In the criminal justice system,
The people are represented by two separate
Yet equally important groups--
The police who investigate crime
And the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
Punch buggy red. No punch back.
- Mom.
- You can't play that, auntie brenda.
- Why?
Because I'm a big, bad grown-up?
All: Yes.
- I invented the punch buggy game.
- You did not. - Ask auntie sandy.
She used to bring a pillow in the car
To put between us so I couldn't hit her.
[car horn blares]
- Mom, watch where you're going, okay?
- Oh, I'm just having a little fun, nicky.
Jeez.
Give me my spray out of my purse, will you, honey?
- So where'd you take her?
- Apple picking.
- Oh, risky first date. - No, it was all good, bro.
An we got some great "maccowns."
- Macouns.
- Mommy!
- Minivan entered the highway off 14th street
Going the wrong way.
Witnesses say it was going 60 minimum.
Hit this poor guy head on.
All three in the car were d.O.A.
Two in the minivan.
Little kids.
- What about the driver of the minivan?
- They rushed her and two other kids
To st. Agnes'.
- Drove almost 20 blocks on the wrong side.
Unbelievable.
- Hey.
I think I found the culprit.
Grain alcohol.
151 proof.
- No taste. Packs a wallop.
- Yeah, there's still a few drops in the bottle.
This is why I take the subway.
- My wife was taking the kids to our place upstate
For the weekend.
She had our nieces with her.
Oh, god.
Oh, what am I gonna tell sandy and bob?
- We're very sorry, mr. Sawyer.
- Where was she coming from?
- Uh, she was coming from work,
From woodmoor pharma.
Brenda's a sales manager.
She wasn't even supposed to have the kids with her.
I was supposed to pick them up from her sister's place,
But last minute I had to stay late at the bank.
- So you called your wife.
- Yeah, around 4:45.
I told her she'd have to pick the kids up,
And I'd come up later.
- How'd she sound?
- She sounded okay.
Um, you know, she was still at work.
- We have to ask you this, mr. Sawyer.
Did your wife drink?
- No. Maybe champagne on special occasions.
But that's it. Why?
- There was a bottle of grain alcohol in the van.
Maybe it belonged to you.
- No. We're not drinkers.
What are you implying? That my wife was drunk?
- Just routine questions, mr. Sawyer.
- My wife was not drunk.
No damn way.
I have to go check on my son.
- She has severe head trauma,
Massive internal injuries.
It's not hopeful.
- What did the tox screen say?
- Blood alcohol was .09.
- Any chance we'll be able to talk
To the surviving kids anytime soon?
- [sobs]
Oh, my god.
- Surviving kid.
The boy, nicky sawyer, is being prepped for surgery.
The little girl, sarah renquist,
Died ten minutes ago.
I just told her parents.
- Thanks.
- Hmm. What do you think?
We go talk to them?
- Well, they can always say no.
Excuse me.
Hello.
Detective lupo. This is detective bernard.
I'm very sorry for your loss.
We'd like to ask you a few questions if that's okay.
- Okay.
- We understand brenda sawyer
Picked her kids up from your home.
- Yes. Our kids too.
They were spending the weekend at brenda and matt's place.
- You both saw miss sawyer?
- Just me.
She came by just before 5:00.
- How did she seem? - Fine.
She said she was gonna stop
And get the kids ice cream.
- Tell them about the call.
- Allie, my older one,
I gave her my cell phone
So she could keep in contact with us over the weekend,
And she called a half hour after they left,
And she said that there was something wrong
With my sister, that she wasn't making any sense
And she was driving all over the road.
I told allie to tell brenda to pull over,
And then I heard allie scream.
- She was drunk, wasn't she?
- Bob, sandy, I just heard about sara.
- Your drunk wife killed our babies.
- No. - She killed them!
- No. She wasn't drunk. - Hey, mr. Renquist.
- Bob. I swear. - Let's go.
- Bob!
- This is her turning onto the west side highway
At 14th street, but instead of going in the northbound lanes,
She turns north into the southbound lane.
- Traffic was light. She accelerated.
