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| “ | I missed you at the reading of the verdict. Then again, it wasn't one of your best moments. | „ |
| ~ Nicole to Goren. |
| “ | Don't think for a second that this is the end of us, Bobby. | „ |
| ~ Wallace as she is arrested. |
Nicole Wallace, also known as Elizabeth Haynes (nee Hitchens), is the main antagonist of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. A seductive, highly intelligent criminal mastermind and serial killer, she is the long-standing archnemesis of Detective Robert Goren.
She was portrayed by Olivia d'Abo.
Early life[]
Nicole Wallace was born in Australia. It is implied that her father molested her as a child. Goren at one point theorized that the trauma bred in her an intense hatred of both men and women, and an all-consuming need to manipulate and destroy anyone who got close to her.
As a young woman, she visited Thailand and met a con artist named Bernard Fremont. She and Fremont went on a killing spree, targeting male tourists. She seduced the men, and set them up for Fremont to rob and kill them. They killed eight men before they were caught. Fremont was sentenced to life in prison, but Nicole agreed to testify against him in return for a ten-year prison sentence. After she got out, she moved back to Australia, and briefly supported herself as a prostitute before marrying a man named Rohan Barlett and giving birth to a child named Hannah.
When Hannah was three years old, Nicole began to suspect that Hannah was stealing Rohan's attention from her; Goren later theorizes that Nicole had internalized her father's warped view of little girls as sex objects, and so she saw her own child as a sexual rival. One day, Nicole flew into a rage and twisted Hannah's arm until it fractured. Upon realizing what she had done, she snapped the child's neck and buried the body in the iron-rich soils of Australian wetlands (which later prevented DNA evidence from proving it was her child). She told people that her child was lost at sea, but the police still investigated her. Fearing that she might get caught, she murdered an embezzler named Elizabeth Hitchens and stole her identity to flee to America, where she used Hitchens' credentials to become a visiting literature professor at Hudson University.
Appearances[]
"Anti-Thesis"[]
Nicole needs a permanent, salaried job to get a work visa, allowing her to stay in America without going to jail for Hitchens' crimes. In order to ensure her job at HU, she seduces a professor named Christine Fellowes, as she was one of the two people on campus who were qualified for a job opening (Head of American Studies) on campus and would give her a permanent position so she could stay in the U.S. However, the university Dean, Franklin Winthrop, is unsure who to give the job to.
Nicole seduces Hudson graduate student Mark Bayley and tells him to murder Winthrop, misleading him into believing that his graduate advisor, Roland Sanders, would be promoted to Dean and give him more time to finish his thesis. Bayley kills Winthrop and his secretary, and Detectives Robert Goren and Alexandra Eames of the NYPD's Major Case Squad investigate the murders. Goren questions Nicole, and they are immediately fascinated with each other, even as they both sense that the other is dangerous.
Nicole researches Goren and learns of his parents' divorce and his mother's mental illness. To cover her tracks, she murders Bayley by exposing him to peanuts, to which he is deathly allergic.
Goren pursues her as a suspect, however, eventually exposing her for stealing Hitchens' identity and having Winthrop killed. As a murder suspect, Nicole could be deported back to Australia, because she lacks American citizenship. Fellowes fires her, meaning that, as an unemployed illegal immigrant with no status, she can be held in jail indefinitely.
While Goren interrogates her, she taunts him with her knowledge of his unhappy childhood, while he counters that he has deduced that she was sexually abused as a child by her father, a notion that she emphatically denies. Moments later, she is set free by the university's lawyer, who had secured a writ of habeas corpus for her. By the time Goren and Eames gather enough evidence to arrest her again, however, she has fled the country without a trace.
"Zoonotic" and "Person of Interest"[]
Nicole meets a wealthy man named Gavin Haynes while on the run and marries him. Nicole is thus safe from extradition, since she became an American citizen upon her marriage. She still resents Goren, however, and decides to discredit and ruin him.
