Tom Bernstein is one of Julian Mill's poetry partners, who was ready to fly out to France with Julian and look for inspiration from their experiences of the cultures their. They were friends since they both made it big on "New York Quarterly" with their works published on the same issue. They spent much of their earnings on beers in a historic bar where other artists would go, so he and Julian were in the works of publishing again.
Anna Mill, Julian's wife and the primary breadwinner of the family, refused to fund the payments for the expedition, as the family was struggling with their income, which Julian was noticing from their ski lodge they owned in France foreclosing. Tom didn't understand and instead left a furious, threatening message on Julian's voicemail from his hopes being dashed.
This led him to be a suspect in the murders of Julian and the couple's children, Rachel and Charlie. He was more in shock over the murders than in disbelief he was a suspect, clarifying what the voicemail was about. He didn't hate the family enough to target them, and he knew full well Anna was behind the cancellation. When the detectives realized this and looked through Anna's finances from hearing Julian got suspicious, Anna was revealed to be the killer, slaughtering her entire family from believing their lives would be ruined if she faced penalties because she was embezzling money from clients at her law firm. (SVU: "Caretaker")