One caller to 911 has her going through the intersection
At 22nd street at about 55.
- Did she make any attempt to pull over?
- A.I.U. Says not according to the witnesses
Or the 911 calls.
- The lady was smashed.
- That's a lot of bad driving
For a .09 blood alcohol.
- I've seen people with a .06 who couldn't stand up.
- Look, the husband swears his wife didn't drink.
- Yeah, not that he's ready to admit anyway.
- Are you two done?
Miss sawyer's blood alcohol
Has already been leaked to the media.
With six fatalities, including three dead kids,
This lady ever makes it out of the hospital,
People are gonna want to string her up.
We're gonna nail this down
So there can be no doubt.
Find out what she drank,
Where she drank it,
And who saw her do it.
- We're still in total shock over this.
Brenda was a strong member of my sales team.
She had a beautiful family.
- How was she when she left on Friday?
- Uh, she was good.
Happy to go home.
- And what time was that? - Maybe 4:15, 4:30.
- You ever see her have a drink at lunch
Or after hours?
- Maybe a glass of punch at a christmas party.
- She ever talk about drinking
Or being hung over? - No.
Well... - What is it, mr. Marshall?
- Well, when she left on Friday,
She said she was gonna be cooped up with four kids all weekend.
She laughed and said she was gonna need a stiff drink.
But I thought she was kidding.
- How does she get in that car
Stone-cold drunk?
And now her husband's saying
She didn't touch the stuff?
Well, you know what that's about.
- Are you planning to take legal action
Against matt sawyer?
- You're damn right I am.
I lost my wife...
My daughter, her fiance.
- Leslie, can you please turn that off?
- Sorry, mr. Marshall.
- Okay, everybody, back to work, please.
- no secret stash.
No breath mints.
- You know, she told her sister she was gonna take the kids
To get ice cream before hitting the road.
- So maybe someplace between her sister's and the highway.
- I remember her. Two vanillas with jimmies,
Strawberry, and a pistachio.
- The paper cup she's sipping from could be a juice
Or a soda she bought for a mixer.
Did she seem intoxicated to you?
- She was in a good mood.
I mean, she put five bucks in the tip jar.
That's the lady that killed all those people?
- Mm.
- Damn. - She tossed her drink.
You still have that garbage?
- Put it out for sanitation that night.
- Thanks.
- Between leaving work and getting the kids,
She bought a bottle of booze and a mixer.
- Maybe now we can get the straight story
From the husband.
- I am telling you for the last time.
My wife is not a drinker.
- We have the bottle of grain alcohol
From the car.
We have her on video
Sipping from a drink cup
15 minutes before the crash.
- I don't care what it says.
Brenda would never do that.
Never.
- We know it's hard to admit, mr. Sawyer,
But you could help a lot of people.
They need to hear the truth
So they can move on.
- You don't think I want to move on?
I've got in-laws that hate my guts.
I can't leave the apartment
Because the papers have turned me into a pariah.
My daughter is dead.
My wife and son...
And I've got a mother in there who's dying of cancer.
I have known brenda since high school.
We don't keep secrets from each other.
Something is off here. All right?
- My daughter-in-law is aerric moth.
She would never put my grandchildren in danger.
- It's all right, ma.
I'm begging you guys,
Find out what happened.
Please.
- We could show him pictures
Of his wife taking swigs
Of grain alcohol, and he still wouldn't believe it.
- When you know somebody, you know somebody.
[phone rings]
- Hello.
[cell phone rings]
Yeah, this is him.
What?
Oh, god!
Oh, god.
- It's his wife. She didn't make it.
- [sobs]
- One more look, okay?
- Her cell phone records confirmed the call
From her husband at 4:45.
- The one where he tells her to get the kids.
- Yeah, then she got a call ten minutes before the crash
From a cell phone registered to her company.
The call lasted less than a minute.
She was probably too wasted
By then to talk to anybody.
- Nasal spray for her allergies.
- You see alcohol in the ingredients?
- No, but some of these allergy medications make you drowsy.
I'm sending it to the lab.
