Benson and Stabler look for a killer who met his victim on an anonymous dating site. They arrest Peter Butler, who's been having quickie sex all over town. The detectives link him to the strangled victim and an unsolved rape, but the physical evidence clears him of those crimes. But they learn Peter is HIV positive and, in a fit of misogyny, has been intentionally infecting women. Cabot charges him with spreading the disease. While on trial, one of his victims sprays acid on his face, leaving him permanently scarred. It's not until Peter's kindly grandfather teaches him a lesson on compassion that he takes responsibility for his actions.
Detectives Briscoe and Logan look into a lover's lane murder and hope to identify a bespeckled suspect from a parking ticket. But their investigation is interrupted when they come across a man who just had his penis cut off by his jealous wife (who happens to clock Logan with a frying pan). Briscoe wants to get out on time to see the Knicks, but Van Buren assigns them to a fatal stick-up. When the gunman in the robbery also turns up dead, they arrest a guy who threatens them with a burrito. Meanwhile, Lenny and Mike think the man with thick-glasses is the lover's lane shooter. By the time they realize he's got a solid alibi, he's shanked at Rikers.
Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler search for a baby who was ripped out of her pregnant mother's body. The detectives learn Nichol Manning was having an affair and suspect the man who may be the actual father. But the alibi of Nichol's husband isn't adding up. Dr. George Huang says Richard Manning (played by John Ritter) is an arrogant neat freak who didn't want another man's baby ruining his life. Though the infant is later found dead, ADA Alexandra Cabot says they have to prove the child took one breath to make a murder charge stick. During a devastating cross-examination, Manning gives them the proof they need: he says the baby cried before he killed it.
Detective Nick Amaro shoots an unarmed Black teen, leaving him paralyzed. IAB Sergeant Ed Tucker (and his new partner Brian Cassidy) take Amaro's badge, while a special prosecutor charges him with a hate crime. Against advice from his lawyer, Nick testifies in front of the grand jury, and convinces them he followed proper procedure when he fired his weapon. Meanwhile, Captain Don Cragen announces he's retiring from the NYPD and is leaving the squad in the hands of newly-promoted Sergeant Olivia Benson.
Briscoe and Green investigate a skeleton with a diamond ring on her right hand and her left one missing. The detectives are shocked to learn it's Kelly Sommers, whose left hand and purse were discovered years earlier at Ground Zero. The detectives trace the ring to a Senator's son who'd been having an affair with Kelly. Lenny and Ed learn Bradley Hagen took his mistress to dinner on the night of September 10th.
Elliot Stabler and his new partner/work crush Dani Beck look for whoever fled after trying to kidnap two children. Eden (played by a young Elle Fanning) says her sister is still missing and Marc stabs Stabler with a pen. Fin and Munch think this a part of a child smuggling operation connected to a sketchy adoption agency. The detectives recover an audiotape of a child being smothered in a "rebirthing" ceremony. Stabler and Beck then arrest some foster parents who've been keeping their children in cages. Novak can't get a conviction because the kids won't testify against the abusive adults. To help Eden feel safe, Dani agrees to let the child sleep at her place. She awakes after Eden (who clearly has some issues to work through) tries to burn the room down. Burned out herself, Dani tells Elliot she's not cut out for SVU. And despite their smoldering longing for each other, she walks out of his life forever.
While performing a rape fantasy sequence during her livestream, cam girl Zoe is attacked by an intruder. Captain Benson discovers the assailant is one of her fans. "ShyGabe" tells Fin he believes Zoe is in love with him and he thought she was inviting him over to role play. The victim tells Kat she does not want her double life exposed. ADA Carisi believes a jury may not convict Gabe if they think the performer consented to the violent sex.
Detectives Lenny Briscoe and Ed Green track down a young family that skipped town, leaving behind a bloody crib. Each parent claims the other fled with the baby. When the detectives find the infant’s body buried in a backyard, Dr. Rogers determines he starved to death. A lactation specialist tells ADA Abbie Carmichael the mom refused to breastfeed, so EADA Jack McCoy assigns Carmichael to go solo and prosecute the mother for manslaughter. The defense argues the child starved because the father refused to help and the specialist pressured her to not use formula. Carmichael counters that if a woman chooses to have a baby, she must take responsibility for that child.
Detectives Benson and Stabler are called in when an infant dies after drinking baby formula mixed with cocaine. When more tainted formula is found in the home of Derek Pfeiffer, Fin and Munch suspect he's been smuggling in the liquid coke from Mexico. But things take a turn when IAB takes over the investigation and Pfeiffer is murdered. Cragen strong-arms Tucker to let Elliot go undercover and infiltrate the drug ring. It's managed by a dirty cop, and when a sting goes sideways, Stabler is forced to shoot him in self-defense.
A retired cop tells Detective Elliot Stabler the perp he's looking for is Ray Schenkel (played by Robert Patrick), who got out of jail the morning a girl was raped. Schenkel had kidnapped victims with the help of his cousin, and Huang predicts he'll seek a new partner. Stabler poses as a sex offender, befriends Schenkel, and joins his therapy group to monitor his actions. They set up a sting, but he resists attacking their decoy. Captain Cragen thinks Schenkel might be sincere in his effort to change his ways, but Detective Olivia Benson thinks it's just a matter of time.
Three young boys are killed by a car bomb, their mother Doreen and older brother in the front seat are the only survivors. Detectives Goren and Eames learn Paul Whitlock developed a new kind of land mine and his wife had spotted some threatening-looking Middle Eastern men before the blast. But there are indications the pipe bomb was built in their garage and someone swept it up. Bobby and Alex suspect the depressed Doreen blew up the car in a murder/suicide attempt.