She sleeps with bacteriologists Roger Stern and Scott Borman and steals two grams of anthrax from Davis' personal collection. She then meets a woman named Connie Matson at a bar near a U.S. Air Force base, and sleeps with her to gain her trust. Nicole persuades Connie to get some anthrax vaccine boosters so she could buy them from her, setting in motion the events of "Person of Interest".
When Matson gets the vaccines, Nicole kills her by hitting her over the head with a dumbbell. She steals the vaccines, and frames scientist Dan Croydon, a deadbeat dad who Nicole knew would remind Goren of his own father. Just as she planned, Goren relentlessly pursues Croydon, ruining his reputation. She invites herself into Croydon's apartment, has sex with him, and entices him to write a note expressing his anger at Goren. When he is finished, she kills him and makes it look like a suicide. She then leaves the vaccines and vial of anthrax on a train to Montreal to prove Croydon's innocence and ruin Goren's reputation. Nicole later approaches Goren at a restaurant and taunts him about his public disgrace. She also introduces him to her new husband, Gavin Haynes.
Realizing her plan, Goren has her arrested for stealing the anthrax. During her interrogation, Nicole once again tries to get inside Goren's head, while also mocking Eames, who was a pregnancy surrogate for her sister's child, for having "eggs ripe and ready for hire". Goren tells Nicole that she has become the abuser of the "sparkling little girl" she once was, and that she keeps trying to destroy him because she knows, deep down, that he is right about her. He then says that she has been exposed to anthrax, to which she replies that she has been vaccinated; this finally proves that she is not Elizabeth Hitchens, who had no record of being vaccinated against anthrax. As Garen arrests her for murder, she warns him that she is not finished with him.
Nevertheless, Haynes stands by Nicole and even finances her successful defense to the murder charge.
"Great Barrier"[]
A young Japanese-American woman named Ella Miyazaki robs several jewelry stores, taking millions of dollars in diamonds. She briefly works with a male accomplice, who is found murdered by an injection of succinylcholine. Goren and Eames begin tracking her down, believing that she killed her accomplice for his share of the profits. The investigation leads Goren and Eames to a description matching Nicole, and they realize she has resurfaced.
Nicole, who is Ella's lover as well as her partner in crime, sends her to kill Haynes by tampering with the elevator in his apartment, but Goren manages to save him. Nicole then shows up at the Major Case Squad's precinct to offer Goren a truce, promising to give up the diamond theft scam in return for him leaving her and Ella alone.
Goren is nonetheless more determined than ever to put her away, and he and Eames eventually find evidence of Hannah's death. Goren brings Nicole in for questioning and accuses her of killing her own daughter because she saw the girl as a sexual rival, having internalized her father's excuse that young girls are too attractive to resist. Enraged, Wallace denies the accusation, and resolves to destroy Goren once and for all.
Goren, however, closes the net tighter around Nicole by arresting Ella and showing her evidence proving that Nicole killed her own child. He then tells Ella that Nicole will eventually kill her, too, unless she helps them. Ella agrees to wear a wire and meet with Nicole, while Goren and Eames listen in. Nicole discovers Ella's betrayal, however, and throws Ella and herself out of the window before Goren and Eames can stop her; Ella's body is found, but Nicole has disappeared.
"Grow"[]
Nicole re-emerges a year later, now working as a librarian and engaged to Dr. Evan Chapel; however, it is implied that she murdered Evan's brother Larry and made it look like an accidental drug overdose. Goren believes that Nicole is planning to kill Evan's daughter Gwen in order to collect on the girl's trust fund. During the investigation, however, Goren learns that Evan is in fact trying to kill Gwen, and Nicole is trying to protect the girl, whom she has grown to love, in her own way.
Goren confronts Nicole and tells her that she will always pose a threat to anyone who gets close to her; he then implores her to help him protect Gwen. Nicole gives Goren evidence implicating Chapel in killing his wife, but she insists that she will be a good mother to Gwen. She then kidnaps the girl, but, in a rare moment of conscience, leaves her with an aunt in Arizona. She then leaves a voicemail for Goren admitting that he was right and cursing him for taking away her last chance at happiness.
