Those Empty Eyes

In the months after the Quinlan murders, Alexandra was wrongly accused of killing her family, sent to juvenile detention, and released. Alexandra is now suing the McIntosh police force, who wrongly assumed she was guilty. Her attorney, Garrett Lancaster, questions a police officer (Donna Koppel, who is also his wife) as part of his prosecution. He worries about Donna’s testimony because it “goes against” the story that the McIntosh police established after Alexandra’s detainment.

The night of the murders, Donna (a police officer) arrives at the Quinlan home. She’s greeted by a neighbor who heard gunshots and called the police. When her backup arrives, Donna enters the house.

Local attorney Garrett questions Donna about her state of mind the night she entered the Quinlans’ house. He establishes that she was nervous, since this was the kind of call that most police officers rarely receive. He asks Donna if she would have done anything differently that night knowing what she knows now, and she says yes.

Donna and the other officers enter the house and find Raymond’s corpse upstairs. They then find Alexandra, covered in blood and holding a gun; she’s sitting in front of the bed where her parents’ bodies lie. Donna arrests Alexandra.

During his line of questioning in court, Garrett establishes that three hours after Alexandra’s arrest, Donna began to suspect that the police incorrectly concluded that Alexandra killed her family. Garrett proclaims that rather than helping a distressed young woman, the police that night contributed to the media frenzy surrounding the murders that stigmatized Alexandra and sent her to prison. After, he calls his final witness: Alexandra herself.

After the difficult day in the courtroom, Donna and Garrett return home and sit outside together in silence.

A reporter comes to the Quinlan house as the police exit with Alexandra. The reporter asks her whether she fired the shots, to which she replies, “They’re all dead” (30). The reporter notices that Alexandra’s eyes look empty.

An hour after the shooting, a detective arrives at the police station where Alexandra is being held for questioning. Donna insists that the detective be gentle with her, but the detective, already assuming that Alexandra is the killer, insists that he must get the truth and adds that Alexandra’s feelings are thus inconsequential.

As Donna watches the detective interview Alexandra, she begins to feel that something about the situation isn’t right. Her fellow police officers tell her to just let the detective do his job, but Donna decides to call Garrett instead.

Garrett arrives at the precinct, and Donna fills him in on what’s happened. She asks him to take Alexandra’s case as her attorney.

Donna’s fellow officers are upset that she called her husband in; to them, the case is clear-cut. Garrett is quick to question the police as to whether they followed the correct steps in locating next-of-kin for their questioning of a minor; this gives the police pause, and Garrett takes the opportunity to speak with Alexandra privately.

Garrett calls Alexandra to the stand, where she tells the jury about how she was wrongfully sent to juvenile detention and mistreated by the minors there because of how the media portrayed her: as a cold-blooded killer. In addition, Garrett establishes that her detention stopped her from completing high school on time and affected her ability to attend college. He then questions her about the night of the murders.

The night of the murders, Alexandra wakes to gunshots. She goes to her parents’ room after Raymond, arriving just in time to see his murder. Returning to her bedroom, she considers jumping from the window but decides not to, instead leaving the window open and locking her bedroom door from the outside. She hides behind a grandfather clock in the hall and watches the shooter break down her bedroom door, fail to find her inside, and then leave through the front door.

Garrett establishes in his questioning that Alexandra heard the shooter drop a gun in the foyer. She says she went to the foyer to get the gun because it was her father’s, and she knew that it could hold only two cartridges at a time; however, she heard three shots, so she knew that it must still hold one cartridge. Retrieving the gun, she went to her parents’ room to defend them in case the shooter returned. After establishing these facts, Garrett turns the witness over to the defense attorney, who refuses to question Alexandra.