Madeline Pillsbury (Valerie Cruz) is the main villainess of the first Crossing Jordan/Las Vegas crossover event. She appeared in Crossing Jordan episode 4.07 "What Happens in Vegas Dies in Boston" (airdate November 7, 2004) and Las Vegas episode 2.08 "Two of a Kind" (airdate November 8, 2004).
Crossing Jordan[]
Madeline Pillsbury was a prostitute and a well-documented con artist, having worked under numerous aliases to commit her crimes. She was also the wife of fellow con artist Tommy O'Brien, and often went with him to swinger's poker games. After learning that Tommy was already married to another woman, Ann Wylie, and that his status as a bigamist would threaten her chances of inheriting his money, Madeline plotted to kill Tommy as he prepared to go to Boston with 3 million dollars of his winnings from Vegas, enlisting Ann as her co-conspirator.
Madeline initially attempted to kill Tommy by poisoning cocaine they were using together with sodium fluoroacetate. When that attempt failed to kill Tommy fast enough, the evil Madeline killed him on the plane ride to Boston, electrocuting him to death with a taser. Later on, to retrieve the briefcase of money, Madeline snuck into the Boston morgue and broke the suitcase out of the safe it was being stored in.
M.E. Jordan Cavanaugh and detective Woody Hoyt worked alongside Sam Marquez and Danny McCoy (who had been travelling with Tommy to Boston on behalf of the Montecito Casino) in tracking down Madeline, first spotting her on security footage right before she stole the money. They later tracked down her home, where they found a similar taser to the one she used to kill Tommy and noticed that she had been baking cookies--ones that were poisoned with sodium fluroacetate. The team later tracked Madeline's phone to a junkyard, where she was seen wielding a pistol. After some searching, Madeline confronted Jordan at gunpoint, demanding to know how she'd found her. This led to an intense standoff that served as the episode's cliffhanger ending.
Las Vegas[]
In "Two of a Kind", the standoff ended when an unknown shooter (later revealed as Ann Wylie) opened fire on the group, allowing Jordan to disarm Madeline before she fled. It was later revealed that Tommy and Madeline had past connection to a swinger's poker club run by Ronnie Sugar. But when the team went to apprehend Ronnie after he was questioned regarding the investigation, they found him dead in his pool. It was later determined by Jordan that he had been forced to eat Madeline's poisoned cookies, and it was later determined that Madeline killed him to stop him from revealing Tommy's bigamy and cost her his money.
In the episode's climax, Ann Wylie was revealed as Tommy's second wife and Madeline's villainous accomplice, as she was found receiving a gun on security footage (the same one she used to open fire on the junkyard). Woody and Danny went to Ann's house, only to find that she was gone and was planning to catch a flight with Madeline to deposit their ill-gotten gains in a bank account in the Cayman Islands. The team arrived ahead of the greedy conspirators and cornered them, finally putting an end to their greedy scheme.
Trivia[]
- Valerie Cruz later appeared on Grimm as the evil Dr. Levine, on NCIS as villainous kidnapper Anna, on Charmed as the demonic Marisol Vera Impostor, and on The Rookie as corrupt villainess Elena Ruiz.
- In film, Valerie Cruz appeared in Cellular as evil detective Dana Bayback.
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