Sylvia Moon

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“	You don't know! You don't know what it's like!	„
	~ Moon breaking down after being arrested for murder

Sylvia Moon is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Art". She is an art forger who murders several people in a vain attempt to get an exhibition of her own paintings.

She is portrayed by Elizabeth Marvel.

Early life[]

Moon tried her entire life to be recognized as a painter, but lacked the talent and artistic voice to achieve the fame and prestige she craved. She studied art in college, but was overshadowed by her roommate Zoey Payton, a gifted painter whom she grew to hate for having more natural talent than she ever would. After seeing Payton's latest painting, a beautiful rendering of her parents' living room, Moon flew into a jealous rage and hanged her, breaking her neck.

Moon made Payton's death look like a suicide so she could take advantage of the university's policy of allowing failing students to graduate after they have experienced a major trauma. She also passed off one of Payton's paintings as her own to get into graduate school, and began an affair with one of her professors, Bernard Jackson, a married man who was fired after the relationship was exposed,

After college, Moon supported herself by creating forgeries of paintings by artists such as Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet that were nearly indistinguishable from the real thing; ironically, she was much better at copying other artists' work than creating her own. She began working with Jackson and con artist Rudy Langer in their scheme to sell forgeries of famous paintings to wealthy clients looking to claim their purchases as tax deductions. In return for creating the forgeries, Langer gave her a cut of the profits and promised that he would get her an exhibition of her own work.

Eventually, however, Anne Ellis, the curator of the museum that Langer was selling the paintings to, discovered that they were forgeries and threatened to go to the police. Moon, Langer, and Jackson went to Ellis' house under the pretext of proving the paintings' authenticity, but in fact planned to kill her. Moon drugged Ellis' drink, but Jackson lost his nerve at the last minute, so Moon shot him dead and hanged Ellis in order to make their deaths look like a murder-suicide.

In "Art"[]

After committing the murders, Moon grows impatient to have her work displayed and demands that Langer keep his promise to bankroll her show. Langer placates her by saying he will give her a show soon, even though he has no intention of actually doing so.

While investigating Ellis and Jackson's deaths, Detectives Robert Goren and Alexandra Eames of the NYPD's Major Case Squad find out that the paintings Jackson was selling were forgeries. They question Langer, who says he did not know that the paintings were fakes, and that anyone who would forge a painting has no artistic vision of their own. Goren, an art enthusiast, notices that the paint used in the forgeries was ground by hand from linseed oil and asks an art professor of his acquaintance if he knows anyone who could have created such intricate work. He directs Goren and Eames to Moon, a former student.

Goren and Eames question Moon, who says she did not know Jackson and was not involved in any of Langer's business dealings. Goren notices that she grinds her paints from linseed oil, however, which gives him and Eames enough probable cause to interrogate her. With the help of her lawyer, Moon manages to avoid arrest, but Goren baits her by telling her what Langer had said about the forger's lack of talent in order to create a rift between her and her partner. As intended, Moon is so angry that she barges into Langer's gallery and denounces him as a fraud in front of his patrons.

Goren and Eames go to Moon's alma mater and learn of her affair with Jackson and the circumstances that allowed her to graduate. After seeing that Payton and Ellis were both hanged in the exact same way, they become convinced that she is the killer. With help from Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver, they arrest her and charge her with tax fraud in connection to the forgeries. Moon admits to being in on the scam but says that she left before Jackson and Ellis were killed. Goren, Eames, and Carver make a deal with her to let her off with probation if she incriminates Langer.

They go to the crime scene, where Goren points out the similarity of the apparent suicides of Ellis and Payton and accuses Moon of committing all of the murders. She denies it, but Goren says that killing them was the end result of her lifetime of failure and frustrated ambitions, which so upsets her that she inadvertently reveals that she was, in fact, present when Jackson and Ellis were killed. This revelation serves as the final piece of the puzzle that proves she committed the murders. Realizing that she is caught, Moon starts crying and tells Goren that he has no idea what it is like to work so hard and still be a nobody. Goren replies, "Welcome to the human race," and arrests her. He and Eames then arrest Langer, and both he and Moon are imprisoned for life.

External links[]

Sylvia Moon on the Law & Order Wiki

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Villains

Exiled: A Law & Order Movie
Gianni Uzielli