- Contents of her g.I. Tract
Corroborate the hospital tox screen.
Grain alcohol mixed with orange juice, banana,
And coconut.
High-octane smoothie she drank on an empty stomach.
- Could something she took for allergies
Have interacted with that?
- Like what? An antihistamine?
- There was an over-the-counter nasal spray in her car.
- The mass spectrometer
Didn't detect anything besides alcohol
That would account for her behavior.
There's no big mystery here, fellas.
This lady was hammered on jungle juice.
- Thanks.
We've tried it every other way.
It all comes back to her being drunk.
- I'd feel a lot better if we could find the store
That sold her the booze.
- Hey, sorry to crash the party.
After you told me about her allergies,
I took another look at her nasal mucosa.
There was chronic inflammation.
So I checked with the tox lab
About the nasal spray.
- Propofol?
An anesthetic, right?
- Yeah. Powerful one.
Also known as milk of amnesia.
Yeah, it's been in the news.
It would cause immediate disorientation
And lack of control if she sprayed it in her nose.
- And all tox screens on brenda sawyer missed it?
- It dissipates in minutes.
It wouldn't be detected.
- So somebody spiked her nasal spray with this stuff?
- Without a doubt.
- Well, when you're right, you're right.
- The lot number on the nasal spray
Traces to a pharmacy on 23rd street.
- Well, alert the health department.
They'll need to pull all the sprays
From that store and have them tested.
- Another tylenol scare.
Great. - Just covering the bases.
- Hey, how about this base?
Guess who's one of four companies that make propofol?
Woodmoor pharma.
- The company brenda sawyer worked for.
- Well, that opens up a whole new world of suspects.
Maybe someone there
Had a beef with ms. Sawyer.
Talk to her husband.
- So it wasn't her fault.
- Let's take one thing at a time.
- But you have to let people know
It wasn't brenda's fault.
- First we find the person
Who tampered with her nasal spray, okay?
- Was she having problems at her work?
- She was busy lately.
A lot of stress.
- With anything or anyone in particular?
- I'm not sure.
She was staying late at work.
I've been preoccupied with my mom
And her cancer, so...
Brenda and I, we hadn't had a lot of time to talk.
Excuse me.
They just brought my son down from icu.
He's been asking about his mom.
- Yeah. Go ahead, mr. Sawyer.
- Staying late at work, huh?
- I want to be helpful. - You're doing okay.
Let's start with some easy questions.
Brenda, she had allergies, right?
- Yes.
She was always spritzing stuff
Up her nose.
- Where did she keep her nasal spray?
- In her purse.
- And her purse. Where did she keep that?
- On her desk.
Or next to it-- is this helping?
- Big time. Okay, touchier subject now.
How did she get along with people here?
- Oh, everyone thought the world of her.
- We heard she'd been staying late the last few weeks.
What was that about?
She and zack-- that's mr. Marshall,
The head of the sales department--
They had this big project together.
- Project. That sounds interesting.
- Oh, for sure.
Um, the night before the accident,
They were in his office
In this big hush-hush, and they stopped
When they saw me.
- How about the day of the accident?
Were they getting along?
- Zack called in after he left
Looking for her, and I said
That she went to pick up her kids.
He didn't seem too happy.
- Did he call from a cell phone?
You know the number?
- This isn't his personal phone.
It's the one the company gave him.
- Thanks. You've been very helpful.
- Really? - Yeah.
- I'm glad.
- Big hush-hush.
It's either personal, professional, or...
Mineral.
- Yeah, well, his number matches the number
That called brenda in the minivan.
Maybe her son overheard the conversation.
- Her son who just got out of the I.C.U.?
You I.A. Guys are cold.
- I can really keep it?
- It's yours.
Especially since you're going to help us
With some of our detective work.
- Okay.
- Now we know some of the stuff may be hard to talk about.
So you just let us know
And we can talk about it some other time.
- I don't care.
- Okay.
When you were in the car,
Before the accident,
Do you remember your mom getting a phone call?
- Yes. From her boss.
She couldn't hear him.
So she hung up.
She was acting weird.
