Original subtitles

In the criminal justice system,

the people are represented

by two separate, yet equally important groups:

the police, who investigate crime,

and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders.

These are their stories.

- Hey, it's me.

Listen, I really need...

I just need to talk to you.

Call me back, please.

♪ ♪

Cause of death is a single gunshot to the head.

Recovered a 9 millimeter casing on the floor.

- We know our vic's name?

Natalie Wallis. She owns the brownstone.

According to neighbors, she was single, lived alone.

Neighbors the one who called it in?

- Negative.

ShotSpotter device detected the sound of a gunshot

and alerted Central.

Car was dispatched.

Saw the front door open and found the body.

- AI gets it right for once.

MLI recovered several strands of hair on the victim's body.

All right, well, let's make sure we get those to the lab.

Looks like we got signs of forced entry.

Anything indicating a robbery?

- Not that we can tell.

Phone and wallet are present and accounted for.

All right, Walker, anything up here?

Plenty easy to grab electronics laying around.

Laptops, speakers.

- Whatever that thing is.

- Dude, it's a 3D printer.

- Oh.

Well, whatever our vic did for a living,

looks like she made some pretty good money.

According to Linkedln, Natalie Wallis

is a chief engineer for a company called Utomnia.

- Yeah, surveillance software.

We use those guys to get geofencing warrants.

They're like Big Brother.

They got eyes and ears everywhere.

Okay, so assuming she's good at her job,

her killer should be easy to find.

♪ ♪

Yeah, we got your message. What's up?

We've been processing your crime scene,

and there's something I need to show you.

So we attempted to access the data

from Natalie Wallis's home security cameras.

Okay, is there something I'm missing here?

- Yeah, about three hours'

worth of footage from last night,

deleted from her hard drive and the cloud backup.

Let me guess... the missing footage overlaps

perfectly with the time she was murdered, huh?

So you called us down here to show us

you got nothing to show us?

It's not just her security system.

Her tablet, her smart fridge, her Bluetooth speakers,

every piece of data from last night has been scrubbed.

I've never seen anything like it.

And it's not just in her house.

I mean, even the street cams on her block were wiped.

Wait, how is that even possible?

Well, it looks like whoever did it gained access

to the city's mainframe by exploiting

a backdoor glitch that, until now,

we didn't even know was there.

So whoever murdered her was either an expert hacker

or paid someone who is to cover their tracks.

Looks like finding her killer is not

gonna be so easy after all.

We were able to recover her texts from the cloud.

All right, so the last text she sent

was to a Vanessa Barret

only a few minutes before she was killed.

"Call me ASAP.

I need to talk to you."

- That sounds urgent.

We worked together at Utomnia.

I was the chief technology officer.

- Why don't you take a seat? - Thank you.

Technically, I was her boss,

but it should have been the other way around.

She's really talented.

Looks like you got out of the security game.

- Yeah, I... sorry.

I came over here a year ago to take the CTO position.

We are a startup trying to create efficiencies

in the women's health care space.

And you and Natalie stayed in touch?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. We're friends. Good friends.

- Do you have any idea

what that text might have been about?

No, I... she left me a voicemail, too,

saying the same thing, that, uh...

that she needed to talk to me.

I hadn't had a chance to respond.

I was flying home from a conference in Sweden.

I landed late last night.

Are you aware of any problems she was having?

Anyone who might have wanted to hurt her?

She did go through a bad breakup

a few months ago with a guy named Patrick.

He works in cybersecurity.

She dumped him.

I guess he didn't take it well.

And she told me that he said some pretty terrible things.

When was the last time you spoke to her?

- Three months ago.

She asked me to leave her alone,

and I respected her wishes.

Truth is, she had major trust issues with men.

But she came by them honestly.

- What does that mean?

Before she worked for Utomnia,

Natalie was a video game designer.

A few years back, she got a lot of hate online.

- Gamergaters? - Yeah.