Lt Olivia Benson helps a victim who can't remember the details of her attack the previous day. Laurel Linwood is spiraling emotionally. She says after her father's funeral she wound up in a bar, met a man with the same after-shave and expensive watch as her father, and now has vague memories of a pair of scissors.
After a health insurance executive is gunned down on the sidewalk by a vigilante, Det. Vincent Riley chases the suspect all over Manhattan. Lt. Jessica Brady discovers, not only are citizens unwilling to help them find the fugitive, people start dressing like him to disrupt their manhunt. ADA Samantha Maroun says Ethan Weller targeted OptiShield's CEO because the company denied his late mother's claim for an experimental drug. DA Nicholas Baxter worries the jury will not convict a defendant who's gained folk hero status for killing a man who represents the worst kind of corporate greed. EADA Nolan Price thinks it's a slam dunk murder conviction, but an activist judge seems eager to see Weller go free.
Det. Stabler and Cpt. Cragen investigate what they think is a botched kidnapping at a playground that left a toddler in a coma. They give up the hunt for a creepy guy with a camera when doctors determine little Lucy's injuries occurred days earlier when she was violently shaken. Though suspicion falls on the nanny, Stabler homes in on Lucy's widowed mother, Evelyn.
The squad investigates the case of a dead woman found with hundred dollar bills shoved in her mouth. Detectives Benson and Stabler learn the woman was an undocumented worker at a woman's sex club. A community activist (Rita Moreno) tells the detectives 16 undocumented women have been attacked by the same rapist - but none will report the crimes for fear of deportation. When Serbian refugee Nina gives Olivia the cash her attacker left, they link a fingerprint to an attorney (Bradley Cooper) who handles the estate for socialite Eleanor Duvall (Angela Lansbury, in an Emmy-nominated performance). Elliot suspects her oddball son Gabriel (Alfred Molina) is the rapist, but the victim is mysteriously detained before she can make an identification.
The squad goes after a ring of New Yorkers uploading child sexual abuse material. Detectives Amanda Rollins and Sonny Carisi are stunned to find one of the culprits is Deputy Police Commissioner and major asshole Hank Abraham. As ADA Rafael Barba decides how best to prosecute him, Lt. Olivia Benson has sympathy for Abraham's wife: ADA Pippa Cox. The arrest threatens to both destroy her family and her career as a prosecutor of crimes against children. Meanwhile, Deputy Chief William Dodds urges his son, Sgt. Mike Dodds, to leave SVU for a high profile position. And Benson and Captain Ed Tucker have a "nightcap."
An off-duty cop is stabbed to death, and her assailant is critically wounded. Eyewitness Monica Johnson tells detectives Lenny Briscoe and Rey Curtis that she saw the man follow the victim into the park—but holes in her story lead them to arrest her for the officer’s death. District Attorney Adam Schiff faces political pressure to seek the death penalty for the cop killer. After prosecutor Jack McCoy gets Monica to confess on the stand, she undergoes a religious transformation and chooses not to fight her execution. McCoy and ADA Jamie Ross debate whether a repentant killer should face the death penalty. Monica’s cause is taken up by both left-wing and right-wing lawyers, who petition to spare her life.
On a flight to Paris, distraught 12 year old Dominique says she was forced to give a naked massage to well-connected New York billionaire Jordan Hayes. Detectives Benson and Stabler suspect his ex-girlfriend Dahlia is helping him procure underage girls from around the world. Before they can arrest him, Hayes shows up at SVU to accuse Dominique of raping him. ADA Hadwick is unsuccessful at getting a warrant for the video footage from the billionaire's massage room. After Munch convinces another of Hayes's victims to post her experience online, several pre-teens step forward to tell their stories. Benson tries to get Dahlia to flip, but she refuses. That's when Stabler tells her that Hayes has made a sweetheart deal with the Feds to save himself and let her take the fall.
The official One Chicago Podcast kicks off with Jason Beghe, who has played Sergeant Hank Voight on Chicago P.D. since day one. He joins host Brian Luce, a former Chicago cop and current P.D. producer, to discuss their work on set, Voight’s moral complexity, and the importance of telling the truth of the story. Production Designer Greg Van Horn, known on set as “Merlin,” also shares how he creates the iconic locations that bring the series to life.
Harris and Katharine Vernon are sent videos showing a man entering their home and having sex with her - but she has no memory of the incident. Sgt Fin Tutuola thinks she's lying to her husband, but Captain Olivia Benson believes she was raped after taking her sleeping pills. Captain Renee Curry locates the man who claims he'd been chatting online with Katharine about her "Sleeping Beauty" sex fantasy. With help from Professor Amanda Rollins, the squad learns Harris has been posing as his wife and inviting men to rape her while she's unconscious.
Detective Munch thinks a woman has been abducted by the killer he's hunted for a year: the "Bowery Stalker," who tortures and rapes his victims before killing them. With a lead on a new suspect, he and Tutuola drive upstate looking for the secluded cabin of Darryl Kern. They find he's been using the identities of other missing people. Fin and John are forced to share a motel room, where the new partners bond for the first time.
When a college co-ed accuses raunchy rock star Clarence "C-Square" Carmichael of raping her in his hotel room, Detectives Mike Logan and Lenny Briscoe have to decide whether she's an actual victim or a willing participant now looking for a payday. Lt. Anita Van Buren is the only one who believes Julia's story, and Logan and Briscoe turn up evidence the musician has paid off other victims in the past.