- We understand, nicky.
We know it wasn't your mother's fault.
Did she say anything about her boss?
- She said he was nice.
And he bought her a jamjuice smoothie.
- The smoothie she was drinking
When you guys stopped to buy ice cream?
- A jamjuice franchise
Three blocks from woodmoor pharma
Made a delivery late Friday afternoon.
Eight smoothies, enough for the whole sales staff.
Charged to zack marshall's corporate card.
- He spiked her smoothie and her nasal spray.
- She parked in the company garage.
He could have planted the liquor bottle
In her minivan too.
- He wanted us to think she crashed her car
Because she was drunk, not because she was knocked out
On propofol.
- Crazy scheme.
- Well, you're gonna love this. Here.
The 911 calls about the minivan,
They were all made between 5:24 and 5:25,
All except one,
Made at 5:16 from a payphone in tuckahoe.
- Ten miles from the west side highway.
Someone must have a big crystal ball.
- Zack marshall's phone call to brenda sawyer
Two minutes earlier hit off a cell phone tower
In tuckahoe.
- I treat my team to smoothies every Friday.
Kind of a attaboy motivator.
- But you didn't notice brenda pouring a little extra kick
Into her cup, did you? - No.
She knew I didn't tolerate that kind of behavior.
- After you both left the office,
You called her? - No.
- This is the list of all the calls you made.
You see that one right there?
You didn't tell us you called her.
[soda can opens]
- I didn't know.
I was driving with my phone in my pocket.
I had brenda on speed dial.
I must have hit it by mistake.
- Huh. Why did you have her on speed dial?
- Well, I have all of my team on speed dial.
- Could we see your phone?
- Well, I don't know.
I deleted brenda's entry.
I think I deleted some others.
Moving them around. I'm not good at these gadgets.
Anyway, it's not important, is it?
- Oh, it is.
You see, you and brenda have been staying late together
These last couple of weeks.
People saw you, zack.
What were you working on?
- I can't say. - Mm-hmm.
- It's confidential information. It belongs to the company.
- Are you sure you were working?
- What else would it be?
- You tell us.
- Oh, no.
No way. I'm married.
She was married. She had kids, for god's sake.
- Her kids and her nieces.
This is what they looked like before the accident.
You want to see the after pictures?
- No, I don't need to see that.
- Yeah, we know, had this been in your power,
You would have done everything to stop it from happening.
- Of course. It was terrible.
- But you did try, didn't you?
You called 911.
- No, I didn't. - Yes, you did.
From a payphone in tuckahoe.
- She's in a dark blue minivan with new york plates.
She's got kids with her.
Send somebody right away. Please.
- What location, sir?
- You see, you tried to get the police
To pull her over before she got on the highway,
Before she was knocked out by the propofol
You put in her nasal spray.
- I didn't mean-- I didn't mean--
- You didn't mean what?
- You didn't mean what, zack, huh?
You didn't mean to get these kids killed?
Is that what you mean?
You didn't know they were going to be
In the minivan, is that right?
- [hyperventilates]
- Look at the pictures, zack.
You didn't mean to kill these kids, did you?
- I got to go to the bathroom.
[coughs] please, I got to go!
Please!
[coughs violently]
- Hey, we'll hang on to your jacket.
Give it to me.
- [retching]
[moans]
- You okay in there?
- Oh, god.
- Get a paramedic.
Get a paramedic, damn it.
Oh, oh, god! Oh!
- Let me go. Let me die!
- No, I'm not gonna let you go
That easy, my friend.
Lupes!
He stuck a ballpoint pen in his neck.
- Son of a bitch. - Grab his hands.
- [grunts]
- Don't think that didn't cross my mind.
- Should I stand over there?
- You're fine where you are, mr. Cooper.
People v. Zachary marshall,
Murder in the second degree, seven counts.
- How does mr. Marshall plead?
- Not guilty on all charges.
- People request remand.
- I want to see my wife. - I'm working on that.
Your honor, my client's obviously
Under a doctor's care and not a flight risk.
- He's under a doctor's care due to a suicide attempt,
Which evinces consciousness of his guilt.
