Bedtime (Season 11, Episode 18)
Premise: A journalist’s murder brings back a 1970s serial killer’s signature, and one of his supposed victims turns out to have been killed by someone else.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 11, Episode 18
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Ann-Margret as Rita Wills, Jaclyn Smith as Susan Delzio, Robert Newman as Cal Cutler, William Atherton as Ned Bogden, Morgan Fairchild as Claire Lockton
- Ripped from the headlines
- Based on a real case involving serial killer Timothy Wilson Spencer.
- Director
- Helen Shaver
- Writers
- Story: Charley Davis; Teleplay: Neal Baer & Daniel Truly
Summary
“Bedtime” opens when a woman leaving a married lover’s apartment by the fire escape finds the body of Jane Whitmore, 30, a freelance investigative journalist. She was tied with phone cord, raped and had her throat cut, and an X was carved into her cheek after death; her laptop is missing. Her editor says she was undercover on Morris Ostobow, a disgraced hedge fund manager now running pet funerals. Ostobow says they dated and that she asked about Harmony Home, the squalid sober house he was sent to after prison. There, resident Francine says Jane went to see Ned Bogden, a welfare official who trades benefits for sex.
Benson poses as a desperate addict and Bogden gropes her. The carved X matches the Bedtime Butcher, who raped and killed five women in the Bronx from 1973 to 1976 and was never caught; Bogden joined the welfare office months after the last killing. The detectives tie him to each victim, but he insists he was in Wyoming when Emily Cutler was killed in 1976. DNA from dandruff on his comb matches flakes on Jane’s body and the old victims’ clothes, and he is arraigned for five of the six murders. Warner finds no dandruff on Emily, only a woman’s hair.
Emily’s husband, Cal Cutler, the “Mattress Maestro” of 1970s TV ads, had a string of blond lovers, and police answered repeated calls to the house before he died in a fiery drunk-driving crash months after her death. Retired officer Susan Delzio, who took many of those calls, steers them to Cal’s agent, Maude Monaghan, who names three actresses: Jenny Coswold, Claire Lockton and Rita Wills. Warner matches blood on the Cutlers’ mattress to Rita, who says it came from sex with Cal in the marital bed. Her diaries seem to confess a killing, but she explains she meant the abortion Cal demanded and letting him drive off drunk.
Spoiler, the ending: Warner exhumes Cal and finds the body is James Rogers, a shorter transient released from custody the day of the crash by Susan Delzio. Benson confronts Susan: as a rookie she became Cal’s lover, killed Emily in the Butcher’s style, then convinced Cal he was the prime suspect so he would fake his death. Cal has lived hidden in her apartment for 35 years. Susan says Emily walked in while she was collecting Cal’s things and she flew into a rage, and she is arrested.
Why it stands out
- Ann-Margret won the 2010 Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for playing Rita Wills, the first Emmy of her career after five earlier nominations.
- The guest cast of 1970s and 1980s stars also includes Jaclyn Smith, Morgan Fairchild, Susan Anton, Renée Taylor and William Atherton; Helen Shaver directs.