"Slither"[]
In 2005, Bernard Fremont, Nicole's former partner in crime, is arrested for the murder of Russ Corbett. As he is leaving the courthouse after his arraignment, an unidentified woman stabs him with a syringe, killing him instantly. Though he cannot prove it, Goren believes Nicole was the assailant, murdering Fremont as revenge for turning her into a killer.
"Frame"[]
When Goren's brother Frank is murdered via a drug overdose, Goren immediately suspects Nicole. She sends flowers to the hospital and Goren's desk before disappearing. After Goren and Eames follow several cryptic messages apparently left by Nicole, they discover a box containing a human heart, which they believe to be another one of Nicole's victims. However, medical examiner Elizabeth Rodgers confirms that the heart is in fact Nicole's.
Goren eventually finds out that Nicole and Frank were both murdered by his mentor, Dr. Declan Gage, who was trying to "free" Goren from the baggage of his past. According to Gage, Nicole's last words were "Tell Bobby he was the only man I ever loved."
Jo: Catacombs[]
In 2013, an unidentified woman resembling Nicole in appearance and mannerisms appears in Paris under the alias of "Madeline Haynes", at some point meeting and beginning a relationship with Minister of Foreign Affairs Pepin. She starts squatting in a hospice patient's house, because she didn't have a home of her own. Madeline eventually gets pregnant with Pepin's child and wants him to leave his wife. When he refuses, she begins a relationship with a microbiologist named Silvie Ferrier, and another relationship with a pastry chef. She is domineering with Silvie to the point where she forces her to wear clothes that are too small for her.
When Silvie discovers Madeline is pregnant, Madeline kills her and stages the crime scene to make it appear as if Satanists and her boss committed the murder. During the course of the investigation, it is revealed that Madeline plans to kill Pepin's family so she can have him all to herself and have a family of her own. Her plan is stopped and she is arrested for the murders and attempted poisonings. However, she manages to escape justice by setting up a Korean gang for the crime. It is later revealed that her DNA is not a match to Nicole Wallace's on file and the minister releases her from prison. It is ultimately left ambiguous if she is Nicole Wallace.
Victims[]
Directly[]
- Hannah Barlett
- Elizabeth Hitchens
- Mark Bayley
- Connie Matson
- Daniel Croydon
- Zach Thaler
- Ella Miyazaki
- Larry Chapel
- Bernard Fremont
- Frank Goren
- Silvie Ferrier*
- Adele Gauthier*
- Unnamed Pastry Chef*
Indirect[]
- Eight Male Tourists: Killed By Bernard Fremont
- Franklin Winthrop: Bludgeoned By Mark Bayley
- Kate Robbins: Bludgeoned By Mark Bayley
- The attempted banquet mass poisoning: assaulted by the Pastry Chef*
- Sixteen unnamed guests*
- Deputy Minister Pepin's Unnamed wife*
- Deputy Minister Pepin's Unnamed daughter*
- Deputy Minister Pepin's Unnamed son*
*Committed by "Madeleine Haynes"
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Nicole is primarily inspired by James Moriarty, the main villain of the late Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.
- According to actress Olivia d'Abo and series creator René Balcer, Madeline Haynes, who appears in the episode of "Jo", is Nicole Wallace with a new alias. Peculiarly, her DNA wasn't a match, meaning she likely used forensic trickery to escape and assume a new identity.
- Two endings for "Great Barrier" were shot - one in which Nicole's death is shown onscreen, and another in which her fate is left ambiguous. Both episodes were aired, and viewers were asked to phone NBC and say which they preferred. The ambiguous ending won, giving the series' writers the freedom to include her in later episodes.
- Coincidentally, Nicole shares her name with MSNBC news anchor and former White House Communications Director Nicole Wallace.
External Links[]
- Nicole Wallace on the Law & Order Wiki
- Madeleine Haynes on the Law & Order Wiki
[]
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