- Help me out here.

A bunch of video game bro-types started going after

prominent women who worked in the industry,

attacking them online.

You know about this stuff, huh?

- I'm a single man in his 30s.

I play a lot of video games.

- I did some digging online.

Found a Reddit thread of Gamergate dudes

still trolling our vic.

- All these years later,

these guys are still mad because why?

Because ladies like to play video games too?

- Yeah. - A bunch of grown-ass men

hanging a sign on their clubhouse

that says "girls not allowed."

I mean, it's the lamest thing I've ever heard.

Yeah, some of these women had to change their identities,

move to new towns.

How does it even get to that level?

Incels getting on their headsets,

hyping each other up.

And these are your people, huh?

- Mm-mm. I play solo, dawg.

Check it out.

A user named Tanner Lovell

threatened Natalie three days ago.

And according to his profile, he lives in Queens.

Calls himself a master hacker.

♪ ♪

- Let's try around back.

♪ ♪

- Did you hear that? - Yeah.

♪ ♪

NYPD, turn around and put your hands in the air.

- Said put your hands up!

Drop that weapon!

Don't shoot! It's not a weapon!

- Yo, what the hell, man?

♪ ♪

"Natalie Wallis walks around thinking she knows what's up.

"Let's see how mouthy the bitch is

when she fills the cold metal of my Glock on her forehead."

- You own a Glock, Tanner?

- No, not a real one.

You posted this three days ago.

Last night, Natalie was shot and killed.

- Wait, what?

That wasn't me. I didn't...

We know you hated her, Tanner.

We've already been through your Reddit.

She worked for the company that made my favorite game.

She talked some nonsense about the depiction of women

being offensive.

She didn't even work for the company anymore, man.

Yet you still targeted her. Why?

Is it because she posted this photo of you?

- Oh, I love this.

"This is a real man

the way a chihuahua is a real guard dog."

I mean, that's funny.

Must be why it got over 30,000 likes.

Mm-mm. She humiliated you, huh?

Owned you in front of your incel buddies.

No, we know that you knew where she lived, Tanner.

You posted it online, you piece of...

- Okay! Okay!

But I never went there!

- Really? - No!

No, I wanted to.

Look, look.

I hated that slut.

But... but... - Hey, watch yourself.

Every time, when I tried to work up the nerve

to even go, I couldn't.

I chickened out.

Where were you last night around 11:30?

I was playing in a "Magic: the Gathering" tournament.

I made it to the last round,

and I didn't get out until after midnight.

I spoke to the tournament organizer.

Tanner Lovell's alibi is legit.

- That tracks.

While you were doing that, the lab results came in.

Hair on the vic belongs to a Caucasian male.

So we're looking for a white guy.

- Guys, something's happening.

- What's going on?

I was going through the vic's emails

when all of a sudden, a bunch of them

just started disappearing.

Look.

- It's happening right now?

I think someone might be remotely deleting them.

- Can you stop it?

- No, I tried.

Can you recover them from the trash?

- They're not there either.

Is there any pattern as to which emails are being deleted?

Yeah, it looks like it's all the ones with the purple label.

- That's her work tab.

So someone's working overtime to scrub Natalie's email

of anything related to Utomnia.

♪ ♪

Email deletions are standard protocol.

The system is in place to protect company trade secrets.

Yeah, well, it's impeding a murder investigation.

I don't know what to tell you.

The system is set up to automatically sweep an inbox

once an employee is listed

as no longer working at the company.

- Why all the secrecy?

Well, there's a lot of corporate espionage

in this industry.

Detectives, Marius Cole.

My office told me you were here.

I'm sorry about the emails.

But I can't imagine that Natalie's murder had

anything to do with her work product.

- That's for us to determine.

- Of course.

Thank you, Juvaria. I'll take it from here.

Please.

The last thing I wanna do is hinder an investigation.

