A very wealthy businessman, Ted Crawford, plans the perfect murder – to kill his cheating wife. Her love interest happens to be a high-ranking policeman, Lieutenant Rob, also cheating on his spouse. The case against the accused hinges on the murder weapon which cannot be located. The accused ensured it would be impossible for the forensic team to find it. His wife does not die immediately but is on life support during the duration of the preliminary trial. The bullet lodged in her brain is the only physical evidence which might support the case for the prosecution, but her tenuous condition renders her inoperable.
After the accused successfully moves for his case to be thrown out due to lack of evidence, Lieutenant Rob takes his own life on the way from the court room. He is beside himself with guilt and despair over his lover whose life is hanging in the balance and will now be at the mercy of her cold-blooded husband. Despite his supposed power as a law enforcer, he could do nothing to protect her and protect this disastrous outcome. The slick editing of the film does not do justice to the depth of his grief.
To lose anything of value leads to an undeniable longing for restitution or at the very least some semblance of justice. The re is no perfect justice in this world. The harm suffered by victims and those closest to them, can never be undone. We can never go back in time to a time before the heinous deed was done. However, justice delayed is not justice denied although it may feel like it. The aggrieved’s gut instincts may tell him otherwise. The prosecuting attorney, Willy Beecham, and the police called to the crime scene knew that Crawford was guilty of the attempted murder of his wife; he made no attempt to hide it but seemed to derive psychopathic pleasure his dastardly deed.
Had Lieutenant Rob waited just a bit longer, the holes in his defence would have come to light, and the mystery of the missing gun would have finally been solved. Crawford’s statement that “everything has a weak spot” turned out to be ominously prophetic. Double jeopardy was used to exploit the weakness in his defence. In his first trial he was accused of attempted murder; in the second he would be accused of murder and the evidence would be damning. Justice often takes longer than we anticipate, but it will eventually prevail.