Redemption (Season 3, Episode 6)
Premise: 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.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 6
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong)
- Guest stars
- David Keith as John Hawk, Kevin Chamberlin as Roger Berry, Ken Marks as Arthur Blessard, Anne Pitoniak as Mrs. Berry, Michael E. Knight as David Steadman
- Director
- Ted Kotcheff
- Writers
- Story: Tara Butters & Michele Fazekas; Written by: Jeff Eckerle
Summary
“Redemption” opens with Stabler losing a case when a jury acquits a grandfather accused of raping his eight-year-old granddaughter, Leslie Bello. Then Jennifer Walton, 25, is found in her Noho apartment bound with pantyhose, beaten, raped and with her throat cut, tucked into bed with a flower on her pillow. The killer washed the glasses and knife and showered before leaving. A neighbor, Edna Dumas, saw a man named David at her door, and co-workers point to David Steadman, a shoe department manager at Wheaton’s. He admits punching her door when she threatened a harassment complaint, but hospital records put him in an emergency room from 7:47 p.m.
A second woman, teacher’s aide Celia Mitchum, is killed the same way, and a contact lens turns up in her bathroom. Det. John Hawk of Manhattan South Homicide (called John Hawkins in the episode) tells Cragen the details match the SoHo Strangler, Roger Berry, whom Hawk sent to prison in the early 1980s and who was paroled six months ago; the white rose and a Navy slipknot were never made public. Hawk is assigned to the squad and paired with Stabler, to Benson’s displeasure. Berry’s apartment holds clippings on both murders, his mother refuses to help, and Hawk catches him at Pier 41. Hawk threatens him with execution in the interview room, but with no DNA result Berry is released with a Legal Aid lawyer.
Benson doubts Berry is the strangler and finds the old files signed out to Hawk. Stabler finds Hawk drinking at home, where he admits he fed Berry every detail and promised he could go home if he signed; a neighbor has now alibied Berry. Hawk’s old notes include a sketch of Arthur Blessard, a nearsighted neighbor who identified Berry and did taxes for one victim. VICAP links the method to 12 more killings in five cities, and Blessard now works as an IRS auditor, using tax files to choose women. The detectives catch him bringing flowers to nurse Beverly Parsons.
Blessard asks for a lawyer, and the lens, a receipt from Berry’s flower shop and hair from the drains are judged circumstantial, since he had business with the victims and Berry’s record offers reasonable doubt, so he goes free. The lab then recovers mixed DNA from a sheet belonging to Marcia Johnston, the first victim 18 years earlier, and Hawk persuades her mother, Phyllis, to allow an exhumation.
Spoiler, the ending: When the detectives go to arrest Blessard, Hawk gets to him first and threatens to kill him. Stabler talks him out of it, and Hawk arrests Blessard for killing Walton, Mitchum and, years earlier, Marcia Johnston. What becomes of Berry’s old conviction is not shown.
Why it stands out
- David Keith, whose role in An Officer and a Gentleman earned him two Golden Globe nominations, guest stars as Det. John Hawk.
- Marni Nixon, the singing voice of Natalie Wood in West Side Story and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, appears as neighbor Edna Dumas.