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Elizabeth Rodgers

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Elizabeth Rodgers
Elizabeth Rodgers
Name Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers
Title Assistant Chief Medical Examiner
Affiliation NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner
Occupation Medical Doctor
Status Alive
Actor Leslie Hendrix
First Appearance L&O: "The Fertile Fields"
Last Appearance CI: "To the Boy in the Blue Knit Cap"

Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Elizabeth Rodgers worked at the NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner.

Character

Rodgers is dedicated to her work and finds it frustrating when she is badgered by the police for results when she doesn't have them yet. She sometimes finds herself in conflict with the police, most notably with Detectives Mike Logan and John Munch, the latter of whom made several flirtatious gestures towards Rodgers while receiving the results of an autopsy.

Rodgers is currently the longest-running recurring character in Law & Order and one of only five characters who have appeared in all four of the Law & Order franchises set in New York. The other four are Lennie Briscoe, Ed Green, Arthur Branch, and Elizabeth Olivet.

Rodgers is dedicated to her work and finds it frustrating when she is badgered by the police for results when she does not have them yet. Rodgers originally wanted to be a surgeon, but mid-way through medical school she discovered she could not stand cutting into a live person.

She also has an affinity for classical music, saying once that she missed an Itzhak Perlman concert to perform an autopsy. When making an impression of bite marks on the back of an acclaimed opera conductor, she complimented him on his production of Aida Aida ("One of the best nights of my life. Lennie Briscoe took me.")

Rodgers also reads many crime novels; she reviews them for small magazines. In (L&O: "The Family Hour"), Rodgers named a book that may have influenced the defendant in the murder. When she named the book, the police had not been able to find when they searched the defendant's home, since he was also a crime novel reader. However, the book did not include the details that she had thought, but instead that scenario was in another book (this scenario is a reference to Law & Order's role in the Andrea Yates case). Because of this, she wrote a letter to the judge explaining her mistake. When McCoy wanted to give the letter to the judge and leave the reference out of his summation, Branch stopped him and made Connie Rubirosa, the younger and less experienced ADA, do the summation instead. Though they ended up getting the guilty verdict without giving the judge the letter or directly mentioning the novel, Rodgers was upset by her mistake.

Although it is never officially mentioned on screen, there are several moments that point to a growing relationship between Rodgers and Captain Danny Ross of the Major Case Squad on Law & Order: CI. In one episode, Ross and Rodgers can be seen getting into an elevator dressed for going to the theater. When Ross asks Rodgers for information on Detective Goren, Goren later confronts Ross with this, shouting at Ross, "Did your girlfriend tell you this?!" After Ross is murdered, Goren and Eames arrive at the crime scene to find Rodgers already there, visibly distraught over both his death and the fact that the FBI is denying her access to the body.

Rodgers can often be seen eating in the morgue. In several episodes, characters comment on her lunch being near the bodies.

Appearances

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