Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 5 Episode Guide
Plot summaries for the fifth season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which aired on NBC from September 2003 to May 2004, featuring Det. Elliot Stabler, Det. Olivia Benson, Det. John Munch, Det. Fin Tutuola, Capt. Donald Cragen, Dr. George Huang and ADAs Alexandra Cabot and Casey Novak.
- 1
Tragedy
A heavily pregnant artist disappears in what looks like a carjacking, and the detectives race to find her before a dangerous labor kills her and her baby.
- 2
Manic
A teenage survivor of a school shooting turns out to be the shooter, and his defense puts an antidepressant and its maker on trial.
- 3
Mother
A psychiatrist known for treating sex offenders is attacked and left in a drug den, and the investigation exposes her methods and a patient’s buried past.
- 4
Loss
The murder of a supposed call girl exposes an undercover police officer inside a Colombian cartel, and prosecuting her killer puts Cabot in the cartel’s sights.
- 5
Serendipity
The deaths of a young mother and her newborn lead to a dermatologist with a hidden past and a child predator still at large.
- 6
Coerced
A homeless man with untreated schizophrenia kidnaps a five-year-old he believes is his own son, and the hunt exposes both Stabler’s methods and a neglectful adult home.
- 7
Choice
A pregnant restaurant owner attacked by her estranged husband ends up in court herself when he challenges her right to an abortion and then her drinking during the pregnancy.
- 8
Abomination
The murder of a former poster model for an ex-gay ministry leads detectives through anti-gay activists and academic rivals to a reparative therapist and his closeted son.
- 9
Control
A man found castrated in a subway station proves to be a serial kidnapper who kept women as “brides” in a hidden dungeon, and one of his victims is a woman Benson once failed to believe.
- 10
Shaken
A toddler found unconscious near a playground has been violently shaken, and the search for who hurt her moves from a stranger to the nannies and finally to her mother.
- 11
Escape
Two inmates escape from a Virginia prison, and a convicted child rapist heads to New York to confront the boy whose testimony put him away.
- 12
Brotherhood
A fraternity pledge master is found murdered at a sewage plant, and the case uncovers years of sadistic hazing inside his house.
- 13
Hate
A Muslim woman is raped and burned alive in Manhattan, and when a second Muslim victim dies the same way, the detectives hunt a killer driven by hatred.
- 14
Ritual
A young boy’s mutilated body is found beside the remains of what looks like a religious sacrifice, and the investigation uncovers a trade in children smuggled from Nigeria.
- 15
Families
A 16-year-old prep-school student is found dead and pregnant, and the baby’s DNA reveals a family secret that ties two New York households together.
- 16
Home
A boy found scavenging for food leads detectives to a homeschooling mother whose fear of the outside world ends with one of her sons shot dead.
- 17
Mean
A well-liked high school girl is found tortured to death in the trunk of her own car, and suspicion moves from a bullied classmate to the victim’s closest friends.
- 18
Careless
A six-year-old foster child is pronounced dead after a prayer service, and the investigation turns from a faith healer to the foster home and the caseworker who never checked on him.
- 19
Sick
A 12-year-old’s violent online fantasies lead detectives to a wealthy toy heir who bought his family’s silence, and then to a second accuser whose story is not what it seems.
- 20
Lowdown
A Bronx prosecutor found strangled on a prostitution stroll turns out to have been living a hidden life, and the trail leads to the colleague he loved.
- 21
Criminal
A graduate student is raped and strangled by a killer who knows forensics, and suspicion falls on her criminology adviser, a former addict Cragen once arrested for murder.
- 22
Painless
A woman who reported a rape after nearly suffocating dies of an insulin overdose in the hospital, and the trail leads to the deaf scientist behind a suicide website.
- 23
Bound
The strangling of a wealthy, terminally ill widow links two older murders to a home-nursing company run by a doctor and his sister.
- 24
Poison
A mother accused of making her adopted daughter swallow detergent is acquitted by a judge whose past rulings Novak sets out to expose.
- 25
Head
A restroom voyeur’s hidden camera captures a sixth grader being sexually assaulted, and the trail leads to his school principal and a tumor in her brain.