The estranged daughters of famed author Walter Briggs (Robert Vaughn) tell Sgt. Benson their stepmother is plying their senile father with Viagra and daily sex. They say Charmaine Briggs (Marcia Cross) is preventing them from seeing him and risking his life to conceive a child to get a bigger cut of his estate. Briggs brags about his youthful sexual prowess, but ends up having a heart attack. Dets. Carisi and Amaro block Charmaine from flying him to Canada against medical advice and court orders. After Briggs has a fatal heart attack, they discover Charmaine extracted semen post-mortem. ADA Barba charges her with murder, but after a video of the dead novelist surfaces, the real reason for the daughters' estrangement is revealed.
When a young woman is kidnapped by a rapist targeting virgins, psychic Sebastian Ballentine (played by Martin Short) offers to help. Stabler dismisses him as a phony. But when details Ballentine offers about the crime are suspiciously accurate, the detectives suspect he’s actually the culprit. Benson learns his wife is his accomplice, enabling his hunt for virgins. Then a final twist: the couple murdered a pregnant woman to steal her baby.
When a baseball fan despised for costing the team the pennant is killed in a bar, Detectives Briscoe and Green connect the crime to Walter Grimes, a man released from prison after 20 years for a murder he didn't commit. Attorney Rodney Fallon (played by Giancarlo Esposito) argues he's innocent because his time as a wrongfully convicted man made him a murderer.
Benson and Stabler investigate the murder of a pregnant woman found in a burning apartment. A shameless golddigger, she worked for wealthy coffee importer Pierson Bartlett (played by Stephen Collins) and was his son PJ's fiancée. But those paternal bonds are strained when Warner says the baby belonged to Pierson, not PJ.
The squad searches for a rapist who has been targeting lesbians. Their suspect is a heavy metal vampire, but a blood bank employee gives him a solid alibi. Frustrated by the pace of the investigation, a radical lesbian group pickets SVU. Leader Babs Duffy (Kathy Griffin) has a way of insulting everybody, then becomes a target herself. She's placed in protective custody where she makes a move to kiss Benson, who says "That's not on the menu." Olivia might not be gay, but she lets their lesbian-hating prime suspect think she is. The perp's motive: he thinks he can turn his victims straight because he's so good at making the sex.
While investigating a man stabbed in the groin, Benson and Stabler learn the victim and his wife frequent a sex club. The partners go undercover as swingers and meet the victim's paramour, Cassandra (Rose McGowan). They suspect her jealous ex-boyfriend, Doug, might be the attacker. Elliot and Olivia are shocked to learn that not only have Cassandra and Doug been running a con on the unsuspecting victim, they're actually twins committing - as Stabler calls it - "twincest."
After an extended undercover assignment, Benson is reunited with Stabler to investigate the poisoning of a model. The case involves drugs, a mute eyewitness, a rabid dog, and an affair between the victim's husband and Naomi, a beautiful dancer (Catherine Bell). Later, the detectives learn her husband Glenn (Bob Saget) has secretly implanted a microchip in his wife to keep tabs on her. He confesses to the revenge murder, but the chip has made Naomi gravely ill. Glenn donates part of his liver to save Naomi before being wheeled back to jail.
Benson and Stabler have an open-and-shut case against psycho killer Peter Harrison. But annoying lab tech Dale Stuckey makes an error with the bloody knife, leaving Judge Donnelly no choice but to set the suspect free. Munch and Fin tail Harrison to Coney Island and "chase" him through a fun house before another body is discovered. Soon the detectives are dealing with booby traps, secret lairs with secret tunnels, poison-filled needles and poison-filled gas. Munch reaches out to his mentally ill ex-wife (Carol Kane) to help capture the elusive culprit. While visiting the crime lab, Stabler discovers the killer's DNA belongs to Stuckey. After taking Elliot hostage, he admits to framing Harrison and targeting those who've embarrassed him. Benson tricks Stuckey into thinking she loves him by slapping the hell out of Stabler. When Olivia goes in for a kiss, Elliot kicks Stuckey and knocks him out.
Police discover an unconscious man in Central Park who's been the victim of a theft - of his kidney! Det Sgt Max Greavey and Det Mike Logan learn the daughter of wealthy Phillip Woodleigh suddenly withdrew from the organ transplant list. They discover surgeon James Reberty rented portable surgical equipment and find bloody bandages at his nurse’s apartment.
Benson and Stabler look for a man who impersonated a cop on the phone and tricked a man into strip searching his employee. The trail leads to Merritt Rook (Robin Williams, in an Emmy-nominated performance), who squares off in court against Novak and wins an acquittal.
When the Bakers, a chastity-espousing reality TV family, come to New York to celebrate Lane's purity ceremony, they discover the 13-year-old is pregnant. After interrogating a cameraman, Fin and Carisi learn that accusations of inappropriate touching by the oldest son, Graham, were buried by the Bakers' powerful supporters. Before Benson and Dodds can question him, the family pastor says the boy has been sent to a camp in Ecuador. After binge-watching their show, Rollins suspects Graham fathered a child with a different sister. But the DNA points in a different direction. The pastor himself has been preying on the daughters and blaming the son.
As Detectives Briscoe and Curtis work a drug sting, Lt. John Flynn shoots the dealer. Lenny backs up his old friend's story that Ruben Morales went for his gun, but Rey is suspicious about Flynn's connection to the dealer. They learn Morales was going to testify against a kingpin who had Flynn on his payroll.
