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| “ | Dear Kitty, if you think that was bad, just wait! | „ |
| ~ Michelle's letter threatening Catherine Lansing |
Michelle Ashford is the overarching antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Agony". She is a jealous girlfriend who orders her brother to torture her boyfriend's ex-wife to get rid of a rival for his affections.
She was portrayed by Elizabeth Conners.
Early life[]
Michelle started dating her boss Roger Lansing a few months before the events of the episode and fell in love with him. Roger, however, frequently cheated on her with prostitutes and refused to make a commitment to her because he was still fixated on his ex-wife, Catherine.
Determined to get rid of "the competition", Michelle tells her brother Michael to kill Catherine as brutally and painfully as possible to make her death look like the work of "some psycho". Michael tortures Catherine for 36 hours and leaves her for dead, while also killing a mail carrier who showed up unexpectedly at her door.
"Agony"[]
Catherine survives the torture, and NYPD Homicide Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Rey Curtis investigate her attack as an attempted murder. They briefly encounter Michelle while questioning Roger.
Briscoe and Curtis eventually arrest Matt Bergstrom, a serial killer whose murders bear similarities to Catherine's attack. Bergstrom makes a deal with Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy and Assistant District Attorney Abbie Carmichael to plead guilty to attacking Catherine in return for legal immunity for the other murders they have connected him to.
Michelle, meanwhile, discovers that her plan has backfired; Roger becomes more focused on Catherine than ever before. Michelle fears that he will leave her, so she tries to scare Catherine off by writing an anonymous note threatening to attack her again and putting it under her door. Briscoe and Curtis realize they arrested the wrong person and reopen the investigation, eventually discovering that Michael attacked Catherine and killed the mail carrier.
After Michael is arrested, he tells McCoy and Carmichael that Michelle told him to kill Catherine, hoping to get a reduced prison sentence. After she is arrested, Michelle blames her brother for botching the murder and tries to put all the blame on him. Ultimately, however, McCoy and Carmichael transfer her and Michael's case to federal prosecutors, as killing a postal office worker is a federal offense. They are both sentenced to life in prison, as is Bergstrom after McCoy and Carmichael discover his scam and trick him into confessing to a previous murder.
External links[]
- Michelle Ashford on the Law & Order Wiki
