Debra Elkins

“	The only reason that any of these people cared about me is because I had something they wanted. You don't think I know what they think about me? They used me, so I used them back.	„
	~ Elkins' confession.

Debra Elkins is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Breeder". She is a con artist who, along with her boyfriend Stephen J. Shaw, tricks several rich couples into believing she will give them her unborn child, only to bleed them dry financially and give the child to the couple with the most money.

She was portrayed by Angie Phillips.

Early life[]

Elkins grew up poor in Poughkeepsie, New York, and got pregnant at a young age. After she gave birth to the child, a girl, in a state home for unwed mothers, child welfare services ruled that she was an unfit parent and took the baby from her, putting the child into the foster care system.

Years later, Elkins came up with a scheme to get pregnant, promise several rich couples that she would let them adopt the child, and take all the money she could from them before giving the child to the richest couple. Her boyfriend, Stephen J. Shaw, did not want children, so she had sex with a random stranger whom she met in a bar and got pregnant. She then contacted three wealthy couples - Herbert and Dorothy Baxter, Les and Gwen Savitt, and Ric and Mary Cushman - and promised them each that she would let them adopt her baby; each of the couples believed that they were the only ones she had contacted.

To win their sympathy, she made up a story about getting pregnant after she was raped. Once they began giving her money for medical expenses, she began demanding larger and larger amounts and threatening to get an abortion if they cut her off. When she went into labor, she and Shaw checked into a hotel, where she called each of the couples and took bids from them over the phone between contractions. When she finally gave birth, she lost a great deal of blood, but she nevertheless refused to let Shaw take her to a hospital, telling him to instead take the baby, a boy, to the nearest maternity ward so they could make a "quick sale". Shaw put her in a cab, where she passed out from blood loss and was taken to a hospital.

"Breeder"[]

After Elkins is found in the hospital waiting room hemorrhaging blood, she is rushed into surgery. She survives, but her doctors are alarmed to find her baby missing and call the police. NYPD Homicide Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Mike Logan question her when she wakes up, and she gives them her fabricated rape story. They find out that the baby was signed out of a maternity ward by a woman claiming to be his mother, and ultimately find the child with Dorothy Baxter. They take the baby and arrest her for kidnapping, even as she insists that she is the child's mother.

Forensic psychiatrist Elizabeth Olivet evaluates Dorothy, who has suffered from postpartum depression ever since suffering a miscarriage that required her to get a hysterectomy. Dorothy says that Elkins promised her the baby only to change her mind at the last minute, after she and her husband had given her all the money they had. Based on Olivet's report, Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone and Assistant District Attorney Claire Kincaid decide to give Dorothy a suspended sentence with counseling, but they are both troubled by her assertion that Elkins swindled her. Kincaid investigates further and discovers that Elkins and Shaw had done the same thing to the Savitts and the Cushmans, so she and Stone have them both arrested for kidnapping and grand larceny.

Elkins insists that she did not explicitly promise her baby to anyone, which her lawyer argues makes her technically innocent of the charges against her. When a disgusted Stone sarcastically asks Elkins if she asked her lawyer what she could or could not say to the couples the minute she found out she was pregnant, she coldly replies, "Yes, as a matter of fact." To make matters worse for the prosecution, Les Savitt testifies in Elkins' defense, saying that she did not make a legal agreement to let him and his wife, or anyone else, adopt the child. Soon afterward, the Savitts adopt the baby with Elkins' explicit approval, and refuse to help Stone and Kincaid in their case against her for fear of losing custody.

Days later, however, Shaw tries to shake the Savitts down for more money by threatening to contest the adoption, so they go to the District Attorney's office for help. They tell Stone and Kincaid that Elkins regularly threatened to get an abortion unless they gave her money, going to so far as to mail them pictures of aborted fetuses. When the other couples she scammed tell similar stories, Stone and Kincaid charge Elkins and Shaw with extortion on top of the other charges.

Stone and Kincaid offer Elkins and Shaw a chance to plead guilty for a lesser sentence, but Elkins refuses to admit to anything, convinced that they are bluffing. When Stone tells Shaw that Elkins is cutting him loose and he is facing decades in prison, however, Shaw panics and tells Stone everything. Elkins defiantly says that the couples she scammed were using her, so she "used them back". Unmoved, Stone offers both Elkins and Shaw four and a half to nine years in prison in return for a guilty plea, and they both grudgingly accept.

Quotes[]

“	My first kid, I'm sitting in the St. Vincent's Home For Girls in Poughkeepsie, all these people being nice to me, all their fake smiles, all their phony 'how are you, Debbie?'s. They take my baby, and I'm back to my crappy apartment and my crappy life. I wasn't gonna let that happen to me again! So I make babies, Mr. Stone. Hell, I'm good at it! So what if there are people willing to pay me for it?	„
	~ Elkins going into her motives

External links[]

Debra Elkins on the Law & Order Wiki

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Villains

Exiled: A Law & Order Movie
Gianni Uzielli