A jogger who died of a heart attack leads police to the unrelated murder of a woman who's been using the Social Security number of Marcella Celaya, who was killed ten years ago. Detectives Briscoe and Green learn that Rafael Berseño, the victim's husband, used to have the last name Celaya also. Before they question him further, they spot a jealous wife running over her husband with her car again and again. Then, Green discovers a note on a bathroom mirror from a pregnant woman saying she's been kidnapped. Meanwhile, they hear Rafael's brother Reynaldo just got out of prison for killing his wife Marcella, though her body was never found.
After the body of a mummified child is discovered, Benson and Stabler run out of leads. At a vigil for "Cherish Doe," Fin meets Violet (Gloria Reuben). She's fresh from rehab and fears the unidentified girl is her missing daughter, Nina. The detectives learn the victim is a different girl, but both children were taken from their homes by a man posing as a social services worker. The trail leads to a handyman with an obsession for expensive dolls (David Harbour). In order to get him to say where the missing Nina is, Violet must convince him she's not a bad mother.
The squad investigates the murder of Bobbi O'Rourke, a book author who'd written about her life as a teen prostitute. Carisi finds out the victim was just posing as the writer for public appearances because no one has ever seen the real Bobbi. Fin traces the royalty payments to the home of Joe and Ben Edelman (Judd Hirsch and Wallace Shawn), two bickering, old Jewish men who have lived as hoarders and shut-ins for decades. Benson learns there is no Bobbi; Ben wrote the sexually-explicit book under the pseudonym. But before they let the brothers go, Carisi discovers their dead mother's body in a locked freezer.
Goren and Eames investigate the murder of an aspiring writer. Kira Danforth was surrounded by unsavory literary figures, including a lecherous book agent (Fisher Stevens), an author with a hardscrabble back story (Pablo Schreiber), and a publishing giant who hasn't had a bestseller in years (Peter Coyote). The detectives learn Kira discovered TJ Hawkins' gritty biography was a lie and that the washed-up Lionel Shill plagiarized her unpublished novel. Did one of the writers kill her to protect their secret?
Benson and Stabler connect an assault on a child (played by a young Sabrina Carpenter) to the rape of Larissa, who'd been forced into child pornography decades ago. The rapist leads them to Orville Underwood, the man acquitted of making the explicit videos years earlier. He explains that his DNA was on photos found at the rapist's home because he decided to rub one out in the bathroom and it got everywhere.
After a mother is murdered and her newborn Nicky kidnapped, Detectives Joe Fontana and Ed Green interrogate Frank, the drug dealer who was in her apartment that morning. But Lt. Van Buren says a witness spotted a pregnant woman fleeing the building with Nicky. The trail leads to Arlene Tarrington, a woman who'd been faking her pregnancy.
After escaping from her kidnapper, Tasha (played by Keke Palmer) tells Benson and Stabler the man rescued her and her sisters from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The detectives track down the abductor and find Tasha's sister, but the suspect has contracted a fatal case of anthrax inhalation. The FBI swoops in, takes the girls, steals all of SVU's evidence, and threatens to prosecute any detective who discloses the information. Olivia leaks the story to reporter Jackson Zane whose front page exposé gets the sisters returned. After she and Elliot arrest a lab tech and learn the anthrax is still at large, Olivia again tips off Zane. The reporter refuses to identify the leaker and chooses to go to jail instead of revealing Benson as his source.
Benson and Stabler look for a serial rapist who's targeting women with disabilities. Into the squad room walks Miranda Cole, a woman with schizophrenia (Amanda Plummer, in an Emmy-winning appearance), but it's hard to find answers within her disorganized speech. Olivia butts heads with Miranda's doctor, a former cop who went to the academy with her. Tidbits from the victim's ramblings lead Munch and Tutuola to a closeted gay man who's a strong suspect, but Cragen says his DNA doesn't match the crime scenes. Stabler breaks the rules to decipher the misleading DNA, while Benson lets Miranda be Miranda to discover important evidence.
Benson and Stabler investigate the murder of a woman in her hotel room. She's the daughter-in-law of the president of an ultra-conservative college, Ben Hadley. Munch and Jeffries arrest the culprit behind a string of hotel burglaries, but he's not the killer. Neither is the financial consultant the victim had been hitting on. Elliot discovers Ben Junior wasn't aware his wife was pregnant, and Olivia learns she had a two-year-long affair with Ben Senior. When Cragen confronts the Hadleys with the DNA results, the son confesses to strangling the victim in a jealous rage, unaware her lover was his father.
Detectives Goren and Eames investigate the kidnapping of a baby left alone in a hotel room while the parents went out to dinner. They locate a cat burglar who robbed several rooms, then foil a fake ransom scam targeting a wealthy aunt, but baby Emma is still missing.
Detectives Vincent Riley and Jalen Shaw investigate the murder of a dating app developer. The squad's new lieutenant, Jessica Brady, runs the suspect's DNA through the rape kit database. Laura, the shooter, is a former SVU victim whose case was mishandled. Captain Olivia Benson goes to bat for her, arguing victims will refuse to give their DNA if they think it will be used against them in the future.
When two frat boys at Hudson University learn co-ed Evie Barnes earns her tuition shooting violent porn, they rape her in a dorm. Sgt. Olivia Benson says the attack is still a crime because Evie didn't consent. At trial, the defense says Evie is so good in her rape fantasy pornos, the boys had no idea she wasn't acting. Barba wins a conviction, but the judge sets the conviction aside, saying there was no evidence she said "no." Betrayed by the court, disowned by her parents, and expelled from school, Evie leaves the city once and for all to star in even more violent adult films.
