Tonight on NBC Law & Order returns with an all-new Thursday, April 27, 2023 episode and we have your Law & Order recap below. In tonight’s Law & Order season 22 episode 19 “Private Lives,” as per the NBC synopsis, “Cosgrove and Shaw investigate the murder of a family physician whose outspoken politician wife suspects she was the intended target.
Price and Maroun’s case hangs in the balance when the defense calls one of the doctor’s young patients to testify as a witness.”
Tonight’s Law & Order season 22 episode 19 looks like it is going to be great and you won’t want to miss it. So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back from 8 PM – 9 PM ET for our Law & Order recap. While you wait for the recap make sure to check out all our Law & Order SVU recaps, spoilers, news & more!
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Tonight’s Law & Order episode begins with a congress woman Kristin Bartell, walking up the stairs, her clean is behind her. She see broken glass on the floor and blood on the walls, she calls out for Ryan, and finds him on the floor, Dr. Ryan Bartell is dead. There are multiple lacerations on the front and side of his head, looks like the killer used a desk lamp. Looks like ha was killed between 10am and noon. There are security cameras around the house.
Cosgrove and Shaw sit down in the kitchen with Kristen, she says they were married for 15 years, he was a saint. She thinks this is about her, her political views, that was supposed to be her. She was supposed to be home all day, she was called to the office last minute. She is constantly receiving threats, last week she received an email and they said they would kill her in her own him.
Franklin Public Library, they track down the owner of the IP address that sent that email, he tells Cosgrove and Shaw that she deserved it. He is a drag queen, he volunteers to read to children in the community. Kirsten introduced a bill that would ban children to being exposed to drag queens, he was dramatic when he sent the email. He has an alibi for the time of the murder.
Maroun found something interesting on traffic cams, a vehicle that shows up at an intersection of the crime scene multiple times the morning of the murder. The car belongs to Paul Koening and he has a record.
At Sycamore coffee shop, Cosgrove stops by to find Koening but he is not there. They look around and find him in the back trying to make a run for it. They get them and put the handcuffs on while he says he didn’t do anything.
In the station, Paul says again he didn’t do it. He says he was planning a peaceful protest outside of Kirsten’s home. They take DNA, there is no match, Dixon tell them to cut him loose. She asks about the security footage at the home, they haven’t received it yet so she tells them to go back there and find out what the hold up is.
At Kirsten’s home, she says the footage from the morning that Ryan was murdered doesn’t exist, the camera was shut down. But it’s not unusual, he sees some patients at home and when he does, he turns off the camera for privacy reasons.
Next stop is Bartell’s office, his assistant checks his personal calendar and the morning of he had an appointment at 11am but no name is mentioned, just the initials TM. She says that is really unusual. The go back through his calendar and see were more meetings with the TM in the last month. Bartell was hiding something, Cosgrove thinks it was an affair.
The very first meeting with TM was filmed, they go back through the footage on the camera and it is a by arriving at house and he looks to be about thirteen years old. There is a crest on the boys shirt and they are able to track it down to a school. The boy is Taylor Myers, he is in the seventh grade, he has been struggling with mental health issues. They see him coming out of class, when he sees them he makes a run for it but Shaw catches up with him.
At the station, Cosgrove asks Taylor about this relationship with Bartell, he says he doesn’t know who that is. He was knocking on random doors to sell gift cards. Then, he says he was super talkative, he never saw him again after that. The parents refuse a DNA sample and they leave with Taylor. Turns out that Taylor had a meeting with the school counsellor the time of the murder, her name is Susan Bartell, Ryan’s sister.
Home of Susan Bartell, she says Taylor is a good kid, he couldn’t have done this. She admits that Taylor was not in her office the morning of the murder. Susan says that Ryan was treating “her,” Traylor is trans. She has been counselling Taylor for years, her parents were forbidding her to transition, so she asked her brother to provide gender affirming care. He was giving Taylor hormones to block puberty.
Cosgrove tells Shaw that it wasn’t Susan’s call to make, to have Taylor see Bartell behind the parent’s back. They get their DNA from Taylor and it wasn’t a match but the markers on the DNA show that they are looking for a close relative. They check the father’s arms, he has scratches on them, they handcuff him and take him in.
In court, Robert Myers is up for second degree murder, he is claiming self defence. This is a tough one, the doctor was giving medication to a child without the parent’s consent.
Price says Myers hit Bartell more than twenty times because he was treating his daughter with puberty blockers that the American Medical Association deem necessary in Taylor’s case.
Myers lawyer, Dumont, says that Bartell preyed on Taylor and illegal gave her medications without a parent’s consent. He demanded that Bartell stop treating his child, Bartell refused so Myers threatened to call the police and Bartell attacked him.
Shaw testifies about the scratches, Myers said it was a stray cat, he never said he was acting in self defence.
Price and Maroun are with Kristen, Ryan’s sister left town and they needed her to testify. Kristen admits that she knew her husband was treating Taylor and Myers threatened to kill her husband a few months ago. They had a meeting, talked about the medication and Myers went nuts. She doesn’t want to testify because of her career, she says that is all she has left.
In court, Kirsten goes on the stand, and she says Ryan met with the Ryan family about two months before he was killed. The meeting got heated, she heard Myers screaming and threatening him. And, her husband did not have a violent bone in his body.
Price goes through the file and sees that Susan pulled Taylor of out of class three times, but Taylor visited Bartell four times. Susan was out sick the day Taylor had the fourth appointment. Turns out, it was Taylor’s mother who wrote the note to get Taylor out of class, she gave Bartell consent to treat Taylor.
In court, Mrs. Myers admits that she gave consent to have Bartell treat Taylor, she forged her husband’s signature. She was terrified for her child. Bartell wasn’t committing a crime, she gave him permission, she was afraid Taylor would hurt herself again.
Myer’s lawyer calls Taylor to the witness stand and the judge allows it. After speaking to McCoy, Price and Marun offer a plea deal so Taylor doesn’t have to testify, they want to spare her the humiliation of having to defend her personhood in front of strangers.
Kirsten is furious that Myers is only getting 15 years, she tells Price that he choose politics over justice. She says that he only accomplished to make the world a less safe place for children like Taylor.
THE END!