Dear Ben (Season 20, Episode 12)
Premise: A copycat revives the case of a 1980s serial rapist who taunted Stone’s father, and the search for the real attacker leads to a genealogy website.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 20, Episode 12
- Starring
- Lt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), ADA Peter Stone (Philip Winchester), Judge D. Serani (Michael Mastro), Defense Attorney Roger Kressler (Ned Eisenberg)
- Guest stars
- Jude Ciccolella as Edgar Noone, Rebecca Creskoff as Claire Newbury, Elizabeth Stahlmann as Amy Gardner, John Raymond Barker as Karl Patton, Eden Malyn as April Baker
- Ripped from the headlines
- The episode was inspired by the Golden State Killer: Joseph James DeAngelo, a former police officer who committed 13 murders and dozens of rapes across California between 1974 and 1986, was arrested in April 2018 after investigators traced his relatives through forensic genetic genealogy.
- Director
- Jean de Segonzac
- Writers
- Julie Martin & Matt Klypka
Summary
“Dear Ben” opens with Stone coaching Noah at baseball practice while Benson admits her son has been hard to handle. Later, in the Bakers’ apartment, a masked man with a knife ties Gavin up, piles plates on his back so any movement will be heard, and rapes April Baker. The squad recognizes the method of the Infinity Rapist, who attacked 22 women in Manhattan and Brooklyn, targeting couples, until January 2, 1994, exactly 25 years before, and taunted police with letters. The old files show that Stone’s late father, Ben Stone, was the lead prosecutor on the case; a photo of Peter at seven is in the files.
One detail never made public, that Infinity forced his victims to fake enjoyment, does not fit, and an online edit to Infinity’s history two hours before the attack leads to Karl Patton, an unemployed programmer whose workroom is a shrine to the rapist. Patton announces that he is Infinity and confesses, though he was born after the first attack. Hairs from the bedroom match him, April’s missing hairbrush is in his workroom, and so is a letter from the real Infinity to Ben Stone. Judge Serani remands him. Claire Newbury, author of three books on the case, wants to interview Stone about his father; he declines. Another letter shows that Infinity watched Peter’s Little League games.
After Newbury interviews Patton on television, she and her husband, Leo, are attacked the same way, and she is sure her rapist was an old man. Pressed by the squad, the dealer who sold Patton his letter hands over his Infinity collection, and the lab recovers saliva from a stamp on a 1983 letter. With no database hit, the DNA is sent to a genealogy website without revealing police involvement, and it leads Carisi and Fin to Amy Gardner, whose uncle, retired cable repairman Edgar Noone, 68, is arrested. His DNA matches and Newbury identifies his voice, but his lawyer, Roger Kressler, argues the genealogy search violated his privacy, and a judge throws out the evidence and frees him pending a new indictment.
Spoiler, the ending: Amy reveals that as children, Noone and her mother were made to listen while their father raped their mother. Picked up again on a suspended license, Noone agrees to talk about Ben Stone; when Peter and Benson insist his father never cared about him, Noone shouts that Ben loved him, not his family. Stone finds a note in which his father regretted missing his game in 1993, the day after an Infinity attack. At home, Noah tells Benson a classmate keeps asking about his father; she promises to tell him more someday, and Stone arrives to play catch with him.
Why it stands out
- The story centers on Ben Stone, Michael Moriarty’s prosecutor from the original Law & Order, who has died before this season; his son, ADA Peter Stone, learns how the unsolved case consumed him.
- Ned Eisenberg returns as defense attorney Roger Kressler, and Jude Ciccolella plays Edgar Noone.