Uncivilized (Season 1, Episode 7)
Premise: When an eight-year-old boy is found murdered, a paroled child molester living nearby becomes the obvious suspect and a test case for locking up sex offenders indefinitely.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 7
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Monique Jeffries (Michelle Hurd), Det. Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek)
- Guest stars
- Stephen Bogardus as Bill Turbit, Jessica Hecht as Miss Kreutzer, Terry Beaver as Morris Klein, Ian Reed Kesler as Jimmy G., Austin Lysy as Mike D.
- Ripped from the headlines
- Reportedly drawn in part from the 1924 Leopold and Loeb case, in which two wealthy Chicago students killed a 14-year-old boy to commit a “perfect crime.”
- Director
- Michael Fields
- Writers
- Story: John Chambers; Story & teleplay: Robert Palm & Wendy West
Summary
“Uncivilized” begins when two boys chasing a football find the body of eight-year-old Ryan Davies in a shallow grave beside a playing field. He was sexually assaulted and strangled after setting out alone for a comic-book store on Friday afternoon. While Munch and Cassidy canvass the neighborhood, a Girl Scout points them to two older boys, Mike D. and Jimmy G., who describe an odd man who bikes past the school every day: Bill Turbit, a recycling-plant worker who collects stamps.
Turbit says someone has been tampering with his bike and stole its chain, and that he spent Friday evening drinking at a local tavern. The teenagers pick him out of a lineup, and his record shows he served time for sexually assaulting a boy 11 years ago. Angry parents gather outside his home, furious that no one warned them. A psychologist who treated him in prison says Turbit was psychotic on drugs that night and remembers nothing, and his first victim, Christopher James, now nearly 21, describes to Benson how Turbit choked him with a belt. The pattern of the marks on Ryan’s neck fits a chain.
The bartender, Hank, at first says Turbit left for a few hours, then admits Turbit never left; a retired transit cop, he cannot live with a false statement. Morris Klein, sent by DA Adam Schiff, asks Cragen to hold Turbit anyway, because a bill in Albany would allow sex offenders to be held indefinitely through civil commitment, and the office wants a test case. Cragen gives him 24 hours. A psychiatrist chosen by the DA’s office, Dr. Greenblatt, interviews Turbit. His DNA does not match the sample from Ryan’s fingernails, and he is released, but the commitment hearing goes ahead. Defense attorney Kreutzer calls it double jeopardy, and the judge adjourns, leaving Turbit free for the night. Ryan’s father, Terry Davies, then kills Turbit, and the detectives argue over whether they failed the family.
Questioned again, Jimmy G. and Mike D. disagree about where Turbit rode. Police find the chain by the river, and a partial print on Ryan’s missing glasses belongs to Jimmy. Mike confesses: the pair found Turbit on a sex-offender website, read the details of his crime, took his bike chain and decided to copy him. They led Ryan to the marshes as a joke; Mike held him down, and when Ryan would not stop screaming, Jimmy used the chain to silence him and broke his neck.
Spoiler, the ending: The episode ends on Mike’s confession, with no charges or trial shown. Earlier, Stabler visits his son Dickie’s class to teach the children how to spot predators who pose as people they can trust.
Why it stands out
- Law & Order’s DA Adam Schiff is invoked but never seen: Morris Klein says Schiff sent him to ask Cragen to keep Turbit in custody.
- Stabler’s son Dickie gets a storyline of his own, persuading his father to speak to his class about staying safe from child molesters.