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Jonas Slaughter, Jr. is a radio mogul who has his own son killed to keep majority control of his family trust.

Background[]

Slaughter is the billionaire CEO of the Slaughter Radio Corporation, one of the most powerful media conglomerates in New York City. He has two grown sons, Chance and Jonas III, nicknamed "Tripp", with his late first wife, and a young daughter, Emma, with his second wife, Anna, an immigrant from China who is several decades his junior. He treats his sons more like his employees than his children, particularly Chance, whom he calls "my right hand". Tripp, meanwhile, is an alcoholic ne'er-do-well and the thorn in his father's side. The Slaughter Radio Corporation is worth billions but is almost entirely tied up in a family trust that Slaughter has recently rewritten to give himself and Anna the majority of the money.

Proud Flesh[]

The day after Slaughter's birthday party, Tripp is found dead in his apartment, asphyxiated in an apparent sex game gone wrong. Detectives Robert Goren and Alexandra Eames of the NYPD's Major Case Squad investigate and find out that Tripp had been trying to renegotiate the family trust to give himself and his wife and children more money, which makes them suspicious of Anna. They look into her past and discover that she was once married to Larry Lewis, a Princeton economics professor, and had broken up his first marriage. They question Lewis, who admits that, after Anna left him, Slaughter bought him off with his own satellite radio show to stop him from revealing the details of their affair.

After discovering the struggle over the family trust, Goren and Eames question Slaughter and Anna. Under Goren's relentless interrogation, Slaughter blurts out that he had Tripp, whom he writes off as a "lost boy", killed to protect his own share of the trust. Goren then tells Anna that Slaughter was planning to frame her for Tripp's murder. Enraged, Slaughter denounces Anna as "yellow trash" and their daughter as a "mongrel" as Goren and Eames arrest him. At his arraignment, the judge grants Slaughter bail, and Slaughter makes a public statement proclaiming his innocence. Moments later, Chance accuses Anna of destroying the family and pulls a gun on her, forcing Eames to shoot him. As he dies, Chance confesses to killing Tripp, which exonerates his father. Goren is not fooled, however, and accuses Slaughter of using his son to get out of trouble; Slaughter coldly replies, "That's what sons are for," and gets into a car with Chance's widow and their son, having already made the boy Chance's replacement as his heir apparent. (CI: "Proud Flesh")

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