Toronto detectives Henry Graff and Frankie Bateman arrest the hit man responsible for the murder of Zoe Vaughn, the COO at grocery store mega-chain Best Betts. The search for who hired the assassin leads them to Douglas Hill, owner of rival Hill Breads. But photos taken by the victim show the competitors were actually colluding to fix the price of bread in Canada. Graff uses his Gorenesque skills to deduce CEO Nadia Betts fooled Hill into hiring the hit man - not to keep Vaughn from exposing their price fixing scheme - but to keep her from stealing Betts's job.
A baby snatched from a supermarket leads Benson and Stabler to a sketchy adoption agency. Records show one of the children may have been connected to a cold case from Cragen's days at the 27th precinct. The late Sergeant Max Greevey never learned who murdered Jennifer Talmadge and kidnapped her infant son, Stephen.
A tech at an IVF clinic is bludgeoned with a liquid nitrogen tank by someone who dumped all of its embryos down the sink. Briscoe and Curtis learn, before he died, a wealthy man won the embryos in his divorce. His second wife wanted to implant the first wife's fertilized eggs and create a new heir to his fortune.
Benson and Amaro rescue a teen drawn into the world of underage sex trafficking. Fin and Rollins set up a sting to catch her customers and arrest retired quarterback Jack Stanton (Treat Williams). Olivia believes his disorientation and unusual actions are the result of concussions he received playing football, but Nick thinks it's all an act. She gets defense attorney Bayard Ellis (Andre Braugher) to take his case, much to the ire of Cabot. After he displays signs of dementia on the stand, the jury acquits him. But the QB knows the problem is his brain and calls an audible on the courthouse steps.
Tennis star Korey Burke will miss the tournament after an unidentified attacker breaks her wrist with a club. Logan and Briscoe rule out her obsessed fan and turn their attention to Korey's main rival and her burly boyfriend. Kincaid wonders if her demanding father (John Heard) might have set up the assault to boost her image and endorsement money. But when Stone obtains Korey's diary, it's clear the athlete has been looking for a way to get out of professional sports.
A 16-year-old TV actress who plays a hypersexual undercover agent is raped in her trailer. A shock jock (Lewis Black) has been suggesting listeners try to bang her. Stabler and Fin learn the culprit is the teenage son of an anti-smut crusader (Dana Delany) who thought stealing her panties would get him on the radio. Later, the activist shoots the DJ for corrupting her son. It's a case of the First Amendment versus family values.
A fatal tiger attack sends Stabler undercover into an international animal smuggling ring. The leader murders a rap star with a hyena and plans to carving up an endangered gibbon and make the world's most expensive chopsticks out of his breast bone. Benson poses as a prostitute in her underwear to maintain Stabler's cover, then he's is shot and left for dead by the ring leader. As the rest of the squad moves in to shut down the operation, Cragen rescues the gibbon from a hollowed out basketball.
The little black book of a porno mag publisher goes missing after the former centerfold who won it at auction is murdered. Photocopies of the book reveal evidence a US Senate candidate took his ex-wife (Rosanna Arquette) to a sex club, even though she didn't want to go. Goren and Eames discover the blackmailer was the club doorman who's just turned up dead. The detectives learn the ex-wife returned to the club without her husband - got it on with everyone - and is now desperate to keep her daughter from knowing the tawdry truth. Carver falsely charges the politician with murder, all part of an elaborate ruse to elicit a confession from the ex in exchange for destroying the evidence.
After three girls disappear overnight in a city park, a large man is spotted returning stab victim Zoe from the woods. The child tells Benson her sister, Mia, and her friend, Perry, were kidnapped by the supernatural Glasgowman. They had a map to the creature's mansion they got from Perry's babysitter, a graphic artist. Amaro and Rollins find the missing girls, who say Glasgowman bound and stabbed them. It becomes clear that Perry is delusional, convinced her friends to go into the woods, then tried to make a blood sacrifice to Glasgowman. Mia is released and Perry is sentenced to a psychiatric hospital. Riding the elevator, Carisi spots the two discreetly intertwine their pinkies. The implication: she's faking and it was a set-up from the beginning.
Briscoe and Green investigate a socialite who fell into an insulin-induced coma, even though she’s not diabetic. David Moore says he was helping her commit suicide, but the detectives learn the couple are part of a group who get off on a kink called “necrophilia without tears.” Moore injects his wife with insulin to paralyze her so he can have sex with her frozen body.
Lt. Benson and the SVU squad investigate a kidnapping involving the parents of an infant at the heart of a right-to-die case. ADA Barba sympathizes with the mother and does what she's unable to bring herself to do: switch off the baby's life support system. District Attorney Jack McCoy charges him with murder and enlists Barba's replacement, ADA Peter Stone, to prosecute the case. Even though he's acquitted and McCoy seems perfectly fine with letting a baby killer stay on staff, Barba resigns and leaves New York.
Gunshots ring out after someone heckles the singer at mob-friendly Raimondo's restaurant. Briscoe and Green think a Hollywood producer at a different table was simply caught in the crossfire, but Van Buren says the bullet that killed him was from a different gun. The detectives nab a hitman who took advantage of the commotion to take out the producer. He says he was hired by an author who got stiffed on the movie adaptation of his Raimondo's-inspired book. But McCoy and Southerlyn learn it was Raimondo himself who sought revenge on both the writer and the producer for disrespecting his famous restaurant.
