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Diagnosis Murder Season 4 Episodes
Season 4 Episode Guide
26 Episodes 1996 - 1997
Episode 1
Murder by Friendly Fire
Thu, Sep 19, 199645 mins
During a SWAT bust, Steve's LAPD friend Douglas Quinten 'Doug' Vogel gets killed by a bullet from his own commander, Max Jupe, who is two years from retirement. City Attorney Andrew Chivers forbids Max any contact with the widow Janine, who quickly accepts the 20% profit-sharing legal services of slick attorney Daniel Brent. Actually. Max and Janine were secret lovers who planned Doug's death. Mark quickly catches on when Max is diagnosed with chickenpox, a recent problem in Janine's daycare center, although the lovers claim not to have met in three months. A 'shooting demonstration' by cocky Max proves that he doesn't need glasses and he is a superb marksman. Janine takes another lover-her lawyer Brent, who is suing Max and the city for $10 million. Brent accidentally finds out about her murderous deal with Max, which starts a new round of greed and deceit...
Episode 2
Murder Can Be Contagious
Thu, Sep 26, 199645 mins
While surfing, Jesse finds a dying man on the beach. Mark knows the symptoms from Guatemala, 1953, as smallpox: fatal, highly contagious and successfully eradicated. The beach house is quarantined and the beach cleared. An autopsy on the victim Eddy, a thief, shows it's a man-made mutation with an 8 hours incubation period. In his backpack Jesse finds only jewelry, including B.A.L. initialed cuff links belonging to robbed neighbor Brandon Lyndstrom, found murdered at his home, who was the CEO of biological research company Lyndscience. There VP Gayle Wentworth claims the virus could never have left the facility and invokes national security, but indeed all samples are missing from the safe. Jesse tells Mark, whose immunization is outdated, he admires how close he and Steve are, Jesse's dad is barely a rare postcard. Mark calls the FBI, which puts Special Agent Dunleavy on the case with Steve and 'informally' contacts the likely virus fence, Sebastian Dupré, who claims he 'must inquire'. A frantic Steve pressures Dupré the hard way, finds the thief Ray Dinino but he hasn't got the antidote. Jesse soon gets symptoms - making the antidote would probably take longer then the youngster has left, so Mark decides to inject himself with blood, hoping his immunity will be reactivated: even if it fails, he only loses a few hours. Then Jesse has an idea about the real owner of the expensive backpack.
Episode 3
Murder on Thin Ice
Thu, Oct 3, 199645 mins
Figure skating athlete Julie Miller is able to avoid serious injuries when she is attacked with a knife by a masked man, whom Steve, who's accompanying avid fan Amanda, manages to catch and arrest. It's Sean Farlow, the former manager of competitor Debbie Monroe; their duel is delayed, at least pending full recovery. Amanda notices that Julie uses apparently unnecessary crutches. Once on bail, accomplice Sean looks Julie up, increasing his demand to $1,000,000 from her future endorsement earnings, to which Julie panics, kills him with a skate and frames Debbie, who has no alibi. Mark believes Debbie and starts looking closer, and soon realizes Julie has a long-term medical problem and finds inconspicuous anomalies.
Episode 4
X Marks the Murder: Part 1
Thu, Oct 10, 199645 mins
A string of murders occurs with the same killer signature. One of the victims supposedly called Mark, but it is after she was known to be dead. The case becomes personal when the killer starts calling Mark.
Episode 5
X Marks the Murder: Part 2
Thu, Oct 10, 199645 mins
Mark gets involved in the string of murders when the killer starts calling Mark. It gets more personal when the killer attacks Amanda. She manages to escape. Mark and Steve get closer to finding the killer.
Episode 6
A Model Murder
Thu, Oct 17, 199645 mins
P.I. Ray Donovan is murdered at his desk by a disguised woman. Best man Jessie's frat buddy Rick 'Slick' Brooks, hung over after a killer bachelor party, got a mysterious phone call from Donovan asking him to come by - he 'doesn't want to scare the boy' - but Steve is there already. Rick can't identify the corpse, but Ray's cases include one concerning insurance and Rick's fiancée Wendy Windsor, the daughter of bossy showbiz photographer Catherine Windsor. The autopsy reveals tiny traces of film and Mercedes transmission fluid, both fitting Catherine, and Jessie finds out the same car type terminally hit at least one of Wendy's two previous fiancés, the other was also killed. However the sleuths find other suspicious traces linking to X-rays, which proves quite dangerous to investigate, even twice. . .