Natalie was amazing, brilliant, truly one of a kind,

believe me.

Any way that I can help, I mean, just say the word.

What was Natalie doing for you, specifically?

- Again, I'm sorry.

Unless you have a specific warrant for something,

it would be irresponsible of me to divulge any company secrets.

Although, I can tell you that we recently had

to fire somebody on her team.

He was caught leaking sensitive company data to the press.

He was furious, and he blamed Natalie.

She blocked me from doing the public a service.

The stuff Utomnia is up to is terrifying.

And people need to know. - Really? Like what?

Iris scanning, facial rec, phone hacking,

location data scraping.

That stuff has existed for years, man.

Sure, but Utomnia is consolidating

all the information into one giant database powered by AI

and selling the data to the highest bidder.

Marius Cole is completely eradicating

the basic concept of privacy,

and people don't even realize it.

So you see yourself as a whistleblower?

I tried, but Natalie caught me.

So because of Natalie, you're facing

some pretty stiff penalties, huh?

I wouldn't hurt Natalie, for God's sake.

I'm the good guy here, not the villain.

Ooh, people who say that make me nervous.

- I didn't blame Natalie.

She was a total techno-optimist.

She truly believed that, if it were harder for bad people

to hide, the world would be a safer place.

All that being said, where were you two nights ago?

I was at a concert at Madison Square Garden.

The amount of surveillance in that place,

you can verify that 100 different ways.

- Okay. We will be in touch.

- Oh, wait.

A few days before I was canned, so about a week ago,

I ran into Natalie at a café.

She was with a guy.

And when I went over to say hi, she got super weird.

- Do you know who the guy was?

- I didn't recognize him.

But something about the vibe was off.

I got the security video from the café.

- All right. Good.

So this is the date and time our wannabe whistleblower

said he ran into Natalie and the mystery man.

- Oh, there he is right there.

- And there she is.

♪ ♪

- Looks like she's crying.

Can you zoom in on the guy's face?

- I'll run facial rec.

- Sean Morris.

I'm Detective Riley.

This is Detective Walker, NYPD.

We'd like to ask you a few questions about Natalie Wallis.

- Oh, good.

I'm glad to hear she went through with it.

- Went through with what?

- Wait, what is this about?

- We're Homicide detectives.

Natalie Wallis was murdered two nights ago.

- Oh, my God.

I didn't know.

I've been at a yoga retreat.

I was with her earlier that day.

Were you two in a relationship?

- What... oh, God. No.

I'm gay.

I'm a trauma counselor at the Midtown Women's Clinic.

I was helping her.

- Helping her with what?

Natalie was sexually assaulted

about a month ago.

And when we last spoke,

she said she was gonna go to the police.

♪ ♪

You said the rape occurred a month prior to her murder.

- That's what we were told.

Normally, what we see with a post-sexual-assault situation

are lacerations or abrasions to the posterior fourchette

or the fossa navicularis.

But because of the increased blood flow to those areas

naturally, they tend to heal quickly.

Unless the injuries are severe, they usually abate

within a week or two.

So you can't tell us one way or the other?

- Not conclusively.

But I was able to perform a secondary examination

and found something else.

You see this slight discoloration here and here?

- Not really. - It's very faint.

But it appears to be ecchymosis.

That's the yellowing you see at the very final stages

of the body breaking down hemoglobin

pooled under the skin.

- So she had bruises.

On both wrists and her throat,

almost completely healed,

which is why we didn't catch it initially.

- Okay. Anything else? - Yes.

She tested positive for hepatitis B.

Appears to be recent too.

According to her medical records,

she tested negative for all STDs

at her last checkup three months ago.

All right. Thanks, Doc.

- Thank you.

So her rapist figures out somehow

that she was gonna report him

and kills her before she gets the chance.

We know when the rape occurred,

so we just need to retrace her steps that day,

find out who she was with.

- October 17th, you said?

Yeah, according to Natalie's calendar app,

you two had dinner that night?

