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| “ | Sara, if you do anything foolish, like tell anybody... You know what I'm capable of now. | „ |
| ~ Webb threatening Sara Lindstrom |
Charles Webb is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Crazy". He is a psychiatrist who has a man killed to impress the woman he is in love with, and then feigns mental illness when he gets caught.
He was portrayed by Michael Gross, who also portrayed Arthur Esterman in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Early life[]
Webb is a respected forensic psychiatrist who works with the NYPD, assessing criminal defendants to determine whether they were suffering from mental illness when they committed their crimes. While he is very intelligent and financially well-off, he is socially inept, especially around women. He was briefly married, but his wife left him because she found him obsessive and controlling. He hypocritically claims to champion women's rights, while privately considering women little more than prizes to be won through intelligence and persistence.
Shortly before the events of the episode, he began dating Sara Lindstrom, and fell in love with her. She did not return his feelings, however, seeing him as more of a friend than a lover, and gently rebuffed his clumsy attempts to seduce her. At one point, he tried to impress her by offering to buy her a piece of artwork she liked, but that only made her uncomfortable.
When Sara told him that her ex-brother-in-law, Dr. Larry Feldman, was molesting her six-year-old niece, Sophie, Webb saw a chance to be Sara's "knight in shining armor" by having Feldman killed. He approached Officer Michael Stovic of the Westchester Police Department, who had recently been suspended from duty for excessive force, and offered him $50,000 to kill Feldman. Stovic, who had himself been sexually abused as a child, agreed, and shot Feldman in the back of the head during his son's bar mitzvah while Webb kept Sophie and her mother, Sara's sister Julie, busy. Sophie told Webb that her father did not abuse her, and Webb figured out that Julie fabricated the accusation to get custody of Sophie in the divorce; he nevertheless did nothing to stop the murder, convinced it would make Sara love him.
"Crazy"[]
Through his connections in the department, Webb learns that Detectives Robert Goren and Alexandra Eames of the NYPD's Major Case Squad are investigating Feldman's murder. He asks Stovic to kill them, as well, but Stovic refuses, drawing the line at murdering fellow police officers.
One night, Webb has Sara over at his apartment, and tells her that he had Feldman killed, thinking she would be grateful to him. When she instead recoils from him in horror, he tells her that he did it for her, and that she cannot "deny him", which only serves to further repulse her. As she leaves, he makes a veiled threat that she knows what he is capable of should she tell anyone.
Meanwhile, Goren and Eames examine the evidence and discover that Feldman's body smelled of gin, even though he had only drank red wine at the party; they surmise that the killer had been drinking gin. They question the caterer, who identifies Stovic as the only person at the party who had been drinking gin. They also find out that an Assistant District Attorney in Westchester named Stillman had dismissed a traffic ticket for Sara at Webb's behest. They talk to Stillman, who says that Webb has connections in the Police Benevolent Association - including Stovic.
The detectives set up a sting operation in which Eames pretends to try to hire him to kill her ex-husband, claiming that Webb told her about him. As intended, Stovic refuses and calls Webb, threatening to kill him if he mentions his name to anyone else. Moments later, Goren and Eames arrest Stovic, and offer him a plea bargain in return for informing on Webb. They arrest Webb at work as he is evaluating a defendant, and he is charged with murder.
Webb pleads not guilty by reason of insanity, and his lawyer produces testimony from Webb's colleagues that he had recently begun behaving erratically and expressing paranoid delusions; Webb, meanwhile, rants at the trial judge that her chambers have been bugged by "the Party", convincing her that he is, in fact, insane. Goren, however, sees through Webb's act, deducing that he had been behaving irrationally in the weeks leading up to the murder to lay the foundation for an insanity defense in case he got caught.
Goren and Eames consult with another forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Emil Skoda, who says that Webb's meeting with Stovic in a public place does not fit a diagnosis of delusional paranoia; he advises them to look for other behavior that does not fit with the disorder that Webb is faking. They retrace Webb's steps in the days leading up to the murder, and they find out that he called Sara frequently, but they were rarely seen together, and that he had never stayed overnight at her apartment, nor she in his. Goren theorizes that Webb had Feldman killed to impress Sara and get her to love him.
Meanwhile, Sara agrees to testify on Webb's behalf, but for Sophie's sake, not his. When she reluctantly visits him in jail, he claims that he had Feldman killed to save Sophie, but she coldly replies that he did it to get what he wanted from her. When he desperately asks her if she feels anything for him, she simply leaves. Goren and Eames meet with her and tell her that, in the course of their investigation, they had found out that Feldman had not, in fact, molested Sophie, and that Sophie had told Webb as much, meaning that his story of having Feldman killed to save the girl is a lie. They then tell her to reveal everything she knows about Webb.
Goren, Eames, and ADA Ron Carver meet with Webb and his lawyer and confront them with evidence proving that Webb knew Feldman was innocent. Goren, meanwhile, confronts Webb with the reality that beautiful women like Sara have always ignored him because he is weak, and that he fears growing old alone; Goren then tells Webb that he had Feldman killed to show Sara that he was strong and powerful enough to be worthy of her love. Defeated, Webb admits that he had Feldman killed to impress Sara, his last chance at happiness. With no room left to bargain, Webb agrees to plead guilty to murder in return for a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
External links[]
- Charles Webb on the Law & Order Wiki
