Lydia Wyatt (Law and Order: Criminal Intent)

Lydia Wyatt (nee Esparza) (Sherri Saum) is the main villainess in the Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode "The Healer".
== Backstory ==
Lydia was married to Daniel Ezparza, a college professor in Maryland, descended from two aunties who were known in their communities as revered spiritual healers, Lydia wanting to be in the same practice. However, her aunties never believe she had "the gift", which she resented all her life and hoped to prove them wrong. She never became a healer, but she did go to nursing school for training before she was employed for private nursing by various clients. She pretended to be a "healer" in her local communities, but instead of out of reverence, her reputation was made out of fear, and she was never a "real healer", but a con woman using poisons and other substances to "treat", "cure", and "hex" her customers and patients. She used this to gain the reputation she had, but also to swindle large sums of money out of her clients and "punish" them with natural poisons and refusing natural remedies if she wasn't paid, blaming it on "the spirits being angry". "One foot in both worlds", as her ex-husband put it, whom she also "hexed" temporarily around the time she left him. During her time working on the college medical team, she met two students, Jack Strong and Robbie Paulson, both whom she treated for suicide attempts and manipulated into being her "apprentices". One particular trick she used on them was that she gave them lithium carbonate water from natural springs that "cleansed" them the more they drank it. Jack caught onto her tricks without realizing her secret, and he stole some euphoric herbs to hypnotize girls into liking him, including a college student named Sarah Jackson, whose sister Kristy was suspicious about him. He wooed her with the herbs and helping her with her spiritual studies in college. Lydia soon found out about this, and she decided to tie up the loose ends by killing the people who could reveal her fraudulent practices.
== In the Episode ==
She started with the Jackson sisters, after Jack was snooping in their garbage and Kristy became suspicious. Compulsively and as part of her ruse, she murdered them intricately but "ritualistically", starting with poisoning them with tetrodotoxin, a pufferfish neurotixin, then wrapping them up in plastic "cocoons", before calling Robbie over to stage the scene under the ruse of them already being dead and "preparing them for" the afterlife. She rummaged Sarah's bedroom, looking for evidence that would tie the crimes to her, then she had Robbie help her fully wrap them, but not before putting frankincense on their foreheads and almond oil on their lips.She then open the windows and drained the radiatior to prevent any decomposition and smells so they wouldn't be found for days, until a tenant called the super to investigate the sheet of ice in front of their door. Jack was eventually tracked in packing the house of a patient he and Lydia had, with Sphinx Moth cocoons in a canister in his jacket, and while the police "misplaced" his paperwork for lockup, that left them to time to be lead straight to Lydia, who was at her newest victim's house. Recognizing the seashell her patient had from Sarah's study books, the detectives immediately knew she was the killer they didn't have enough evidence to charge anyone yet, so they released Jack, but they came across Lydia's financial scam on her patients as a nurse. She's later seen outside her current patient's doorstep, telling him to take it easy while Robbie takes care of him, leaving him to get sick again. The detectives come back and assume jack's caring for him, but when they hear Robbie's the nurse, they follow him to Lydia's ministry and find her place of "worship", along with a long line of customers.She excuses her current clients to speak with the detectives and admits her "work" and relays her ancestry. When asked to get the nurse's bag she had at her patient's house, she deliberately knocks a candle over for Detective Logan to pick it up for the sake of "hexing" him, which was really tricking him into touching the poison ivy on the candle, leading him to get a rash and fever, threatening him before he leaves. Later on, when Jack is consoled by Robbie how we won't be booted from Lydia's ministry, he stumbles for three blocks out of disorientation before finally collapsing at an intersection. After the first autopsy fails to determine the cause of death, and after seeing Daniel and then a voodoo Mother Barek knows to check Logan's symptoms, they run the panels they need to find the pufferfish poison and Jack's stolen herbs. They then get a warrant for Robbie's bottle at this patient's house, withe the patient "better" again, arrest him when he tries to take the water back, and find the lithium carbonate.They tried to get Robbie to see Lydia's tricks, but he doesn't believe them and asks for his water back. They then question Lydia, with Robbie as a witness, with Barek acting out "the believer" and Logan "the skeptic", Barek, putting together a cocktail of the water and her poisons and pretending to "nearly drink" it before Logan "stops" her and tries to "encourage" Lydia to, knowing she won't. When Robbie nearly downs the concoction, she stops him, and he finally accepts the truth. He admits to his unknowing part in the murders and scams, to which Lydia, as she's being arrested, rants about how she's better than her aunties and keeps making obviously empty threats. Robbie, distraught over what he was a part of, asks what's about to happen to him, and Barek guarantees him immunity if he testifies so he can rebuild his life. Lydia is likely convicted and incarcerated for her crimes, being given the maximun sentence.
Category:2000s
Category:Live Action Villainess
Category:Serial Killer