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| “ | Go on, go ahead and kill me! You have it in you! | „ |
| ~ Brady goading Robert Goren to kill him. |
Mark Ford Brady is the main antagonist of the 2007 Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Endgame". He is a serial killer on death row who tries to manipulate Detective Robert Goren into getting his execution delayed; during the investigation, Goren learns that Brady is his biological father.
He was portrayed by the late Roy Scheider, who also portrayed Don Falcone in Romeo is Bleeding.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Brady served in the Army during the 1950s and was stationed in Germany, where he murdered at least one woman. In 1960, Brady, who had just been discharged, met Frances Goren and charmed his way into her bed while her husband, William, was out of town on a gambling binge. They had a short, tumultuous relationship, during which Frances got pregnant; she passed off the child, Robert, as William's. They saw each other on and off for the next few years, during which time Robert and his older brother Frank knew him as "Uncle Mark". The relationship finally ended in 1963, when Brady took Frances on a get-away trip during Labor Day weekend and raped and beat her within an inch of her life.
Over he next three decades, Brady raped, tortured, and murdered dozens of women before he was finally caught in 1991 and sentenced to death. He spent the next sixteen years on death row.
"Endgame"[]
When Brady's final appeal is denied and a date is set for his execution, he tries to buy time by "suddenly remembering" where he buried several victims that the police never found. He asks to see Robert Goren, now a detective with the NYPD's Major Case Squad, and insinuates that he will tell him where to find the bodies. Goren, who does not remember Brady, interviews him while his partner, Detective Alexandra Eames, travels to the locations Brady provides to unearth the bodies. Eames also finds one of Brady's photo albums, and with it a decades-old picture of a woman resembling Frances.
When Goren asks Brady about the woman in the photo, Brady explains that she was a married woman he had an affair with in the early 1960s, and reminisces about being with her the night that John F. Kennedy was elected, the night that Frances had always told him that she and William conceived him. Goren later visits Frances, who is dying of leukemia, and shows her a photo of Brady; she suddenly grows quiet and changes the subject. Frank tells him that the man in the photo is "Uncle Mark", who went away with her one weekend in 1963, and that Frances had come back alone with a black eye and covered in bruises, which she said resulted from a car accident. Finally, Frances tells Robert that either William or Brady could have been his father.
During their final interview on the eve of the execution, Goren asks Brady to tell him more about the woman he had alluded to, and becomes enraged when Brady toys with him; he slams Brady against the wall and begins to choke him, having to be pulled off him by two guards. Brady taunts Goren, saying he "has it in him" to kill; it is left ambiguous whether he knows Goren is his son. Brady is executed that night, hours after Frances passes away. Brady is later revealed to have mailed a full notepad of detailed confessions to all his crimes to Major Case as a "birthday present" to Goren.
Trivia[]
- Brady is primarily inspired by the late serial killer William Bradford.
- His confessions and attempts to manipulate Goren were inspired by the late serial killer Ted Bundy, who tried repeatedly to stall his execution by offering to tell the police where he had buried his victims' bodies in exchange for "a little more time", only to give them information that turned out to be worthless.
External links[]
- Mark Ford Brady on the Law & Order Wiki
