Tonight on NBC Law & Order returns with an all-new Thursday, January 23, 2025 episode and we have your Law & Order recap below. In tonight’s Law & Order season 24 episode 10 “Greater Good,” as per the NBC synopsis,
“When a music mogul is found dead, Shaw and Riley clash with an undercover officer unwilling to cooperate. Price and Baxter disagree on how the victim’s reputation could sway the jury’s verdict in the case.”
Tonight’s Law & Order season 24 episode 10 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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In tonight’s Law & Order episode, Detectives Shaw and Riley were on the case when a body was found in an upscale neighborhood. The victim was identified as Wes Morgan. He was a mogul with a hand in everything. From music to alcohol. He followed a woman out of a party that night and he got shot for it.
Now, Wes’s wife didn’t know that it was that kind of party. She was told it was a fundraiser. The wife stayed at home to watch their two kids and so she might not know about her husband’s reputation. He was a known aggressor. He tells women that are trying to break into the music industry that sleeping with him was the best way to do it. Which was why no one at the party was shocked when he followed a woman out.
The woman went by the name Vanessa Washington. She was seen on security cameras walking near the crime scene. Only the cops couldn’t find Vanessa Washington in the database.
They thought maybe she gave a fake name or went by a stage name. They were wrong on both fronts. It turns out Vanessa was an undercover cop. The officers had to arrest her just so they wouldn’t break her cover. Vanessa’s real name is Vanessa Washburn. She was trying to get evidence on the music industry’s sex trafficking.
Wes was considered the biggest predator around. He followed Vanessa out. She was trying to escape him and that’s when some stranger came up to them. The man called out Wes’s name.
Vanessa left while he was distracted. She also didn’t report seeing that man because she was too busy worried about her case. It wasn’t just Wes that was involved in the trafficking. Vanessa was still hoping to make a case and she didn’t care what happened to Wes. He was just another dead perp to her. She was also stonewalling the cops on what the possible killer looked like.
The detectives knew they couldn’t get anything from her. Luckily for them, there were other leads. They found video of someone waiting across the street from the party.
He was wearing a St. Gabriel’s jacket. The only one with ties to that school was Angela Ross. She was at the party. She was also barely legal. She doesn’t work or live with her parents. Wes had her living in a nice Manhattan apartment. He paid her bills and in exchange she let him pimp her out. Wes was a pimp. He was known to traffic both girls as well as boys. And Angela was just one of his victims.
Angela recently broke up with her boyfriend a month before the murder, but he wasn’t the killer. The likely suspect for that was Angela’s father. Lyman Ross. He found out his daughter was getting pimped out and given drugs.
Angela’s ex-boyfriend told him all about it once he found videos on Angela’s phone. The cops later got a warrant for Mr. Ross’s home. They found the jacket. They put it in evidence. They also questioned the man. He wasn’t much help for them. He refused to talk without a lawyer. And Vanessa was no help either.
Vanessa was more concerned about helping her community than doing her job. She wasn’t going to help a “good” black man go to jail. Not over someone liked Wes Morgan. The cops had to work their case without her. They found surveillance footage of their killer. They also found where he ditched the gun.
It was recovered. His fingerprints were on the bullets. It matched the bullets in the victim. There was even blood found on the jacket. The District Attorney’s office had an airtight case against him. He was going to be tried when Wes’s widow reached out to Baxter.
She wanted to protect her husband’s legacy. He was still the father of her children. She didn’t want him or his estate to be held liable of a crime he can no longer defend himself against. She begged Baxter to make a deal. She wanted him to offer Ross a lesser charge and that way it wouldn’t stay in the media for months on end. Only Baxter couldn’t give her that. He tried to make a deal with Ross. Then he heard about all the other victims coming forward and so there was no way of protecting Wes’s legacy. The truth was coming out whether his family wanted it or not.
The evidence against Wes was unfortunately going to be an issue. Wes was a deplorable human being. Some may feel his murder was justified. It was going to be a tough on the ADA Price to make a case against the man’s killer and so it didn’t help that Lyman Ross changed his defense in the middle of the trial.
He went from claiming innocence to claiming self-defense. He said he tried to talk to Wes. He brought up Angela. Ross said Wes claimed she was his property and that he could do what he likes with her. Wes also allegedly had a champagne bottle in his hand.
Ross said that Wes came at him with the bottle. He claimed he killed Wes in self-defense. There was just one problem with that story. Vanessa was there when Ross approached Wes and she didn’t see a bottle in Wes’s hand.
She was asked about that after Ross changed his story. She said his hand was empty. She also refused to testify to what she saw. Vanessa didn’t want a concerned father to go to jail for murdering a billionaire human trafficker. Shaw tried to tell her that it came with the job. They weren’t always going to get a perfect murder victim.
They had to defend the law no matter who breaks it. Shaw told Price what Vanessa said. Price compelled her to testify against Ross and she perjured herself. She lied on the stand. She said she saw the champagne bottle. Price knew she lied. Shaw then had to testify that Vanessa perjured herself only Ross’s lawyer brought up the inconsistencies. Shaw wasn’t at the scene. It was just Vanessa. And Vanessa said she saw a bottle.
Ross was still found guilty, but Vanessa later got into Shaw’s face about ruining her career and no longer helping the black community.
THE END!