- It wasn't guilt. He was upset by the allegations.
- He was upset because he killed more people
On a new york roadway than anyone in history.
- Your honor, even the police claim
That my client tried to avert this tragedy.
- Sounds like mr. Cooper is admitting intentional murder
And asserting renunciation.
- No, not necessarily.
- I suggest you figure it out, mr. Cooper.
Your client's remanded.
- His lawyer practically stumbled into a confession.
- Well, we could use a confession.
A suicide attempt and a smoothie won't convict mr. Marshall.
- The police found the foil wrapper to a nasal spray
In marshall's house.
Same brand as the one in brenda's car.
- Better. Not as good as evidence of an affair
Or of putting the propofol in his hands.
- His company stores it in a warehouse in white plains.
- Well, have a nice drive.
- Zack marshall, he's been out here in the past month.
- Been out here a few times by the looks of it.
Would he have had access to any products here?
Maybe samples?
- Salespeople are issued samples, sure.
- How about propofol?
- We don't give out samples of propofol.
- How would mr. Marshall get access to it?
- He wouldn't.
We have security measures.
We got a dozen government agencies
Breathing down our necks.
- Is it normal for a sales manager
To visit the warehouse so often?
- If he has an issue with distribution.
- Did he?
- Not that I recall.
- I see a couple times
Where brenda sawyer signed in with him.
Did they always come together?
- A couple times she came by herself.
- Do you remember what for?
- She was looking at sales data
For one of our drugs.
Lextenda.
- Brenda sawyer didn't rep lextenda.
She say why she was interested?
- She said there was a distribution issue
With the cancer clinic one of her relatives was using.
- Losing brenda was a horrible loss for matt.
And nicky.
Growing up without a mother.
- It's nice that they have you here with them.
- For as long as I last.
I'm a realist, dear.
People my age don't beat colon cancer.
Now, what can I do for you?
- I need to know,
Did brenda ever talk to you about a drug called lextenda?
- Yes. My clinic had me on it,
But brenda made me stop taking it.
- Even though her company made the drug?
Did she say why?
- She didn't think it was right for me.
It was after she spoke with albert's son.
[sighs]
Albert was at the clinic.
He had colon cancer.
He was taking lextenda.
When albert's son found out that brenda worked for woodmoor,
He got very upset with her.
- Because of lextenda?
- I'm not sure.
She spent a lot of time talking to him.
- My father made peace with dying.
He even signed his own dnr.
The clinic then put him on the new medicine
They said would extend his life for months, even years.
- And that medicine was lextenda.
- Right, a thousand bucks a day.
The cancer had already maxed out my pop's insurance,
So we had to pay for it out of our own pocket.
- And what happened? - Pops kept getting worse.
That lextenda didn't do anything for him.
I wanted to take him off it,
But the clinic talked my mom into keeping him on it.
And she used up all her savings to pay for that drug.
And for what?
My pops spent the last five weeks of his life in agony,
And now my mom can't afford to be in the house
That she's been in for 40 years?
- I'm so sorry.
I was told that you got very upset
With brenda sawyer when you found out
She worked for the company that made lextenda.
- Yeah, I kind of lost it there.
Brenda was a real angel.
She listened to me.
She didn't know about lextenda.
She said she'd look into it.
- What did she find out?
- I'm not sure.
I lost touch with her after my pops died.
I know she got into this big thing with dr. Price,
The head of the clinic.
- People with loved ones
Who are terminally ill want miracles.
When they don't get them, they get angry.
They blame the doctor. They blame the drugs.
- What specifically did brenda sawyer discuss with you?
- She didn't want her mother-in-law on lextenda.
- Why?
- She wanted to show me some data
On her laptop, but she was a salesperson.
She had no medical training.
- Did she question why you were keeping
Mr. Quintana on lextenda,
Even though he was getting no medical benefit from it?
- It was really none of her business.
Or yours, for that matter.
- What percentage of your terminally ill cancer patients
Are on lextenda?
- I don't see how that's relevant.
- I'll decide what's relevant.