Yeah, yeah, I remember we went

to a new Mediterranean place that she'd been wanting to try.

Here you go. Thank you so much.

What does this have to do with her murder?

What was her mood like that night?

- Her... her mood?

- Yeah, did she seem upset?

Mention any problems she was having?

- No.

No, we mostly just talked about the reality shows

we were watching and bitched about our jobs.

She mention anything about a sexual assault?

- What? No.

Why? Did something happen?

- We're not sure.

What happened after dinner that night?

- Nothing.

She had to leave early because of some sort

of emergency that came up with one of the projects

she was working on.

So she went back to the Utomnia office?

- Mm-hmm.

Marius texted her while we were eating.

I don't work at the company anymore,

so she couldn't tell me what it was about.

But she had to cut the meal short

to go meet up with him.

- What the hell is this?

You have no right to... this is completely unwarranted!

No, actually, it's entirely warranted, literally.

This is an invasion of my privacy.

- Yeah, sucks, doesn't it?

Got a prescription here for lamivudine.

It's got your name on it.

- What's that for?

It's none of your damn business.

Well, the internet says hepatitis B medication.

Detectives, we found a box of ammunition under a bed.

- 9 millimeter.

Same caliber used to kill Natalie Wallis.

- I want my lawyer. - Yeah, I'll bet you do.

Marius Cole, you're under arrest

for the murder of Natalie Wallis.

You have the right to remain silent.

Were the police able to recover the murder weapon?

No, and Marius Cole has never had a firearm

registered in his name.

- What about motive?

Cole killed Natalie to stop her

from reporting him for rape.

Can we prove that he raped her?

- I think so.

It's all based on circumstantial evidence,

but I think we can get there.

The best news of all is that we can place

Cole at the murder scene.

DNA tests confirmed that the hair recovered

from Natalie's body belongs to him.

It's not a perfect case,

but Cole has no alibi for the night of the murder.

Marius Cole's donated millions to various

female-forward charities.

He's got a big reputation as a liberal feminist ally.

Yeah, which is why we need to bury him.

A wolf in sheep's clothing is gonna kill more sheep

if you give him the chance.

- Okay.

Charge him with murder 2.

- Ms. Maroun.

Your Honor, the people seek remand.

The defendant is a billionaire.

He has access to a private jet.

There is no amount of bail that could be set

that could prohibit him from fleeing the country.

My client is not going anywhere.

But I'll spare us all the back and forth about bail

because it is a moot point.

The state has no case,

and therefore, I am immediately filing a motion to dismiss.

- On what grounds?

We have irrefutable proof that Marius Cole

did not commit this murder.

What is it exactly that I'm looking at here, counselor?

Security camera footage from Marius Cole's apartment

that shows he was at home in Tribeca

at the time Natalie Wallis was murdered.

And what, the time stamps in the corner

are supposed to be the proof?

As I detailed in my motion, his brownstone is also equipped

with state-of-the-art bio scanning technology

that tracks all living beings in the home at all times.

And its logs show with a zero degree of uncertainty

that Mr. Cole was in the apartment the entire night.

- Your Honor... - Proceeding with a trial

would be a colossal waste

of this court's limited resources,

to say nothing of the time and energy

of everyone involved, not least of all my client.

Marius Cole is the head of the largest

and the most invasive surveillance tech firm

in the world.

He has the unlimited resources and the know-how

to fabricate all of this... this so-called evidence.

Given the preponderance of it,

there is no way a jury gets around reasonable doubt.

Oh, they will, once I debunk it all,

which is why they're trying to have

this case tossed on a motion.

- I agree with Mr. Price.

You're welcome to present this evidence at trial, Ms. Calhoun,

but there's no way in hell I'm dismissing this case.

I have over 20 years of experience

as a consultant in cybersecurity.

And the NYPD brought you in to advise on this case.

- Yes.

