anna Gunden and Rachel Wagler were customers of his. One day, the girls are in his store, where Rachel is obviously upset about something and tries to talk to Anna about it. Rachel says that they should end the trip early and go home, but Anna doesn't want to; she's having so much fun meeting new people and befriending them, and getting new clothes and accessories. Anna tries on make up for the very first time and gushes about possibly having her very first boyfriend (Vince). At that point, Rachel loses it and starts to leave the store, with Anna following her. Phil confronts them and demands that Rachel hand over whatever she has; she had shoplifted. Rachel reluctantly does so, and Anna sees the item: a pregnancy test. Anna is shocked and starts to question Rachel. Rachel angrily yells at Anna that she will kill her if Anna reveals this to anyone, all the while Phil is watching.
Lilly heads back to question Rachel about her and Anna's fight. Rachel insists she would never hurt Anna and was just scared. She then tells Lilly the sad and dark truth about how she got pregnant and who the real father of her son was. One day, the girls, Vince, Jakob, and another boy/companion head to the beach to see the ocean - what Anna’s mother, Miriam, always regretted she hadn’t done and what Anna always wanted to see. At the beach, Anna finally convinces Rachel to tell her who was behind her pregnancy. Rachel is very reluctant because what she is going to say is going break the heart of her best friend who she's known since childhood and is like a sister to her. She reveals it was Vince who got her pregnant; he raped an unconscious Rachel during the party on a dare after the two girls arrived in Philadelphia and before he met Anna.
Scotty, along with his and the team's boss, Lt. John Stillman, find Vince and interrogate him for a second time. He doesn't regret raping Rachel but denies killing Anna, admitting that he respected her. Vince says after Anna confronted him about Rachel, Miriam suddenly showed up. She had failed to mention this to the detectives when they first visited the family.
So Lilly and Kat interrogate Miriam again. She explains the reason she came to Philadelphia was to see her daughter and check how she was doing; she really missed Anna. Plus, back home in Lancaster, Miriam ran into Rachel, who fled home from Philadelphia to work out her pregnancy and options. Miriam was exceptionally worried that Anna had gotten pregnant too but nope... she was fine. However, Anna was emotionally scarred by what has happened recently (her best friend being raped and impregnated by a boy Anna called "her own" and her "shining knight in armor", etc.) and considered going back home to her family and friends. Miriam, unaware of what has happened, encourages her daughter to stay and only come home when she wants to, not when others want her to. Jakob then arrives at the scene and is surprised to see Anna with her mother. Without a thought, he starts to pepper Miriam with questions about his family, which he thought was the reason she came. Specifically, he asks, "Is something wrong with my parents? Do they miss me? Did they send you?" Anna is perplexed when her mother won't answer Jakob or even look at him. Miriam explains that Jakob is banned from Lancaster due to his drug addiction and she's not allowed to speak to him.
Scotty and Nick go to see Jakob and find him in a drug-infested playground. He confesses what happened. Jakob and Anna got into an argument because she decided to stay to finish out her Rumspringa. He, on the other hand, missed his family and wanted to go back home but wasn’t allowed to because of his growing drug and alcohol addictions, and partying lifestyle. Jakob feared his parents didn’t love him anymore and was jealous of Anna's supportive family. When she refused to help him go back, Jakob grabbed Vince’s knife from a bag and stabbed Anna to death in a fit.
Jakob is arrested and his parents come to the precinct to say goodbye to their son. Anna's body is transported back to Lancaster for her funeral as her family, Rachel, and Mose look on. Lilly and Vera leave the settlement. Will and Kat close the case. The episode ends with Anna’s spirit watching as Sarah officially goes off on Rumspringa, taking off her bonnet and letting it flow in the wind.
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
- Mackenzie Mauzy as Anna Gunden
- Ashlee Gillespie as Rachel Wagler
- Robyn Lively as Miriam Gunden
- Christopher Shand as Jakob Beachy
- Sean Wing as Vince Patrielli
- Shailene Woodley as Sarah Gunden
- Patricia Bethune as Dr. Penny Davoren
Co-Starring
- Sean Andrew as Rowdy Amish Teen #1
- Jesse C. Boyd as Rowdy Amish Teen #2
- James Ingersoll as Phil Corado
- Chip Joslin as Mose Wagler
Notes
- This is the only episode where the date of the crime isn't shown immediately at the beginning of the first flashback sequence.
- Maurice Hall's case box is visible when Anna Gunden's case box is put away.
- This episode was aired one week before Mackenzie Mauzy's 19th birthday (portraying Anna Gunden).
Music