Or, if you'd rather, I could come back
With a subpoena for all of your records.
- Why don't you do that,
Ms. Rubirosa.
You get your subpoena.
In the meantime, I'll talk to my lawyer.
- You're a golfer.
- Some of my friends would disagree with that statement.
- Woodmoor invitational hawaii.
Dominican republic. Honduras.
Wow. You get around.
You and your little golf balls.
- Well, I got a hold of dr. Price's data
Through the state's morbidity studies.
He's prescribed lextenda to all his patients
At the end stage of their disease.
Their bodies were shutting down
In a process called wasting.
- Did lextenda help them?
- Compared to similar patients
Who weren't taking lextenda,
Price's patients lived an average of 36 days longer.
- That's on the low end of woodmoor's marketing materials.
- That's 36 days they wouldn't have had otherwise.
- A couple of them lived for a few months.
And one for almost a year.
But the vast majority only lived a week or two.
- Still.
- It's living, but barely.
- At a thousand dollars a day.
- Drug company perks are nothing new.
- Well, this is for a drug
That has no palliative value.
It's what the medical community calls a rescue drug.
It extends life by a matter of days,
But at an exorbitant cost.
- Not to mention it targets
A very vulnerable and desperate group of patients.
- Still, unless the company's paying the prescribing doctors
To misrepresent the drug's effectiveness...
- Maybe brenda sawyer found out that they are.
- She was in the warehouse
Digging through lextenda sales data
Along with zack marshall.
- Maybe she confided in him.
- She probably thought she could trust him.
He went back afterwards by himself.
- And what if he didn't share brenda's outrage
At what she found out?
He's a sales manager.
Brenda blows the whistle
And lextenda's sales tank,
Then so might his career and his company.
- So he silenced brenda?
He might be a company man, but loyalty only goes so far.
- Do you have any idea how much woodmoor grosses annually
On lextenda?
- Hmm. That would buy a lot of loyalty.
- What happened to mr. Cooper?
Trade him in for someone who knows where to stand?
- Courtesy of woodmoor pharma, we presume.
- Not your concern.
What brings you to scenic rikers island?
- Your client's facing seven life sentences, mr. Hoyt.
- I'm new here, but your case feels very circumstantial to me.
Foil packaging?
- Juries tend to lower the bar quite a bit
When dead children are involved.
- Now we know why he did it.
- Oh, it wasn't a lovers' spat.
Please, share.
- Brenda sawyer was about to blow the whistle on lextenda.
- Lextenda?
- You remember, mr. Marshall.
The cancer drug brenda was asking about
When she was with you
At woodmoor's distribution facility.
- Your client can fill you in on the specifics.
- Other words, you can't put either the alcohol
Or the propofol in his hands, can you?
I'll contact you when I get up to speed.
Or not. Come on, mr. Marshall.
First thing we're gonna do
Is make a bail application
To get you home to your family.
- Sounds like woodmoor is trying to do damage control.
If they can force us to cut marshall a quick deal,
Maybe they can keep lextenda out of it.
- Or maybe marshall cut his own deal with them.
He'll keep his mouth shut about lextenda
In return for some high-priced legal representation.
- And where are we with lextenda?
Anything beyond speculation and educated guesswork?
- Brenda's research was on her company laptop.
Her assistant told me woodmoor security removed it
From her office the weekend after she was killed.
- That laptop holds our motive.
- I'm sure if you ask woodmoor nicely,
They'll hand it right over.
- Woodmoor is moving to quash
The d.A.'s subpoena for this laptop.
There's nothing on the computer
Which relates to this tragic drunk driving case.
- They can't seriously expect us to take their word for it.
- Is mr. Cutter admitting that this is a fishing expedition?
- No, we're looking for documents
Which relate to the motive
For seven murders.
- What documents are those, mr. Cutter?
- Anything concerning a medicine called lextenda.
- Lextenda is a closely held patent, judge.
Any information on a woodmoor computer
About woodmoor products is proprietary.
- The people aren't interested in stealing trade secrets.
