Diksha Sundriyal
Prime Video’s ‘Scarpetta‘ follows the story of Kay Scarpetta, a forensic pathologist who is called in to investigate the murder of a young woman. The victim is found to have been killed in a way that reminds Scarpetta of a case from 28 years ago. The investigation leads her and former cop, Pete Marino, down a treacherous road where they start to wonder if they caught the wrong guy three decades ago and the real killer is still on the loose. Developed by Liz Sarnoff, the crime drama series presents the case from the forensic point of view, going into real-life techniques used to uncover the truth of a crime, adding a layer of realism to the case and the characters. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Fictional Kay Scarpetta is Inspired by a Real Trailblazing Forensic Pathologist
‘Scarpetta’ is a fictional story, adapted from the book series and characters created by Patricia Cornwell. The first season borrows elements from the author’s debut novel, ‘Postmortem,’ and the 25th book in the series, ‘Autopsy.’ While the author looked into real-life crimes during her research, her stories primarily remain fictional. The character of Kay Scarpetta, however, is heavily influenced by a real-life forensic pathologist, Dr. Marcella Farinelli Fierro. She is known for her distinguished career, which spanned several decades, and during which she brought a distinctive change in the role forensics plays in getting to the bottom of the truth.
She became the first woman to serve as Virginia’s chief medical examiner in 1994 and held that position for fourteen years before her retirement in 2008. Raised in Buffalo, New York, by a teacher and an aviation machinist, Fierro initially wanted to be a doctor and studied biology at D’Youville College. However, instead of going into conventional medicine, she turned towards forensic pathology and got her degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine in 1966, being one of the five women in a class of over a hundred students.
Her career took her to Richmond, Virginia, where she eventually became the ninth woman in the country to get her board certification in forensic pathology. In her long and illustrious career, she is credited with playing a significant role in solving major crimes, like the Southside Strangler killings and the Virginia Tech massacre, among others. She has also worked with the FBI on several cases, a detail that Cornwell picked up on and which also serves as an important plot point in the first season.
Kay Scarpetta and Dr. Fierro Share the Same Moral Values
Patricia Cornwell met Dr. Fierro in 1984. At the time, the author was working as a journalist and wanted to know more about how crimes are solved. Fierro took her on a tour of the morgue, where their conversations made Cornwell more curious about how a dead body holds many answers, but that can only be read by a forensic pathologist. To become more intimately familiar with the process of an autopsy and other details in the office, Cornwell started working at the morgue as an assistant and became a volunteer police officer.
Over the course of six years, she gained a keen insight into the workings of the place, but more importantly, she got to know Fierro even better. When Cornwell eventually set down to write ‘Postmortem,’ she sketched Kay Scarpetta as a blonde, blue-eyed woman, as opposed to Fierro, who is a brunette with brown eyes. Their personal lives were also marginally different, but what Cornwell retained of the real-life chief medical examiner was her work ethic and the way she views the victims as her patients.
The author noted that Fierro was always deeply compassionate towards the victim and always made sure that they were treated with respect, no matter what kind of person they were when they were alive. This approach extended to her colleagues, whom she treated with utmost respect and care, no matter what their job was at the office. Cornwell wanted Scarpetta to have the same ethics, making her deeply dedicated to her work, but not have her genius clouded by her ego or her sense of superiority. Over the course of around thirty books, cases, and characters have changed, but Scarpetta’s core has remained the same.
The Actresses Expanded the Dimensions of Kay Scarpetta
When Nicole Kidman and Rosy McEwen came on board to play the older and younger versions of Kay Scarpetta, they decided to do the character justice by trying to understand her work. They got to meet with Dr. Amy Hawes, a real-life forensic pathologist, who gave them insights into the ins and outs of an autopsy and the role that a medical examiner plays in cracking a case. The actors delved into the reasons that a person would choose forensic pathology as their career, while going through the process of reading a crime scene and uncovering minute details from studying a victim’s remains.
McEwen wanted to understand what mental toll it must take on a person whose job is to look at dead bodies all day, and the impact that the stress of the job could have on their psyche. Their intention was to present the process on the screen as authentically as possible and do justice to Cornwell’s work. Because the actresses play different versions of the same character, they worked together to make sure that certain things about Scarpetta remain the same over the years. This included major details like her accent to minor tics that show the true depth of emotions.
Kidman noted that playing the older version allowed her more space to make the character her own because a person is bound to change in three decades. McEwen, on the other hand, read Kidman’s movements, picking up on certain things that she tried to embed in her performance, which would make the character seem more organic. Through all these things, the actors and the creators of the show succeeded in infusing life into a fictional character, bringing her closer to reality and making the audience root for or against her, depending on which version is in front of them.
Read More: Scarpetta Season 2 Expected Release Date, Cast and Plot
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