Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 3 Episode Guide
Plot summaries for the third season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which aired on NBC from September 2001 to May 2002, featuring Det. Elliot Stabler, Det. Olivia Benson, Det. John Munch, Det. Fin Tutuola, Capt. Donald Cragen and ADA Alexandra Cabot.
- 1
Repression
A college student accuses her wealthy father of years of sexual abuse, and when he is shot dead after the case collapses, the memories her therapist helped uncover come under scrutiny.
- 2
Wrath
Three murder victims tied to Benson’s old cases are found posed at a research site, and the trail leads to a man she once helped convict before DNA proved him innocent.
- 3
Stolen
A baby snatched from a grocery store leads detectives to a shady adoption lawyer and to a boy kidnapped in 1989, now being raised by a family that never knew.
- 4
Rooftop
A string of rapes and murders of Black teenage girls in Harlem points first to an HIV-positive sex offender and then to a smooth-talking would-be rap promoter.
- 5
Tangled
A doctor is beaten to death and his wife raped in their home, and the investigation runs through his estranged son and his affairs to a mistress and her downstairs neighbor.
- 6
Redemption
A rapist-killer’s signature matches a strangler jailed in the 1980s, and the detective who caught him is sent to help, until it emerges that the old confession was false.
- 7
Sacrifice
A young husband is shot and raped in an alley outside a gay bar, and his silence hides a family supporting a sick child through work in pornography.
- 8
Inheritance
A series of attacks on Asian women leads to the son of a jailed serial rapist, whose lawyer claims his violence is genetic.
- 9
Care
A five-year-old girl in foster care is found beaten to death, and suspicion moves from her birth mother to her foster brother to the women raising them.
- 10
Ridicule
An apparent accidental hanging leads to a male stripper’s rape complaint against the dead woman and two friends, and to the first test of a rewritten rape law.
- 11
Monogamy
A pregnant woman survives an attack in which her baby is cut from her body, and the case against her husband turns on whether the child was ever legally born alive.
- 12
Protection
A boy shot in a drive-by is murdered in his hospital bed, and the detectives must protect his mother and brother, the only witnesses against a ruthless drug dealer.
- 13
Prodigy
The mutilated body of an animal-cruelty agent points detectives to a teenager who tortures animals, but the evidence keeps leading elsewhere.
- 14
Counterfeit
A woman found raped and killed with a trunk full of counterfeit drugs is only the first victim of a rapist who uses traffic stops and a police uniform.
- 15
Execution
With a serial killer days from execution, Stabler races to prove he also murdered a schoolgirl whose case went cold a decade earlier.
- 16
Popular
Stabler pursues a 14-year-old’s unreported rape against her wishes and uncovers junior high parties where sex is traded for beer and drugs.
- 17
Surveillance
Hidden cameras in a young cellist’s apartment lead detectives from her controlling conductor to an obsessed fan, while the real threat stays out of view.
- 18
Guilt
A serial child molester slips toward freedom when his young accuser stops cooperating, and Cabot risks her career with an illegal search to stop him.
- 19
Justice
An unidentified teenager dies after a rape and beating, and the hunt for her killer exposes the secrets of a judge’s family.
- 20
Greed
A rich widow is raped and left for dead in her townhouse, and a planted frame-up against a locksmith hides a pair of Canadian con artists who married their victims.
- 21
Denial
A rape victim’s grisly keepsake leads detectives to a toddler’s remains hidden in a closet for 14 years, and to a mother and grandmother each hiding a child’s death.
- 22
Competence
A pregnant woman with Down syndrome cannot say how it happened, and the search for her rapist runs into a guardianship fight over whether she can decide to keep the baby.
- 23
Silence
The killing of a teenage runaway in a Manhattan church exposes a priest’s past, a diocese’s hush money and a secret bound by the seal of confession.