I'll give the court my personal guarantee
That anything unrelated to lextenda's sales,
Marketing, or distribution will remain confidential
And secure.
- He's still fishing, your honor.
- I agree. Mr. Cutter, your subpoena is quashed.
[gavel knocks]
- Well, asking nicely didn't work.
What's plan b?
- I'll ask.
- I haven't seen you since you came knocking
With your hand out, jack.
Belated congratulations.
- Thanks again for the campaign contribution, austin.
- Don't thank me. Thank my board of directors.
I assume this isn't a social call.
I heard my guys beat up your guys today.
- Zack marshall and brenda sawyer were your employees.
- Terrible tragedy.
- And terrible for woodmoor.
- It's not the kind of publicity
We aspire to.
- Especially if it got out those seven deaths
Were really about lextenda.
- Excuse me?
- Brenda sawyer was gathering data
About your miracle drug until she was killed
By a rogue employee.
But why am I telling you something you already know?
- I don't know what marshall did
Or didn't do, but I do know
Lextenda is an effective product.
- Brenda sawyer thought otherwise.
That you were selling false hope to desperate people
At a thousand bucks a day.
Doing it by co-opting doctors
With timeshares and tropical vacations.
That it's a rigged game.
- Don't get self-righteous on me, jack.
If corporations didn't make profits,
Where would politicians like you be?
- You're right, and it stinks.
There are too many office holders
In the health industry's pockets.
It's one of the reasons we can't pass
A decent health care bill in this country.
And, oh, by the way...
It's a certified check
Reimbursing your campaign contribution.
- What do you want me to do?
- Grow a conscience.
Unless you want to be personally named
As an accomplice, austin,
You can order your guys to hand over that computer.
- All the files have been deleted.
And I mean all of them. - We expected that.
- All I could recover were some basic applications
Built into the operating system.
Clock, address book, calendar. - Can I take a look?
Thanks.
- The police went back through marshall's home
And computer. Nothing on lextenda.
- Brenda's computer was wiped clean.
Everything's gone, except her address book and calendar.
But look at this.
[beep]
Her appointments the week after she died.
This one here. - "j. Wigand.
Tuesday, 10:00 a.M."
- And there is no j. Wigand in her address book.
- I don't remember seeing that name
In her phone records.
- Jeffrey wigand.
The king of the whistleblowers.
He blew the whistle on big tobacco.
- It's hard to believe she'd be meeting with him.
- Exactly. So maybe this was her inside joke.
A code name for a meeting with a regulatory agency.
- An agency that could do something about lextenda.
The fda.
- She said she worked for woodmoor,
But she wouldn't tell me her name.
We set up the Tuesday meeting.
She never showed.
- She say why she insisted on anonymity?
- Most people who contact us don't give us
Their name at first.
They don't want to risk their jobs
If we're not gonna act on their information.
This lady wouldn't even tell me what drug she was calling about.
- She didn't mention lextenda?
- Is that what it was?
I got a call about lextenda later that week from a doctor.
He was very eager to move forward.
I even sent him an informational packet.
- You sent it to him?
This doctor left you his name?
- Yeah, he did.
But under the whistleblower protection laws,
I can't divulge his identity without a court order.
- Well, we'll take care of that.
Any other inquiries about lextenda?
- Not that I'm aware of.
But I wouldn't be surprised to see an uptick
In complaints on these end-term cancer meds.
- Why? Because they're not effective?
- Well, big money at stake.
Not just for corporations, but for whistleblowers.
They get a piece of any penalty
Imposed on the company.
Ever since a whistleblower got $50 million
On that pfizer settlement,
Drug company employees
Have been coming out of the woodwork.
- The $2 billion penalty against pfizer
Was for illegal marketing,
Which is exactly what brenda suspected
Woodmoor of doing with lextenda.
- Zack marshall saved his company a tidy sum.
They should be very proud of him.
- And they're doing everything they can
To show their appreciation.
The erased computer files, his bail money,
The fancy lawyer. [knock at door]
- The fda just turned over the name and address
Of the doctor who called them about lextenda.
It's a dr. Sherin, up in dobbs ferry.