Captain Olivia Benson thinks the creepy cleaver-wielding butcher who likes to wear clown masks is behind the disappearance of a teenager. EADA Peter Stone charges him with murder, although her body is never recovered. Detectives Carisi and Rollins discover the girl is alive and well, living in hiding and having a secret affair with her music teacher. But sh*t gets bananas when the mother confronts the couple. She confesses to her own affair with the teacher years earlier which left her pregnant. Although they never knew it, the teacher has been sleeping with his own daughter.
Cosgrove and Shaw investigate the murder of a right wing congresswoman's husband, a doctor bludgeoned in his home office. The detectives focus on a teenager who'd been secretly visiting the doctor's home. They learn the patient is a trans girl who'd been receiving gender affirming care despite her parents' objections, and Frank and Jalen arrest the dad for murder. His lawyer argues self-defense, and Price and Maroun quarrel about whether the victim should have been treating the 13-year-old without permission. In order to protect the teen from a withering cross-examination, McCoy offers a plea. But the political fallout from the trial might make things less safe for trans kids in the future.
Nerdy teenager Zach is getting dirty pics and suggestive texts from his English teacher, but vanishes on his way to a secret tryst with her. Benson and Dodds learn Miss Barnap has been giving lessons in lust to some students, but the photos to Zach were actually sent by the school's wrestling coach. The squad later finds the kidnapped boy in the man's remote cabin. Zach's parents won't let him testify, so Olivia and Mike ask some of the coach's past victims to come forward. But one has a better idea...he gets a videotaped confession from the coach by torturing him to death. Also, Rollins apparently survived childbirth.
An online sting leads the squad to a photographer (Joshua Malina) who has fantasies about slicing up children. Murphy and Tutuola uncover his torture chamber, but Benson and Rollins can't find any real-life victims. Barba prosecutes him anyway, but the defendant is acquitted. Meantime, while already dealing with family issues, Amaro spots the photographer taking pictures at a playground. Nick beats him to a pulp and is quickly arrested.
When three parents are killed in separate shootings, Goren and Eames learn their three-year-old children had all been accepted to an exclusive day care center. Is someone trying to get their own kid off the waitlist and into the school by picking off the other moms and dads? An overbearing matriarch found with the murder weapon would do anything to get her grandson in, but Goren de-deuces she couldn't do it because she can only poop in her home toilet. It seems the child's belittled mom set up her mother-in-law, and now she's taken school officials hostage at gunpoint.
A Guatemalan boy is discovered in a bus luggage compartment. His friend tells Benson and Stabler they were running away from the child molester who adopted them and kept them locked in his apartment for sex. Before they can question Brett Jansen, he's found murdered in his bed. Olivia and Elliot learn Jansen is among those who've been traveling to Central America to bring back boys for their own pleasure. Munch goes undercover to bust the travel agent arranging the trips (Will Arnett). Was Jansen killed to protect the pedophile ring? Or was it because his love for the boys wasn't sweet enough?
Briscoe and Curtis look for the stalker who threw Andrea Blake down the stairs. Is it the computer hacker with a taste for opera or the creepy neighbor with the telephoto lens and X-rated website? But inconsistencies in the victim's story lead Lennie and Rey to suspect she faked the attack. Soon after, Andrea is murdered in her apartment.
Detectives Churlish and Muncy investigate a rape accusation against the son of a rich, domineering real estate mogul. When Benson goes to arrest Martin Parish, she finds Connie Parish breastfeeding him. Carisi's rape case falls apart when the victim recants, then dies before testifying before the grand jury. The squad learns her cocaine was laced with industrial abrasive, which is also the cause of Martin's failing health. He refuses to testify against his mother, until his long-absent father returns to say he lost the taste for Connie's boobies when he learned she was trying to kill him with the same abrasive.
Benson and Stabler learn the kidnapper and rapist they're looking for is children's book author Saul Picard. When they take him into custody, Picard head butts Elliot into a car window, leaving him temporarily blind. The feds want to bring Picard back to Louisiana where child rape is a capital offense. Huang says the suspect is schizophrenic and belongs in a hospital, not death row.
Lennie Briscoe and his new partner Ed Green investigate a fatal mugging. They can't make an arrest stick to suspect Bobby Sabo, who enjoys taunting Briscoe, but the senior detective says Sabo spontaneously confessed to the crime while they were out of earshot from Green. Van Buren isn't confident the confession happened. Tensions boil over between the detectives as Briscoe feels his trustworthiness and age are questioned. McCoy's case is about to fall apart when the evidence gets thrown out. But Carmichael objects to a deal that might close two cases and reveal the truth about that disputed statement.
Benson investigates the rape of a housewife spotted jumping between rooftops. Jenna Miller has a big secret: she's been doing sex work. She has an even bigger secret: she's the world record-holding pole vaulter who could lose her endorsements if her double life were exposed. When the defendant's attorney suggests she's losing her good looks, Jenna responds by ripping off her blouse in court. With Barba's case tanking, Carisi and Rollins suspect Jenna's behavior might be the result of an undiagnosed mental illness. Meanwhile, Amanda remains unsettled after her sister makes parole and moves in with her and Jessie.
Benson and Stabler look for the killer of Laura Santiago. Their investigation uncovers cock fighting, radical vegan feminists, and hundreds of photos of women's butts. The detectives learn Laura was secretly filming an exposé on conditions in a slaughterhouse. Olivia goes undercover at the meat packing plant to find the missing film, but the left-handed foreman confesses quickly to the right-handed stabbing. Benson and Munch confront the elderly owner of Donna Rosa's Meatballs about whether she'd kill to protect the family recipe.