Episode 7
Murder Can Be Murder
Thu, Oct 24, 199645 mins
A surgeon kills a man on the operating table for insurance money. Foul play is expected as the identity of the man becomes questionable. Mark reluctantly helps Steve with the investigation since the surgeon is a good friend of his.
Episode 8
An Explosive Murder
Thu, Oct 31, 199645 mins
Just when Mark goes to post his tax return, a nearby milk truck explodes; luckily he has no serious injuries. Jesse keeps Mark under observation; he'll do none of the sleuthing this time, he'll just be a murder target because he saw the bomber running away. LAPD rookie detective Amy convinces Steve, after her umpteenth undercover small-fry bust, to get her a 'real' job, infiltrating a terrorist bombing gang, where things are even more traitorous than the cops suspect.
Episode 9
Murder by the Busload
Thu, Nov 7, 199645 mins
Steve had bought expensive Laker floor tickets for him and dad Mark that evening, but a traffic accident swamps Community General with a bus-load of ER patients. Patient Melora Jackson promises to pull strings to get the Sloans two new tickets from the coach. Mark notices fatal passenger Fred Talisker, an insurance adjuster, has an atypical head wound; autopsy shows it was inflicted shortly before the crash -which was an accident- and fatal: murder, the killer must be among the patients, so Steve is pulled from the Lakers game to avoid anyone catching on while they are kept in observation and screened, even the two paramedics who brought them in, by the sleuths, who soon discover Fred was a serial rapist. Then another passenger-patient is murdered...
Episode 10
A Candidate for Murder
Thu, Nov 14, 199645 mins
U.S. Senator Terrence Bell's daughter Melanie Bell collapses after being thrown out an electoral dinner where she threw a scene. Her boy-friend Ryan Breedlove rushes her to Mark's ER, it's just a drug dose. Melanie is taken away by the senator's men, including a private physician, and accidentally falls to her apparent death on a coffee-table while arguing with dad, who is up for reelection in mere months, blaming him for her ma's suicide. Political aid Peter Trent stops the Senator from calling the police and sees to it that the girl's corpse is found OD'd in Ryan's apartment. The sleuths soon find Melanie died from a blow, not drugs, and investigate everyone and everywhere...
Episode 11
The ABC's of Murder
Thu, Nov 21, 199645 mins
While Amanda and her friend visit an ethnically widely mixed school, a driving-by car fires at a class room and kills generally liked math teacher Pete Delvecchio, principal Wallace Morrison was in the room but unhurt. Assistant D.A. Susan Turner, in charge of juvenile crime and well-reputed, having lost her husband at a kid's hands, investigates with the Sloans but starts on the premise it must be a teenager. The car is identified as belonging to Korean pupil Tommy Parks, who has a mild record but a good home and character, even an alibi, yet Turner arrests him, tenaciously even after Mark shows the ballistics suggest another fatal shooter and bails the boy out, she listens only when LAPD forensics confirm he's right. Pretending to be looking for mechanics, Jesse finds out about nastier, black boys in auto-shop then and against Tommy. Steve finds Delvecchio lied on his resume. When Inspector Michaels takes over the car shooter's investigation on Washington's authority, the Sloans and Susan decide to continue working officially only on the other avenue; her connections find Delvecchio's identity before he entered the witness protection program, then the knots get tied as a complex web.
Episode 12
Murder in the Family
Thu, Dec 12, 199645 mins
Mark is pleasantly surprised by a Christmas time visit from his daughter Carol Sloan Hilton after 8 years but immediately notices bruises. She tells him she was hit but just wants out of her marriage with truck driver Bruce Hilton, whom Mark never liked, and is taken home where once so protective brother Steve isn't happy with the reunion. Just when Carol leaves, Steve calls Mark, Bruce was just found shot dead, his fat wallet wasn't robbed while the killer(s) clearly ransacked his motel room looking for something, as Carol's home is soon after. LAPD Detective Emma Lopez is officially put on the case in his place, but Steve sleuths on and gets knocked into hospital. Toxic traces suggest the trucking firm, where soon another poison death occurs, is involved in illegal waste dumping and Bruce was a blackmailer.
