Christine Wilkes (Polly Draper) is the main villainess from "Faith," the penultimate episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent's first season (airdate April 28, 2002). She was a book editor who received a manuscript titled, Through the Darkness, which was written by 14-year-old ALS sufferer Erica Windemere. Despite it being badly written, Christine used the manuscript and rewrote it as a book, which sold immensely well.
However, Erica was revealed to be nonexistent; created by con artists Barb and Toby Windemere as part of a scheme to con money out of those who were sympathetic to their "foster daughter" in her time of need--with Barb providing the voice of "Erica" over the phone. Christine refused to accept the obvious and growing evidence that Erica didn't exist and that she was being tricked, and she was confronted with the same statements by journalist Douglas Lafferty, who was shown early in the episode demanding to see Erica. After he left with Christine, Douglas threatened to expose the Windemeres' scam, which prompted Christine to kill Douglas, believing that he was "hurting Erica." Christine doused nail polish remover on Douglas and set him on fire in his garage, and then placed his body in the car to make it appear that he was killed there.
When Goren and Eames interrogated Christine, the villainess stated that she was at home at the time of the murder, which Eames revealed was not true. To catch Christine, the duo had Barb provide Erica's voice again, telling Christine that Erica was the benefactor of an insurance policy worth millions, but she would not get it because Barb had killed Douglas. After the call ends, Christine confessed to the murder, and she was placed under arrest by Goren.
Trivia[]
- Polly Draper later appeared on The Mysteries of Laura as the evil Ruby Patch.