When a cop is shot in a park, Logan recognizes him as childhood friend Billy Marino, who'd been trading phone calls with their old priest, Father Joe Krolinsky. He and Briscoe learn Krolinsky left the priesthood and started a family, but Logan confides in Cragen (now assigned to Anti-corruption) Father Joe molested altar boys and even put the moves on him.
Olivia and Elliot learn Sydney, a woman who died of accidental autoerotic asphyxiation, was one of three friends who raped a male stripper at a bachelorette party. Stabler is among those who don't believe a woman can rape a man, but Benson and Cabot go after Pam and Amelia (played by Diane Neil). At trial, the exotic dancer admits he was suing Sydney and she told her friends she was going to settle. The detectives think it's a great motive for murder and reopen the investigation of her death.
Before testifying against the pimp who had him shot, a former sex slave says Cassidy raped her when he was undercover. When Amaro and Munch go to his apartment to question him, they see Olivia exit his bedroom.
The lead actor of the financially-troubled, accident-prone Broadway musical "Icarus" falls to his death after his safety wire is cut. Goren and Eames learn the show's demanding director (Cynthia Nixon) couldn't convince the producer to fire him and wanted his understudy to perform that night for the benefit of a theater critic. When the detectives discover an insurance policy that would cover investors' losses if the lead was killed, they get the show's dramaturg and producer to turn on each other.
Lisa, a teen with a fake ID, is murdered on a rooftop. Benson and Stabler learn she and her friend, Angela (Hayden Panettiere), teased high school students with colored sex bracelets, were big on the apps, gave oral for designer clothes and turned tricks at a fancy hotel. But it didn't stop there for the HIV-infected victim. Lisa also earned money as an underage porn star.
When a new body washes up on his beach burial ground, imprisoned serial killer Dr. Gregory Yates points Amanda to a mummified murder victim in a townhouse. He says the culprit is his old friend Carl Rudnick, the deputy chief medical examiner. After Yates's girlfriend tells Benson she has incriminating evidence, Rudnick kills and dismembers her, then flees dressed as a woman.
When washed-up actor Mitch Carroll (Chevy Chase) is pulled over for drunk driving, he goes on an antisemitic tirade, all while covered in blood. Green and Cassady trace his pistol to the murder of the Jewish TV producer he felt ruined his career. But the detectives learn Carroll's son pulled the trigger in his own bigoted rage.
An abandoned baby leads Benson and Stabler to a career woman (Lori Singer) who may have received the child in an illegal adoption. But it's the woman's lawyer/fiancé (John Stamos) who draws scrutiny. Ken Turner has fathered more than 40 children, all of them conceived after his condoms suspiciously broke. Olivia accuses him of being a "reproductive abuser," tricking women into having his babies.
When a child is snatched, Benson and Stabler find evidence his mother, Dr. Sophie Gerard (Isabelle Huppert), was planning to sneak him overseas. But the hunt for the hired kidnapper leaves the boy dead in a watery car crash. Sophie cannot accept her son is dead, so Olivia and ADA Jo Marlowe (Sharon Stone) bring her to the morgue to see for herself. After a scuffle with the boy's father, Sophie steals an officer's gun, shoots Warner, and takes the rest hostage. While Elliot sneaks through an air duct, he learns the father masterminded the kidnapping. Before the mother can exact her revenge, Marlowe pretends the dead child is still alive and carries him over to Sophie.
When a newborn baby is discovered in a garbage pile, Benson and Stabler trace the child to a college student who denies it's hers. Later, she says she was a victim of rape and didn't know she was pregnant until she went into labor. Cragen learns this wasn't the first time the woman gave birth and threw the child away. Meanwhile, Warner discovers the baby's father is his own grandfather, a politician who says he's in a consensual sexual relationship with his adult daughter. Novak can't get a conviction, but the mother reveals incriminating details about the previous child she disposed of.
When an astronaut is murdered in her hotel room, Goren and Eames investigate shuttle commander Luke Nelson (Tate Donovan) with whom she had an affair. They turn their attention to another astronaut who had feelings for Nelson. They discover she drove to New York wearing adult diapers to kill her rival and return to Maryland to cover her tracks. The detectives conclude she was driven to violence by the commander's wife (Amy Ryan) who spiked the murderer's skin lotion with steroids to eliminate both women.
The squad tries to help Kelsey, a famous singer who's in a violent relationship with her equally-famous boyfriend, Austin. When dueling accusations of assault are traded by the celebrities, Austin's fans turn hostile to the victim. It's up to Carisi to convince the jury who to believe in a high profile case of he said/she said. Meanwhile, Rollins struggles with her emotions after being shot in the line of duty.
An armed robbery leaves an off-duty cop dead and the two gunmen flee by hijacking a town car. When Briscoe and Curtis find one of them, the robber offers Ross a deal: in exchange for a light sentence he'll tell them where to find the kidnapped driver. Over the cops' objections, McCoy agrees to the bargain, but they learn too late the driver was already dead when the suspect offered it.
SVU searches for a woman abducted in a taxi cab. The victim's left leg is discovered in a canal, having been amputated while she was still alive. Benson and Amaro suspect a connection to a sex worker who said a john paid $25,000 to cut off her leg. The victim's obsession with body modification lead Fin and Rollins to a woman with a peg leg who gives pointy ear surgery to people out of a box truck. But the medical paper trail points to a psychiatrist who developed a strange fetish after his mother became an amputee.