Episode 13
In Defense of Murder
Thu, Jan 9, 199745 mins
Spoilers: Former nurse Mary Capshaw is the director, in fact fund raising soul, of Community General's children health project. A paparazzo overhears her talking to 'Malibu madam' Kirsten Foxx, once a fellow prostitute, who announces she's going to publish a book about that embarrassing past, with their real names. Just before her publisher's messenger would pick up the manuscript, a man she knows kills Foxx and steals it. That same Darren Worthy, an expensive attorney, offers his legal services to suspect Capshaw, who just resigned from the project, pro bono, so he can mess up her defense, next plants incriminating evidence in her home and at the murder site. Fortunately for Mary, the Sloans soon suspect Worthy's defense options; Mark sleuths on and realizes only he had he opportunity to plant evidence Mark knows for sure wasn't there. Steve discovers Worthy defended lowlifes before he got a celebrity clientèle, including madam Foxx, and may well have been her 'client' too. Meanwhile Worthy uses the names from the manuscript as 'leverage' in high places to boost his career and to have Mary committed as mentally incompetent to stand trial, with another fatal result...
Episode 14
A History of Murder
Thu, Jan 16, 199745 mins
When Norman ceremonially knocks down a piece of wall at the inauguration of a Community General expansion named after rich hospital alumnus and benefactor Dr. Raymond Huxley, a completely bleached skeleton falls out. From his ring Mark identifies him as the late, brilliant cardiac surgeon Dr. Greg Nordoff, who disappeared on the day of the Dallas Kennedy assassination, while the hospital was in an even worse state, due to ongoing construction. Only a hearing aid remains intact, but turns out not to be his. Nordoff was assumed at the time to have embezzled a lot from the hospital's surgical research fund, so that previous crime, also decades ago, may be the key; Mark was too shell-shocked at the time to investigate, but is determined now -visited by flash-backs- to clear it all up, especially after nurse Jane Ellington, also on staff and Nordoff's lover in the Sixties, is murdered in the garage, after the fatal heart-attack of Dr. Huxley. Even finding records proves hard and physically dangerous for Jessie. There turns out to exist a crucial miniature pacemaker prototype...
Episode 15
Murder Two: Part 1
Thu, Jan 30, 199745 mins
Stuntwoman Paula McCarthy was found beaten to death in an L.A. hotel room. Her husband Barry McCarthy was arrested there. Dr. Eric Spindler tries to stop Jesse from operating on a car accident victim without waiting for an MRI, then convinces the family to sue the E.R. for malpractice and acts as a star witness. Spindler's girlfriend nurse Jeri Murdico cheated him at birth-control and refuses an abortion, he thinks she just wants to marry him for his money. Jesse begs Mark to ask his friend Ben Matlock (star of the eponymous murder lawyer series) to defend him, which requires good pay and fringe benefits. Alas, Ben's boisterous court room style gets him jailed for contempt of court. Jeri goes over to Eric's place and during an argument knocks him down with a lamp and he's dead. Ben takes her case at Mark's insistence, but she's not charged because Spindler was already fatally poisoned. Steve is taken off the case because Jesse becomes the prime suspect, given his motive and his fingerprints on a bottle containing the rare poison which was also found in his bathroom: Ben now has an angelic murder charge defendant as client, bail denied. Steve is too late to stop a man stealing something from the murder-scene. Spindler's car was packed for a Santa Barbara hotel, where he repeatedly called stunt double Debbie Gardner, Paula McCarthy's sister and successor. She drives her now absent husband Jack Gardner's black truck, which was used to steal from the Spindler house, and denies having called back but her phone was billed for 12 minutes. Ben finds in the truck a video tape and more stuff on the McCarthy murder. A masked man tries to drown Ben, Debbie saves him, and is horrified when she finds out who the assailant is. . .
Episode 16
Murder Two: Part 2
Thu, Feb 6, 199745 mins
While poor innocent Jessie still shivers in jail, Ben and Mark sleuth on. They assume Debbie's now arrested husband Jack Gardner, who is on the stolen Paula McCarthy arrest video in his truck, can link both murders. Barry McCarthy tells them in jail his murdered wife flirted habitually, the fatal night with Nick Cravits, Barry has a drunk black-out how bad it got that night with Spindler but believes he's innocent. Mark realizes Spindler had opportunity during an operation to steal some of the hair -suspiciously cut and torn- and blood to frame Barry, as there is no other proof for his presence, but why? Ben shows Debbie a Community General surveillance picture proving Jack was there the day of Barry's operation, and guesses he and Spindler conspired to frame Barry. Jessie's trial starts, Ben has Debbie tell the framing theory and indicates she was in the plot too, in order to inherit her sister's fortune and set up Jack to attack Ben; she invokes a New Mexico alibi, yet this actually puts the sleuths back on another trail, which allows Ben a new defense by counter-attack...