Shortly after Natalie Wallis was murdered,

someone hacked into every one of the devices in her home

and erased any data that had been recorded in the hours

surrounding her death.

Including video footage from her security cameras?

They also accessed the city's mainframe

and wiped the street camera footage

from Ms. Wallis's block.

I was brought in to do a digital forensic investigation

to determine who the hacker was.

- Were you successful?

No, whoever did it covered their tracks incredibly well.

In your professional opinion, does the defendant have

the skills necessary to have done this?

It's literally a service Utomnia, his company,

offers to its clients.

The level of hacking we're talking about here

for Marius Cole would be like

Stephen Hawking doing a Sudoku.

What about manufacturing evidence,

like video surveillance footage or digital location data.

Is that also something Utomnia does?

I don't think they advertise that,

but they certainly have the capabilities.

So hypothetically, the defendant could create

proof for an alibi that was not real.

- Absolutely. - Objection, Your Honor.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

- Sustained. - No further questions.

You have no proof or firsthand knowledge

that Marius Cole tampered with or erased

any evidence pertaining to this case, do you?

No, but I know he's capable of it.

Right, because it's a service his company offers.

Do you know how many employees there are at Utomnia?

- I do not.

- 4,854.

Presumably, many of them possess the same capabilities.

- Yes, presumably.

And what about people not employed by any company?

In your experience, are there private citizens

that possess the skills necessary to erase

the data in question?

- Of course.

And you have no knowledge of anything

that specifically implicates my client

in the murder of Natalie Wallis?

- No.

So you're here merely to testify to the fact

that hacking is something that exists in the world.

Duly noted.

No further questions.

About halfway through the meal, Natalie got a text.

She said it was Marius

and that she had to go back to the office.

- Did she say why?

No, some sort of work emergency.

She couldn't give me the details

because I didn't work at the company anymore.

Marius is brutal when it comes to enforcing NDAs.

So she left your dinner early,

and she told you that she was going

to meet with the defendant.

- Yes.

Do you remember what day this was?

- October 17th.

Thank you. No further questions.

We have no questions for this witness.

- You may be excused.

You may call your next witness, Mr. Price.

People call Sean Morris to the stand.

Did Natalie Wallis share any details with you

about her sexual assault?

- Objection. Hearsay.

It speaks to Natalie Wallis's state of mind

at the time of her murder and is not offered

for the truth of the matter.

- Overruled.

The witness may answer.

- Yes.

She said that she was raped by someone she knew well,

someone she trusted.

She said that he gave her a drink.

But after a few sips, she started to feel funny.

So she stopped drinking.

He got mad, insisted she drink it.

- So he tried to drug her.

And when that didn't work, he threw the glass

against the wall and screamed that he was in control,

that she had to do what he said.

- And then what happened?

- She tried to leave.

But he grabbed her by the throat,

tied her hands behind her back with a belt,

and then he raped her.

She said that he whispered in her ear the entire time,

saying no matter how powerful she thought she was,

he could do whatever he wanted to her.

And he said other things,

things I can't bring myself to repeat.

You develop a thick skin in my line of work,

but even I was...

Did she tell you when this all happened?

- October 17th.

And did you meet with her on the day that she was killed?

- I did.

In our first session, she wasn't ready

to report her rapist.

It's common for women in her situation,

especially high-powered women in male-dominated fields.

She was still processing her grief,

feeling a sense of shame, of guilt.

But in our last session,

she said she was ready to report it to the police.

Did she tell you when she was gonna do that?

- The next day.

But someone killed her before she got the chance.

No further questions.

Did Ms. Wallis tell you the name of her attacker?

- No.

She gave you all those details

but left that one out.

Well, like I said, she wasn't ready to report it at first.

And nothing you shared specifically points

to my client being the one who raped her.

In fact, because she never sought medical attention,

there's no factual record that a rape even ever occurred.

I sat with her for hours as she shook

with fear and rage and pain.

