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| “ | Mother was right, I am a total foul-up. I can't even kill my own wife without getting mother sent to jail! | „ |
| ~ Jonathan lamenting his failure to get away with murder |
Jonathan Ryder is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Blood is Thicker...". He is a wealthy socialite who murders his estranged wife to avoid having to pay her alimony.
He was portrayed by John Bedford Lloyd, who also portrayed Christian Varick in a later episode of Law & Order episode.
Early life[]
Jonathan is the eldest child and only son of Barbara Ryder, the matriarch of the wealthy, politically connected Ryder family, one of the most prominent "old money" families in New York City. The cold, domineering Barbara demanded perfection of him and his sister Jane, but they both fell short of her expectations; Jonathan in particular was a constant disappointment, unable to hold down a job and throwing away money on failed business ventures and get-rich-quick schemes.
Jonathan grew up spoiled, angry, and violent, at one point kicking his pet cat across the room, but Barbara always managed to cover up for him by bribing anyone who would hold him accountable for his actions. When he married his wife Lois, a pediatrician from a working-class family, Barbara cut him off financially as punishment for marrying someone "not of our element", and treated her daughter-in-law and their two children, Alison and Greg, with thinly veiled contempt.
Eventually, Jonathan grew tired of Barbara's constant demeaning of his wife, but rather than confronting his mother and risk being disinherited, he offered Lois $3 million to let him divorce her and give him custody of their children. She refused, however, and began an affair with a married colleague, Joel Friedman, who planned to leave his wife and marry her. Jonathan found out about the affair and began planning to kill her so he would not have to give her half of his estate in a divorce, which would have wiped him out financially.
After reading about a mugger in the area who killed his victims with a baseball bat, he decided to use the killer's M.O. to murder Lois. Days later, he bludgeoned her to death with a baseball bat as she left Friedman's apartment, and then dumped her body in an alley in downtown Manhattan, where the killer operated.
"Blood is Thicker..."[]
NYPD Homicide Sergeant Phil Cerreta and Detective Mike Logan investigate Lois' murder and inform Jonathan of her death. He feigns shock and grief in front of his mother and children, but they become suspicious of him after discovering that Lois was cheating on him. He claims to have known about the affair and that Lois told him she was going to end it, but Cerreta and Logan are unconvinced, especially after noting Jonathan's cowed reaction to Barbara disparaging Lois for having a Jewish lover.
After canvassing the neighborhood where Lois was murdered, Cerreta and Logan find out that Jonathan had heard about the homicidal mugger from a local shopkeeper, suggesting that he planned to copy the killer's M.O. They search his car and find fibers from Lois' sweater in the trunk. They then arrest the actual mugger, a drug addict named Henry Willard, who denies having killed Lois and says he has never seen a silver pin that was taken off of her coat by her killer, having taken her other, more expensive jewelry in a nearby dumpster. Theorizing that Jonathan could not bear to part with the pin, a family heirloom, Logan and Cerreta search Barbara's townhouse, finding the pin in her dresser. This gives them enough evidence to arrest Jonathan, even though he claims that the pin is only one of four his family owns, and not the one Lois was wearing when she died.
Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone and Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette charge Jonathan with murder, but Barbara and Jane claim that he was playing bridge with them the night Lois was killed and try to bully Robinette into dropping the charges. He and Stone refuse, however, so a panicked Jonathan flees to his family's winter house in Barbados with his children in tow. They have Jonathan arrested for violating the conditions of his bail, and the trial judge sentences him to two months in jail. Stone tries to get Jonathan to confess by threatening to charge Barbara with obstruction of justice, but he refuses.
Stone puts an informant, an armed robber named Morgan, in Jonathan's cell, to whom he eventually confesses to the murder. Stone and Robinette then discover that Barbara had lied about Jonathan's alibi, having been in a piano bar the time she claimed to have been with her son. Before Morgan is scheduled to testify, however, Barbara bribes him to say that he lied about Jonathan's confession. Stone counters by threatening to call Allison as a witness.
Forensic psychiatrist Elizabeth Olivet interviews Allison, who says that she saw her father take a baseball bat from the tool room of their summer house, and that the pin Lois was wearing when she was murdered was "a secret". Stone and Robinette find out that Friedman knew about the "secret", and threaten him with contempt charges unless he testifies. During the trial, Friedman reveals that Lois told him that she had her own initials engraved into the pin after Jonathan refused to do it, thus proving that Jonathan took the ring after killing her. He is found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
External links[]
- Jonathan Ryder on the Law & Order Wiki