Episode 17
Hard-Boiled Murder
Thu, Feb 13, 199745 mins
Private Investigator Joe Mannix (star of an eponymous detective series) is brought to friend Mark with a mild flesh wound after a shooting outside the Hall of Records, while re-investigating the Lou Reynolds murder (Mannix season seven, episode four, "Little Girl Lost", 1973), about incriminating tapes from twenty-five years ago. Unfortunately, Joe's X-rays show a life-threatening cardiac risk, so Mark decides to "help" his investigation. His client, Lou's daughter, television reporter Tina Reynolds, is determined to solve this case, now that she has moved back to Los Angeles from Florida, but the killer, who wears a police academy ring, proves quite deadly, fatal for witness Stella, who sold Lou the tapes, but possibly kept some back for blackmail, which would explain her apparent affluence without matching income.
Episode 18
Murder, Country Style
Thu, Feb 20, 199745 mins
At the All-stars Country Awards in L.A., Mark is grateful singing patient Dusty's guest, with Amanda and true fan Jesse who meets awards and records producer Betty Manning's daughter, songwriter Laura Manning, Mark and Dusty find singer Mickey McShane murdered in his trailer, whacked on the head with a lamp. Betty has an alibi but female blond hair and air freshener filters indicate he was actually killed in Betty's trailer, the two were identical and the plates switches. Betty confesses after seeing Steve suspects secret fiancée Laura, who wrote McShane's hit songs and knew he systematically cheated, for one with a groupie who claims to be his true lover, but Mark disproves her story...
Episode 19
Delusions of Murder
Thu, Feb 27, 199745 mins
A psychiatrist hypnotizes his female patients in order to rape them without their knowledge. His wife finds out what he's doing; he then uses hypnosis to frame a patient for his wife's murder and gaslight her into believing she did it.
Episode 20
A Passion for Murder
Thu, Apr 3, 199745 mins
When her separated lover and predecessor as local rep, David 'Dave' Chambers, who just got promoted to regional sales director for Benchmark Pharmaceuticals, intends to announce their engagement, Stephanie Hitcher pushes him in front of a car. He is successfully operated by Jessie. Stephanie quickly seduces Community General's man in charge of purchases, married Dr. Tod Grimes, and turns to getting rid of Dave in the firm and Tod's wife Kim although he doesn't want a divorce. When Kim is shot dead, Tod tells the Sloan sleuths that Stephanie must have killed her rival, when suspended loses his patience, resigns, attacks the shrew and is fired and arrested. Dave's odd lab results get Mark thinking, but meanwhile...
Episode 21
Blood Brothers Murder
Thu, Apr 10, 199745 mins
A gang member does not want his sister to date Shane and a fight breaks out. Shane and his brother Terry are friends with Mark. When the gang member is found dead, Terry and Shane turn to Mark to prove their innocence.
Episode 22
Physician, Murder Thyself
Thu, Apr 24, 199745 mins
When top surgeon Dr. Ken Morrisay, who doesn't bother, is the victim of similar morbid 'pranks' as in Boston while in Community General to operate his former teacher Dr. Jeff Everden, assisted by rival ex-pupil Dr. Clayton Andrews (a source of pride for Norman), Boston anesthesiologist Dr. Les Franklin, Dr. Sally Crawfield, Mark and Jesse, who gets hit by blood aimed from a riding car at Morrissay, Steve investigates. During the operation, Morrisay gets a fatal heart attack, Andrews saves Everden by stepping in. The car is traced to animal rights activist Claire McKenna. Then Mark notices Morrissay's death was cleverly triggered by toxic levels of organic phosphates, which kicks in too fast to be administered before the operation. Dr. Sally Crawfield turns out to be a closet Animal Crusade member, and has a history with Morrisay, who used lab test animals. Andrews is to get a top post now Morrissay is out of the way, while Franklin's pathologically philandering but filthy rich wife Nancy had an affair with Morrissay, but he spills more dirt on Crawfield. Mark works out how the poison was used and plans a trap...
