Who Speaks for the Children begins with a group of children at a playground where one young girl leaves without her older sister walking her home like she is supposed to. The girl goes missing and is later found dead in a dumpster with evidence of molestation. Quincy (Jack Klugman) conducts the autopsy and finds evidence that she was killed with a screwdriver. A police investigator (Joseph Campanella) who specializes in these types of crimes develops a profile of the killer and believes the mother's boyfriend, Donald (Jim Antonio), fits it perfectly. Quincy and the mother cannot believe Donald was responsible for this heinous crime, but as the investigation continues more evidence begins to pile up and everyone becomes concerned over the safety of the sister.
I felt this started out as a decent episode which features a crime and a murder mystery as well as the handling of some pretty sensitive material in a responsible way, but then there were other plot elements which I found to be completely stupid that brought it down a couple of notches from a quality standpoint. Specifically, during the scenes where the police are raiding the house of the family and find the child pornography, the place is swarming with cops inside and out and the primary suspect pulls up right out front in a bright orange pick up truck standing out like a neon sign, but somehow no one notices this despite that they are about to put out a huge dragnet. Seriously?? I also could not believe that even after the police confirmed their suspicions and acknowledge that the sister could be the next victim of the suspect who is still on the loose, unbelievably nobody calls the school or sends officers over there to protect her until the killer is apprehended and she is kidnapped as well. We all know that Lt. Monahan is a moron, but this puts the incompetence of him and his team at a whole new level!
It also was just a little too convenient towards the end when Quincy suddenly found evidence on the body of where exactly she had been killed which lead them right to the suspect and the sister just in the nick of time. If Quincy is supposedly so thorough, why wasn't any of this important evidence collected during the initial autopsy, especially when some of it was on the surface? Ridiculous and flawed in so many ways!
Overall, this is a Season 6 murder mystery episode which addresses some very disturbing material in a competent way, but there were just way too many plot holes in the second half to make it a good one for me.