Luca Stainsley (Crossing Jordan)

Luca Stainsley (Kelly Smith) is the villainess of "Family Affair", episode 4.12 of Crossing Jordan (airdate January 30, 2005). She was a wealthy student of Leighton Academy and a friend of classmate Tammi Eldridge. Luca was one of several people to appear in a movie Tammi was creating, wanting to shine a light on the problems wealthy teens faced. For her part in the movie, Luca stated that she would probably "kill herself" if she didn't have money.
But later on, when Luca realized that Tammi was planning to publicize the film, she feared her family would disown her after seeing her part in the movie (as her family considered talking about money "in poor taste") and tried to convince Tammi to stop her plans. When she refused, the evil Luca lured Tammi to their school's horse riding grounds under the pretense of going for a ride before striking her with a polo mallet, killing her and staging her death to look like a horse riding accident. She later deleted erased the MPEG files from Tammi's computer to prevent the movie from being released (though clips of it, including the one of Luca, was ultimately recovered by M.E. Nigel Townsend)
Part of the polo mallet broke off when Luca was attacking Tammi, and it was ultimately discovered by detective Woody Hoyt as he searched Leighton Academy's riding fields with Nigel, Dr. Garret Macy, and Dr. Mara Pelone (who was hired by the Eldridge family to do Tammi's autopsy). Once the piece was matched up with a mallet and Woody learned that Luca was on the school's polo team with Tammi, he realized her guilt and went to question her in her dorm room as she was packing for a trip. During his interrogation, Woody had Luca drop a bottle she was drinking from into an evidence bag to run her fingerprints against the ones on the mallet. Realizing she was caught, Luca confessed to killing Tammi when she wouldn't back out of her plans to release her movie, while also revealing her belief that her wealth was the only good quality she had. Luca was arrested (offscreen) for murdering Tammi Eldridge.
Category:2000s
Category:Deceiver
Category:Hacker
Category:Hero's Friend
Category:Live Action Villainess
Category:Makeshift Weapon
Category:Murderer
Category:Murder: Bludgeoning
Category:Redhead
Category:Rich
Category:Villainous Reveal
Category:Fate: Arrested