Joshua Burdett is a Black business executive passing off as white, as well as a suspect in the murder of his wife Karen.
History[]
Joshua was born in Knoxville in the 40s. He decided to disguise his race to get ahead in achieving the successes he wanted. As a result, he worked his way up to the ranks of president in a pharmaceutical company and married Frances Houston, who was a hateful bigot. When she gave birth to her son David, she realized the truth about Joshua's race; she subsequently divorced Joshua and tried to make him take David in his custody. She only agreed to be responsible for him if Joshua agreed to pay triple the contractual alimony. Joshua remarried to Karen, but his secrets were unraveling. An employee named Shawn Taitt realized Joshua was a Black man passing as White, so Joshua transferred Shawn to an office in Duluth, Minnesota, as a way of pressuring him to quit. Joshua pretended that his motive was strictly racism of his own. For good measure, Joshua sought legal consultation unless the company booted him for his deception, which was still a risk.
When Karen gave birth to a little girl named Maggie, Joshua demanded that she give her up for adoption, which was arranged with Jerry and Ellen O'Brien. When Karen wanted to keep Maggie, Houston found out and confronted her on the rooftop of their apartment building, insisting that she not insult Houston by leaving Maggie with the O'Briens. Houston threw Karen off the building in a struggle, paid Ellen to take Maggie out of state, and threatened Joshua into silence by falsely claiming that David killed Karen. When Joshua's actual race was uncovered because he passed on his asthma and anemia conditions to Maggie, he was interrogated and even goaded about how he may have employed a supremacist narrative to hide his racial lineage.
Maggie wasn't present for a paternity test as evidence, but Houston's blackmailing schemes and her disgust over the Black race were found out. She took a plea and was imprisoned for murder, and Joshua was released. (L&O: "Blood")