I can assure you, it happened.

- That may be so.

But my client had nothing to do with it.

No further questions.

- Excuse me.

Hi.

You did great back there.

Here.

They always claim mascara is waterproof,

but in my experience, there's no such thing.

- Thank you.

So embarrassing.

- No.

It's hard to hear.

Oh, God. I just keep... I...

- What?

I'm the one who hired Natalie to work at Utomnia.

Of course, I didn't know at the time that Marius...

but she was my best friend.

And it's my fault. And I should have tried...

- No, don't go there, please.

- Easy for you to say.

- No, I get it.

Trust me.

I had a similar thing happen to a loved one.

I spent years trying to blame myself.

Marius Cole is the monster here, not you.

And I'm gonna do everything I can

to put him where he belongs.

- Thank you.

But I... but I...

I don't think I can watch any more of this.

♪ ♪

Part of my job as the CEO of Utomnia

is cultivating new business, which means wining and dining

the people in charge of handing out

government and private defense contracts.

Last year, I had a potential client

that wanted to discuss business on a shooting range.

The range made you purchase ammunition,

and I ended up with extra.

So that's why the police found

9 millimeter bullets in your home.

Yeah, but I don't even have a gun to shoot them with.

I've never fired a weapon outside of a shooting range.

Marius, did you rape Natalie Wallis?

- God, no.

The prosecution is claiming that was your motive

for wanting her dead, that she was going

to report you for assaulting her.

- That's insane.

I would never harm a woman.

I have spent real money and time

not only in programs supporting women in STEM

but in making sure that my companies are a place

where women can feel safe

and have access to equal opportunities.

- But your DNA was in her home.

And as the prosecution pointed out,

you were both diagnosed with hepatitis B.

- That's correct.

When I told Natalie about my diagnosis,

she was very upset.

She had recently been diagnosed as well

but was afraid to tell me.

- What are you saying?

- I contracted it from her.

Natalie and I had been seeing each other for a few months

before she was killed.

We kept the relationship private.

Which explains why your DNA was in her home.

Were you dating at the time of the murder?

No, I called it off about a week before.

We weren't connecting.

Now I know why.

She didn't tell me she had been raped.

If she had, I never would have...

we could have gotten through that together.

I wish more than anything that we had.

- Thank you.

No further questions.

If you and Ms. Wallis had been

seeing each other, as you claim,

why not mention that to the police

when they first spoke to you?

I didn't think it was relevant.

I had no information about who her killer could have been,

and I was grieving the loss of somebody that I loved.

It was personal.

Private.

- So you loved Natalie?

Did you ever tell anyone that...

you ever tell them that the two of you were in a relationship?

- No, it was...

- No, it was private. Right.

Sorry. How convenient.

But I can provide plenty of data that shows

that we were spending nights and weekends together,

messages that we sent each other.

Things that we've already established

that you can fabricate.

But I'm guessing that not a single person...

I mean, a real, live person

can actually corroborate your story,

a story which just so happens to explain away

all the evidence against you,

almost as if it were crafted to do exactly that.

Objection, Your Honor. Argumentative.

Sustained. Move on, Mr. Price.

You forced yourself on Natalie, didn't you?

- No. - You raped her.

And then you kept tabs on her.

That's what you do, isn't it?

With your spyware and your high-tech surveillance,

you figured out that she was gonna go to the police.

And so you killed her.

I have never raped anybody in my entire life.

And I swear to you, I did not kill Natalie.

But I would kill the man who did if I could.

♪ ♪

- How valiant.

No further questions for this witness.

♪ ♪

Yes.

No, no. You've been very helpful.

Thank you so much.

That was the shooting range where Cole claims

he bought the ammunition.

Confirmed he was there last spring with a client.

All that proves is that he knows how to shoot a gun

and had bullets.

I'm worried that his story is just plausible enough

to buy him reasonable doubt.