Benson and Stabler investigate a case of prolonged child abuse that's left a girl in a coma. The suspects include the victim's ex-con father, business executive stepfather, douchebag stepbrother, and an avuncular foreign diplomat. Munch tells Fin he isn't convinced they've arrested the right person. He gently elicits a confession from the girl's mother, herself a victim of childhood abuse. Later, a tearful Munch tells Olivia the victim reminded him of an abused girl he wished he could have saved when he was a teenager.
Pop singer Dallas is found beaten in her home while her rap star husband Snake is on stage. As a child, Snake's family took Fin into their home after Mrs. Tutuola was murdered. Carisi and Rollins learn a rival rapper (played by Snoop Dogg) threatened the couple on his latest single. The trail eventually leads Benson to a music fan, but Fin figures out the attack was not about obsession...it was about revenge.
The admissions director at an elite kindergarten is murdered. Briscoe and Green learn she wanted to admit a gifted Black girl, but the headmaster overruled the decision and gave the slot to the son of a pornographer.
To mark the passing of actor Richard Belzer, we revisit our discussion of the actor from an October 2017 episode.
Benson and Stabler investigate the brutal murder of a teen found in a car trunk. The detectives learn the victim was a popular girl who was bullying a classmate, but suspicion soon turns to her clique of friends. The motive is jealousy over a boy, and the other mean girls turn on the queen bee who put them up to the killing. While Novak gets justice in the courtroom, the bullied student gets instant justice in the classroom.
A Hudson University student who'd been making money selling term papers is found dead. Elliot and Fin trace Caroline's diamond ring to a football player who lost it to her in a poker game. They learn she was a high-rolling card shark, and her lifelong friend and poker-cheating partner Adam admits to strangling Caroline for running up a huge debt.
Fontana and Green look into the murder of a mob accountant. When his widow (Amy Ryan) messes up on the witness stand, the burglar who killed him is acquitted. Later the victim's best friend, a former cop, shoots him. McCoy and Borgia aren't buying his claim it was self-defense. He threatens to lie on the stand about planting evidence in past murder cases, jeopardizing dozens of convictions. To get a guilty verdict, Jack grants the widow immunity to testify...when she discloses the revenge killing was her plan all along.
The rape and murder of an office worker leads Benson and Stabler to a former company security guard (Chad Lowe) who's eager to get into the police academy. With advice from newly-arrived Dr. George Huang, Elliot channels his misogyny to learn more about the suspect's relationship with the victim. Meanwhile, Olivia discovers he likes two things: pricking women's butts with hatpins and sleeping with his mother (Margot Kidder).
Briscoe and Curtis investigate the killing of a Central Park jogger. Her husband is the sleazy Michael Dobson (played with relish by Larry Miller), a club owner who tricked McCoy into dropping charges of murdering his first wife in an earlier episode. The hit man has connections to Dobson...but also to the mobster who Dobson owes money to. Is he guilty or not? McCoy and Kincaid fear he'll skate again for killing wife number two...until they unravel the mystery with the woman in line to be wife number three.
After a janitor (Peter Scanavino) assaults a coach he thought was molesting boys, Benson and Amaro look into the perpetrator's own abuse as a child at summer camp. They learn several of Coach Schultz's (Ed Asner) campers are now violent criminals, including death row inmate Reggie Rhodes (Mike Tyson). Olivia tries to get Reggie to disclose his abuse so they can build a case against Schultz. Meanwhile, civil rights attorney Bayard Ellis (Andre Braugher) uncovers misconduct that might get Reggie a stay of execution.
Benson and Stabler look for whomever broke into the Hudson cryobank and stole a tank of frozen embryos. As the clock ticks down on how long until the fertilized eggs perish, Olivia's biological clock is ticking even louder. The religious zealot behind the plot takes his case to the press at New York's most dangerous location: the courthouse steps.
A youth hockey coach is found beaten to death. Briscoe and Green question a player who'd complained about not getting enough time on the ice, but discover it was his hot-headed father who delivered the fatal blows. McCoy and Carmichael seek a conviction, but the defense is claiming insanity. They say it's "sports rage."
Picking up a storyline from season 14, Lewis Hodda (again played by Tom Sizemore) recants his previous confessions to kidnapping and murdering boys. Barba's circumstantial case is hurt by accusations Lieutenant Benson coerced the confession, by a creepy auxiliary cop's obsession with the case, by Dr. Huang's testimony for the defense, and by Detective Carisi sitting second chair in court. Meantime, maternity staff rush to save Rollins's life because of complications during labor.
A teen dies from drinking too much at a party. High school tutor Becca lead Benson and Stabler to the cool kids who threw the bash and who can't follow Judge Donnelly's orders to stop drinking. The detectives discover Becca's mom is sleeping with one of the boys and suspect she's been supplying the booze. Can Novak use Becca's secret drinking problem to get mom to confess? Meantime, Elliot solves all of Kathleen's problems by burning her drivers license.
Green and Lupo investigate the murder of a lawyer whose opponent was suing a dry cleaner for $20 million for giving him the wrong pants. The other trousers belong to a SavingsMart executive who'll do anything to hide his office affair and save his job. Van Buren's old boss, now SavingsMart's head of security, lies on the stand to sabotage the murder case. Why? Cutter and Rubirosa learn the suspect is blackmailing the company over their purchase of Chinese toothpaste filled with deadly antifreeze.
A homicidal rapist is shot in self-defense by a prostitute (Sharon Lawrence). Munch and Fin learn the gun was used in connection with a string of unsolved murders of johns. When Stabler tries to interrogate her, the woman climbs on the table and gives him a peek up her dress. Cabot fights with Lewin to seek the death penalty, but Benson uncovers a secret about her child that forces the defendant to rethink her position.