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| “ | You still think I killed my wife even though you know you can't prove it. Because I didn't do it! They all think I killed my wife, but they couldn't prove anything then, so that's why they're setting me up now! | „ |
| ~ Madison accusing the District Attorney's office of framing him. |
Eli Madison is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Hands Free". He is a wealthy, closeted gay transvestite who murders three people, including his ex-wife, to protect his secret.
He was portrayed by Henry Stram.
Early life[]
Madison is from a powerful, "old money" family with connections to some of the most powerful people in New York City. He was gay and a transvestite, but he remained in the closet for fear of shaming his family and being disinherited. When he was 18, he tried to cover up his sexuality by getting married, but his wife, Diane Wharsey, sensed he was gay and divorced him after six months. He gave her a generous divorce settlement to keep quiet about his sexual predilections.
He murdered his second wife, Caroline Thornton, in 1994, presumably after she, too, found out his secret. The Manhattan District Attorney's office tried several times to indict him for her murder, but they could never find enough evidence to make the charges stick. Meanwhile, Madison went to Taos, New Mexico with his lover, Dwayne Evans, who was also his alibi witness in a wrongful death suit brought against Madison by Thornton's family. Madison feared that Evans, who was emotionally unstable, would cause him to lose the lawsuit and provoke a criminal trial, so he killed him by bludgeoning him over the head and left his body near a hiking trail. The lawsuit was dismissed.
Madison then stole the identity of one of his boarding school classmates, Jennifer Shelby, and lived in seclusion under her name and dressing as a woman for the next several years while supporting himself as a painter. He also pretended to be deaf so that no one would recognize his voice.
He started a relationship with a man named Roger Barry as "Jennifer" and managed to conceal his true sex from him until, one day, they were watching a basketball game and an excited Madison yelled in his natural voice. Barry got so angry that he suffered a fatal heart attack. Fearing that the police would think that he murdered Barry, Madison dismembered his body and disposed of the parts in dumpsters all over the city.
In "Hands Free"[]
After Barry's hands are found in a dumpster, NYPD Homicide Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green investigate until they discover that someone had stolen Jennifer Shelby's identity. They trace the identity thief to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting and an artist's loft and find Madison at the latter in full drag. He tries to run, but they arrest him; during the arrest, his wig falls off.
His true identity revealed, Madison is charged with murder by Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy and Assistant District Attorney Serena Southerlyn. Madison hires four lawyers to defend him, and they manage to convince the trial judge to rule Thornton's disappearance inadmissible. He then testifies that he dismembered Barry's body after he died because he "knew what the police would think", while his lawyers suggest that the police planted the knife used to cut Barry up. Ultimately, there is not enough evidence to prove that Madison murdered Barry, and he is acquitted.
McCoy plans to charge Madison with murdering his ex-wife, so he sends Southerlyn to investigate. Southerlyn talks to Wharsey, who tells her that Madison called her, distraught, after Evans' death, and speculates that he and Evans were lovers. Southerlyn then searches through Madison's travel records discovers that he checked into a hotel with Evans as Jennifer Shelby on the weekend that Evans died, and that Madison's skin was found under Evans' fingernails. This gives McCoy enough evidence to have Madison arrested for murdering Thornton and Evans.
During his trial, Madison testifies that he and Evans were lovers and that he had disappeared that weekend while camping. McCoy cross-examines Madison and asks him why he had not called the police when Evans disappeared. Madison replies that he knew the police would think he killed Evans; when McCoy asks why they would think such a thing, Madison yells, over his lawyers' objections, that the police believe that he murdered his wife and have been trying to frame him ever since.
McCoy then calls as a witness the owner of the hotel where Madison and Evans had been staying, who testifies that she had seen Madison, dressed as "Jennifer", with his clothes in disarray and covered in dirt. Madison is found guilty of murdering Thornton and Evans, and he is sentenced to life in prison.
Trivia[]
- Madison is loosely based upon the late murderer Robert Durst.
External links[]
- Eli Madison on the Law & Order Wiki