Plus, there's that fake video of him being home all night.

We need to find a way to prove that he is lying.

Well, what we need is another victim.

Guys like this, they don't just do it once.

I agree, but police tried to find other victims.

They came up empty.

- Yeah.

He loves to make people sign NDAs.

Maybe that's how he's been able to keep other victims quiet?

Yeah, I know it's a thing that happens.

I do.

But as a woman, I just can't imagine

letting a known predator continue to operate

in exchange for money.

If it helps at all, it's probably a lot of money.

I don't care how much he offered.

How can someone, a woman, live with that kind of guilt?

- Sam?

What is it?

Cole assaulted you, too, didn't he?

That's... where... where is this coming from?

You didn't answer my question.

- The answer is no.

And I would like you to leave, please.

It's okay, Vanessa. You can be honest with me.

- No, I can't.

Because you signed a nondisclosure agreement?

Well, how much did he pay you

to serve up your best friend on a platter?

- I didn't serve up anything.

- You left her vulnerable.

You didn't warn her.

I don't owe you any explanation.

But it wasn't about the money.

I was humiliated.

I didn't want anyone to know.

I wanted...

I didn't wanna spend the rest of my life

being defined by what he did to me.

I wanted it to go away forever.

Leaving him to be the next woman's problem.

No, he swore to me he'd never done anything like that before,

and I believed him.

I let myself believe him.

So I took the money, I found a new job,

and I did everything I could

to put that horrible moment behind me.

It is what I needed to do.

- Well, right now,

what you need to do is testify.

- No, no, I can't.

Don't worry. Your money is safe.

NDAs are not enforceable when testifying about a crime.

- It's not about the money.

If people find out that I didn't come forward,

that I took the money,

my career is over.

The press will crucify me.

I will be...

I will be the enemy of all women.

I work for a company focused on women's health,

for Christ's sake.

Everyone will look at me

the way you're looking at me right now.

Price you pay for taking the money, I suppose.

- Mm-mm. That is not fair.

All I have done is pay,

every day, every night.

♪ ♪

I took... I took the money

because it felt right.

I don't even know how to describe it.

When he came to me with that offer,

I was struggling.

He had ripped my life apart.

I was just trying to survive.

♪ ♪

You said something like this happened to someone you loved?

- My sister.

When it happened, who were you worried about?

Her,

or some hypothetical future victim?

♪ ♪

We'll subpoena her, force her to take the stand.

Even if we have to treat her as a hostile witness,

her testimony will likely get us a conviction.

- I agree.

I understand Ms. Barret not wanting to be publicly shamed,

but we're talking about putting a murderer behind bars here.

- Yeah, I get it.

Respectfully, more than either of you, but I...

- But what?

- I don't know.

I mean, what she said to me was very compelling.

Are we really gonna further punish a woman

who's already been through so much?

Marius Cole's a sexual predator

and a cold-blooded killer.

We have a duty to protect the public,

to stop him from victimizing anyone else.

At the expense of someone he's already victimized.

And what about our duty to her?

Sam, come on. You said it yourself.

This woman took a payout in exchange for her silence.

And it got another woman killed.

- I know.

But I think there's another way we can handle this.

♪ ♪

- We are open to a plea.

- No, thank you.

All rise for the Honorable Judge Dillow.

- Court is now in session.

You may be seated.

Mr. Price, I understand you have a point of order?

Yes, Your Honor, the prosecution would like

to call a rebuttal witness.

Vanessa Barret.

♪ ♪

- Man 1, and we've got a deal.

We're open to murder 2.

Your Honor, we'd like to request a recess.

Cole agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder

with a recommended sentence of 20 years.

- It's not ideal.

But it guarantees he'll be in his late 60s

before he even has a chance to see the light of day again.

I, uh... I appreciate what you did.

I really do.

- What would you have done

if Cole's lawyer didn't take the bait?

I'm just glad it all worked out.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