Episode 23
Murder in the Air
Thu, Apr 24, 199745 mins
The airplane Mark and Amanda are taking for a medical conference in Zurich (Switzerland) is delayed to wait for alternative co-pilot Ron Manners, a reputed womanizer. Mark observes the staff have their own problems on top of work, a troublemaker, a female jeweler who ignores the smoking ban. Then Mark finds Ron's corpse in the toilet, neck broken, and starts looking for the murderer among over 100 passengers plus staff after contacting Steve, airplanes being extraterritorial. Then several crew members are found unconscious, cause unknown, leaving no pilot, just passenger Martin Donner Kingston, who has US Air Force experience. Steve finds the originally scheduled co-pilot, knocked down but alive; while Jesse treats his seizure Mark figures out it's a binary poison triggered by aspirin, possibly administered at the hotel all staff except local Deb slept in, the lab confirms: it's a spy toxin. Steve has terrible news after checking the passengers' records...
Episode 24
The Merry Widow Murder
Thu, May 1, 199745 mins
Claire Whitfield makes sure Mark notices the bruise on her cheek, supposedly from her wealthy, hot-tempered husband Elliott, whose alleged sleep-apnea symptoms she supposedly reports to the doctor, actually it's deliberately given by her studly lover Max Halleck, even stages Elliot to shake her at a party and gets her lover to 'snore' heavily enough on a 'bedroom tape' before murdering Elliot, staging fatal apnea. Mark, who worries age is physically catching up with himself, notices deep scratches on Elliot's hand, which don't fit with her bruises, and finds milky residue in broken glass, enough to recommend an autopsy; Amanda finds traces of the prescription sedative Deterol on the broken glass, but the body is already cremated. Elliot's secretary Dorothy tells she knows from business trips he didn't snore, but refuses to testify. Mark tries about every trick in the trade to outsmart the merry murdering widow. Now the murderers show Steve pictures and tapes which Max, supposedly hired by Elliot, cleverly made and edited to suggest an affair between Mark and Claire, so as to discredit his snooping, but mess with the wrong guy, while Elliot actually had hired another detective who photographed Max. The Sloans set a trap...
Episode 25
Comedy Is Murder
Thu, May 8, 199745 mins
Tim Conrad, the clumsy half of a once legendary TV comedy duo, fails to kill his ex-partner Harvey Huckaby, still affluent and the second husband of Tim's ex Susan Huckaby, who cleverly bought Tim's half of the TV rights just before a movie was going to be made about them, first because Tim drops his sniper gun and secondly because Susan put the glasses on a trey after he poisoned one -drank it himself, but is saved in Community General- and gets noticed as fake pool-boy -using a trademark disguise- trying to rig Harvey's pool-cover, and gets the shock of his life: Harvey lives, the pool-cover has killed Susan because of a timer Tim ignored. Mark believes Tim is innocent of the only assassination that happened despite his murderous intentions, but has a hard time proving the bumbler's innocence and finding the real and sneaky killer...
Episode 26
The Murder of Mark Sloan
Thu, May 8, 199745 mins
The Sloans fear for Mark's life after the escape of Sam Rosser, who vowed revenge since Mark got him convicted for a brutal postal bombing murder. Norman also has a fight to the death against a hospital take-over by Vaughn Medical Services, which appeals to most of the board but would be detrimental to patient care. Mark gets one day delay to receive a frightening report about a San Diego hospital Vaughn took over. Kurt Vaughn hisses he won't be stopped. Med student Dr. Brian Haywood asked Jessie to intercede with Mark about his residency, but screws up once too often by resuscitating a DNR-patient without reading her chart. Brian refuses Jesse's help to get off amphetamines. Mark is too late to get to Norman who accepted a package delivered for Mark by Rosser. Norman barely survives the explosion. Sam tries again at the parking lot where construction is underway and Amanda is hurt saving Mark from scaffolding falling as a result of the explosion. Finally a makeshift bomb blows up Mark's car, apparently killing him. Kurt Vaughn gets a positive hospital sale vote, even before Norman is back, challenged in vain by Amanda, and then announces the hospital has already been resold with an additional $2,000,000 profit to be shared by stockholders. Steve is part of Rosser's arrest but Rosser proves he had no part in the car bomb since he was videotaped committing a bank robbery at that time. Then a routine autopsy provides another suspect, who is in for a surprise...
