Secrets Exhumed (Season 14, Episode 14)
Premise: A cold-case DNA hit on a paralyzed serial killer seems to close five 1980s murders, until he refuses to confess to one and the evidence points to the FBI agent who profiled him.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 14, Episode 14
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek)
- Guest stars
- Marcia Gay Harden as FBI Agent Dana Lewis, Harold Perrineau as Brian Traymor, Jay Karnes as Noah Bunning, John Ottavino as Mr. Stanger, Kathleen O’Neill as Mary Stanger
- Ripped from the headlines
- Inspired by the 1986 murder of Sherri Rasmussen in Los Angeles, solved decades later when DNA tied it to LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus, a former girlfriend of Rasmussen’s husband; Lazarus was convicted in 2012.
- Director
- Laura Belsey
- Writers
- Story: John P. Roche; Written by: Warren Leight & Julie Martin
Summary
“Secrets Exhumed” opens as Munch returns from a stint with Cold Case carrying a DNA hit on a 1987 rape and murder in New York. The match is Brian Traymor, 52, about to be released from a Florida jail after a cocaine sentence. Benson and Amaro fly to Miami and find FBI Agent Dana Lewis, whom Benson knows from earlier cases, waiting for him. Lewis has long suspected Traymor of five rape-murders between 1987 and early 1988: Sacramento, Philadelphia, Washington and two in New York, all victims bound and strangled with athletic tape and gagged with latex gloves. Traymor, an equipment manager for an Atlanta basketball team whose road trips match the killings, has used a wheelchair since a bus accident in 1988.
In New York, Traymor admits sleeping with the first New York victim and then confesses to four killings, but insists he never met the fifth, Kira Stanger, a kindergarten teacher whose parents say she would never have let a stranger in. At Cold Case, the detectives find that evidence from Kira’s case was signed out ten years ago and half of it is missing. Lewis takes over the interview, invokes Kira’s pregnancy, a fact kept out of the autopsy report, and draws out a confession. Then Kira’s fiancé, Noah Bunning, arrives and greets Lewis by name. He reveals that they dated on and off for years after meeting at Tulane.
Amaro grows suspicious; Benson defends her friend. The original detective tells Fin and Rollins that Lewis was all over the crime scene, though she told Benson she was undercover in Georgia at the time. Traymor recants on Kira, saying he relives every detail of the other four killings but remembers nothing of hers. Munch and Fin find the missing evidence box, with Kira’s fingernail clippings, which carry blood. Noah tells the detectives that Lewis wanted marriage and was badly shaken when he announced his engagement.
Spoiler, the ending: Benson and Amaro confront Lewis with what Noah has told them: she had an abortion at his urging, and within two months he was engaged to Kira. Benson presses her on how she knew Kira was pregnant, since Noah never told her. Lewis breaks down and confesses that she went to Kira’s apartment to warn her that Noah was using them both. When Kira described his joy at the pregnancy and his proposal, Lewis says she lost control. She came to over the body and staged the scene in Traymor’s pattern. She is arrested for the murder 25 years later.
Why it stands out
- Marcia Gay Harden makes her fourth and final appearance as FBI Agent Dana Lewis. Harold Perrineau plays Brian Traymor and Jay Karnes plays Noah Bunning.
- The episode was originally scheduled for February 6, 2013, but NBC swapped it with “Monster’s Legacy” and aired it a week later.