Welcome to the Pedo Motel (Season 22, Episode 10)
Premise: When a teenage girl is murdered near a hotel housing sex offenders, suspicion of a parolee coworker spreads to the neighborhood with deadly results.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 22, Episode 10
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Katriona “Kat” Tamin (Jamie Gray Hyder), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), ME Dr. Abel Truman (Frank Wood), Sgt. Hasim Khaldun (Ari’el Stachel)
- Guest stars
- Mark Cayne as Lonnie Liston, Victoria Lily Robertson as Ceranda Zajmi, Mick Dempsey as Elvis Baktashi, Grayson Berry as Roy Eastman, Nuri Hazzard as Sam Johnson
- Director
- Jean de Segonzac
- Writers
- Story: Julie Martin & Warren Leight & Brendan Feeney & Monet Hurst-Mendoza & Melody Cooper; Story & teleplay: Denis Hamill
Summary
“Welcome to the Pedo Motel” begins when Ceranda Zajmi, 17, just awarded a scholarship to Brown, does not come home from her shift at Tirana Pizza. Her wallet and phone turn up in a nearby lot, a block from a single-room-occupancy hotel where five registered sex offenders were recently placed, a building neighborhood apps call the “pedo motel.” The pizzeria’s owner, Zamir Hoxha, says coworker Lonnie Liston, a parolee from the motel, wanted to walk Ceranda to her bus and came back from his break late and winded. Lonnie, a registered offender, says he pleaded guilty only to avoid trial after dating a white 15-year-old when he had just turned 18. He claims he spent his break in his room, but motel video shows otherwise.
A search dog finds Ceranda’s body in a junkyard; she was killed by a blow to the head from a brick or rock. Sgt. Hasim Khaldun of Homicide joins the case, chosen for his ties to the Muslim community. Protesters rally outside the motel, urged on by Elvis Baktashi, a vigilante activist with a YouTube following. A bloody brick and junkyard video of a man in Lonnie’s college jacket follow, but before Lonnie can be arrested, a fake officer-down call pulls the patrol car away and the motel is set on fire. Lonnie is found beaten, strangled and burned. Elvis’s crew is cleared by a gang-unit camera, but witnesses recall three motorcyclists and the name Eduardo. Eduardo Alvarez admits taking part, saying his two friends wanted a place in Elvis’s Dyckman Knights.
Touch DNA on the brick and Ceranda’s clothes is not Lonnie’s, and his MetroCard puts him on the subway during the murder. Fin blames himself. The Listons say their son was prosecuted at the insistence of his girlfriend McKenna Jensen’s stepfather, Roy Eastman, a parole officer whose brother is a Nassau County detective. A familial DNA search of Eastman’s parolees leads to Antonio, who gives up his half-brother, Sam Johnson. Sam says Antonio sent him, wearing a matching jacket, to grope Ceranda and frame Lonnie, and that he struck her with the brick when she would not stop screaming; Eastman had threatened to send Antonio back to prison.
Spoiler, the ending: Eastman is arrested, and texts and cash withdrawals support charges of kidnapping and murder. Rollins learns that her father has had a stroke in Atlanta, and Carisi urges her to fly to him. McKenna tells the Listons that Lonnie spent his break meeting her at Penn Station and made her promise not to say so, fearing a parole violation. The Listons then meet Ceranda’s parents, and the two families agree that their children were killed because of hate.
Why it stands out
- Ari’el Stachel’s Hasim Khaldun returns, now a sergeant in Homicide after a transfer two months earlier.
- Rollins’s father suffers a stroke, a family crisis that takes her away from the squad in the following episode.