This episode appears to be based on the 1995 Deletha Word case. Deletha Word was a Detroit woman who in 1995 was beaten so severely by a man that she jumped off a bridge into the Detroit River to escape him even though she couldn't swim. Ms. Word drowned and her attacker was convicted of second-degree murder the following year.
John Cullum (Harold Dorning) will later play defense attorney and Supreme Court Judge Barry Moredock on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999).
John Cullum (Harold Dorning) also played the role of Bernard Powell, Sr. in Soldier of Fortune (2001) (Episode 12.4).