Pierson David "P. J." Bartlett, Jr. was the son of coffee tycoon Pierson David Bartlett and the grieving fiance of murdered woman Jenna Ludlow.
History[]
Jenna was found dead from being beaten to death in her brownstone, which was set on fire afterward to cover up the evidence. SVU is quick to suspect the Bartletts, especially after Pierson Bartlett, Sr., is revealed to have had an affair with Jenna shortly before she died. Eager to prosecute them both, the team takes them to trial, with Avery Hemmings representing P.J. A.D.A. Novak brings all she can into the trial, starting with Pierson's company email being used in Jenna's blackmail against him and his company secrets, which Pierson revealed was instead from her saying she was pregnant. M.E. Warner then reveals P.J.'s sterility from sperm unable to move themselves, before Novak brings to the jury Jenna was never pregnant.
To the shock of the team, the jury is hung and a mistrial is declared. Going through the jury while she prepres to refile charges, Novak finds one juror, Debra Jackson, was holding out for acquittals throughout the whole deliberation. In exchange for no jail time, she admits a P.I. bribed her with financial support for her son Devon, who has cerebral palsy, if she sabotaged the verdict. The P.I., Roger Fromm, is in the wind, having destroyed his files, paid his assistant, and emigrated to the Dominican Republic. But computer files reveal he stalked P.J., leading P.J. to suspect Pierson and accuse him of murdering Jenna from being competitive and possessive, which maybe explains the affair. Yet Hemmings is still disagreeable, barring detectives from searching Pierson's propety for surveillance evidence and barring detectives from P.J. when Pierson lividly throws P.J. through a window when Pierson suspects his son of the murder after the team pits the two against each other.
In Jenna's home videos, the team realizes she had her own video camera, and when the detectives search her apartment, a data card is found in a can of ground grocery coffee, leading to the video camera hidden in her wall that still has its own memory card. The Bartletts and their lawyers are all brought back to watch the video, Hemmings horrified and running out of interrogation before the video shows the real killer: Avery Hemmings.
The fire alarm goes off, and the team and the Bartletts run up to the roof where Hemmings appears ready to jump, shifting betwen steady and unsteady on her high heels. She admits everything about Jenna's murder, from the fire to Fromm to Debra. She professes her obsessed love for P.J. and her jealously and repulsion he was marrying another woman despite her infidelity and lies, Hemmings believing only she loved P.J. outside of his money since they were in college. When P.J. grabs her legs to keep her on the roof, she professes she'll never let anyone hurt him again. She then jumps, carrying P.J. with her while he's still grabbing her legs. Both of them are killed once they land on a car below, and Pierson grieves in horror from the murder of his son. (SVU: "Trade")