Cold Case Episode 5.17 Slipping

A woman whose child was killed in an apartment building fire in 2005 claims her son is still alive after seeing him at the park. The woman's drug history and the fact that the fire started in her apartment cause the detectives to doubt her story. But new evidence points to a new set of suspects which include the slum lord who owned the building and may have been looking to get rid of his problem tenant, the woman's drug dealer who wanted money she owed him from her drug habit and the baby's father who had been in and out of rehab and had no intention of being a father. When the autopsy report on the baby is given a second look it turns out the baby had prior abuse injuries and suspicion is once again on the mother who may have used the fire to cover up the abuse. But an even bigger surprise is revealed when the baby believed to be the woman's dead son turns out to be someone else's child. The investigation to find the child leads to back to a nurse at a rehab clinic and her husband, a doctor who works at the hospital. The nurse had witnessed the woman's struggle to raise her child while she was visiting her boyfriend in rehab. The nurse and her husband were unable to have a child of their own and disturbed by their experiences of seeing children abused and uncared for by drug addicted parents they decided to steal her child and cover it up with a fire.