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| “ | He was a Knight Templar. He was over 600 years old. They told me he was trying to kill me... King Philip and Pope Clement, they told me to shoot him, and they told me how. | „ |
| ~ Sawyer revealing his delusional motive for killing George Franklin |
Alan Sawyer is the secondary antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Double Blind". He is a college student suffering from an inoperable brain tumor that causes him to have paranoid delusions, which in turn cause him to commit a murder.
He was portrayed by Mark Bateman.
Early life[]
Sawyer was a history major at Hudson University in New York City, where he also worked as a clerk in the mail room. He wanted to study environmental disasters caused by corporate pollution, inspired by his father, Fred, a corporate lawyer.
Shortly before the events of the episode, he developed a brain tumor that caused him to suffer from auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions that God was commanding him to kill His enemies. He became obsessed with killing "enemies of Christ", so he bought an assassin's manual from which he learned how to make homemade silencers and avoid leaving fingerprints. He also briefly dated chemistry major Xuan-Lan Nguyen, but he scared her off with his rambling, incoherent talk of his "mission"; he did, however, learn from her how to make fulminate of mercury, which can be used as an explosive.
In a moment of lucidity, he volunteered for a mental illness study with psychiatrist Dr. Christian Varick, who diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and put him in a study for an experimental antipsychotic medication, turning him into the poster boy for his research on treating the disorder. Varick later discovered from a PET scan of Sawyer's brain that his hallucinations and delusions were in fact caused by a brain tumor, but he kept this information to himself for fear of losing grant money to fund his research.
Shortly before the events of the episode, Sawyer began stalking Greg Franklin, a janitor who worked in Varick's lab, convinced that he was a member of the Knights Templar, a French military order that fought for the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages; he also hallucinated that King Philip II of Spain and Pope Clement VII told him that Franklin was going to kill him on that order's command. First, Sawyer stole antipsychotics from the lab and planted them on Franklin, getting him fired. When that does not quell his delusions, Sawyer shot and killed him with a pistol owned by his father, which he covered by a homemade silencer and filled with bullets dipped in fulminate of mercury.
"Double Blind"[]
While investigating Franklin's murder, NYPD Homicide Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Rey Curtis trace the mercury on the bullets to Varick's lab and Nguyen, who produces an alibi and tells them about Sawyer's strange behavior and habit of making his own chemicals, which his dormmates corroborate. They get a search warrant for his dorm and find the mercury, giving them enough evidence to arrest him for murder. Sawyer confesses, but he claims that he was acting in self-defense; he then begins babbling about the Knights Templar trying to kill him.
Sawyer's attorney, Aaron Blum, pleads insanity on his behalf, telling Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy and Assistant District Attorney Jamie Ross that Varick has been treating him for months. Varick claims that Sawyer's schizophrenia is under control as long as he takes his medication, and that his illness had nothing to do with the murder. Sawyer's attorney gets the charges dropped because Briscoe and Curtis did not allow him to speak to his father, thus denying him right to counsel, but McCoy gets the charges reinstated after discovering that Sawyer stole the murder weapon from his parents.
Sawyer's parents tell Ross that Varick had ignored their concerns about their son's deteriorating mental health leading up to the murder, so she persuades McCoy and District Attorney Adam Schiff to offer Sawyer the opportunity to be voluntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. Sawyer, now lucid and wracked with guilt over killing Franklin, tries to take the deal, but Blum talks him out of it.
During a commitment hearing, Varick testifies that Sawyer is not dangerous as long as takes his medication, which persuades the judge to rule against institutionalizing him. Suspicious of Varick's motives, Ross investigates and finds out that he ignored signs of another patient's worsening mental health in order to keep receiving research funds, an act of malpractice that resulted in the patient's suicide. They also find out from Varick's former research assistant, Jill Perry, that Sawyer's symptoms had returned shortly before the murder and that he had made threats against Franklin, but that Varick had forbade her to tell anyone.
McCoy and Ross make a deal with Alan that he will be institutionalized in Bellevue Hospital in lieu of prison, and he agrees to testify against Varick, whom they are charging with second-degree manslaughter. While preparing for Varick's trial, McCoy and Ross discover the PET scan revealing Sawyer's brain tumor, which Varick did not include in his research findings.
During a meeting with Varick and his lawyer, McCoy, Ross, and Sawyer confront him with evidence that he knew Sawyer would kill Franklin and did nothing, making him responsible for the murder. Sawyer tells Varick that, because he purposely withheld treatment for the tumor, it is now inoperable, meaning that he has only a year to live; McCoy then tells Varick that, after Sawyer dies, he will charge him with second-degree murder.
Sawyer presumably dies soon afterward, and Varick is imprisoned for life.
External links[]
- Alan Sawyer on the Law & Order Wiki