- Well, if he gives us information
About woodmoor's illegal marketing,
Then maybe you can use it to convince
Your friends at woodmoor to cut marshall loose.
- My friends, ha.
- Dr. Sherin rents a box here.
Box 819.
But he hasn't come in for a while.
- Do you have a home address on him?
- All I know is he's from florida.
He's only been in here twice,
Including when he rented the box.
- You mind if we have a look?
- I'm not supposed to do that.
I mean, if it was terrorism, maybe.
- Do you remember all those kids
That died in that crash on the westside highway?
This is that.
- Oh.
- When did dr. Sherin
Rent the box?
- Uh, six weeks ago.
He said he'd be coming through here every few weeks
To see a patient.
Here you go.
Return address says it's from the fda.
- The last time he came in,
What was it for?
- He had a package sent by registered mail.
I had to get his d.E.A. Number
Before I could release the package.
- His d.E.A. Number?
Was it medication?
- I think so. Let me check.
Here it is.
It was from woodmoor pharma.
- Is this dr. Sherin?
- That's right.
I thought you said you didn't know him.
- We tracked the package back to woodmoor.
One vial of propofol.
Sent to dr. Sherin, I.E., you, mr. Marshall.
- And we're ready for trial, mr. Hoyt.
- Another piece of circumstantial evidence.
Not the end of the world.
- Are you kidding me?
I didn't mean for any of this to happen.
I swear. I tried to stop it.
- What did you mean to happen?
- Zack, I'm advising you to shut up.
- No, I don't want your advice anymore.
I just wanted her to get pulled over.
The police would think she was drunk,
She'd get a dwi,
She'd get fired and lose her credibility with the fda.
- Her credibility as a whistleblower?
- Yes.
She was gonna give all the reward money away.
I couldn't let that happen.
- You didn't do this to save your company
Or your job, did you?
- Zack. - Shut up!
I didn't care about woodmoor.
Not after brenda showed me what they were doing with lextenda.
She had a list of all the doctors in the country
Who were prescribing it, all the kickbacks
They were getting from the company.
She even found an internal cost analysis
Of how much money woodmoor could make
Off of every terminal cancer patient before they died.
- She came to you why?
She was looking for help?
- No, I found out what she was doing.
And I wanted us to go to the fda together.
But then she wanted to give all the money away
To hudson university for pediatric cancer research.
All the money.
Tens of millions of dollars.
I mean, she didn't need it.
Her husband makes a good living.
But me...
My wife doesn't work.
I have kids.
I don't have a house in the country.
I don't have savings.
- So you decided to drug her with propofol
So that she'd get in a fatal accident.
- No, I told you...
I thought she was gonna get in a little fender-bender
In the city.
Then I called in.
Her assistant told me that she had the kids with her.
I tried to stop brenda.
I called her. I told her to come back to the office.
To pull over.
But she couldn't hear me.
And I called 911. I tried to tell them.
Oh, my god. What did I do?
- If I'm not mistaken,
My client has a viable renunciation defense.
- [snickers] now you are kidding.
I'll take his plea to seven counts
Of depraved indifference murder.
20 years to life, subject to approval
By the victims' families.
- Okay.
Okay.
- I think we're done here.
- Not quite.
The evidence you were turning over to the fda, where is it?
- You don't need that. It's immaterial.
- He gives it to us, or there's no deal.
- It's on a flash drive
In a knapsack in my son's closet.
- I'll call lupo and bernard.
- 20 years.
- It's your call, mr. Sawyer.
- What about brenda's sister and her husband
And the people in the other car,
Their family, what did they say?
- We came to you first.
- My mother died last week.
- We're very sorry.
- It was her time.
My son's doing well.
It's been hard, but we just go on.
Brenda was never a mean-minded person.
I guess 20 years is fair.
- All right.
- And the reward money, when it comes,
I want some to go to brenda's sister
And the other family,
But the rest of it, I don't want it.
It should go where brenda wanted.
- Cancer research.
- Yes.
I guess that's it then.
Thank you.
- 20 years it is.