Gone (Season 7, Episode 16)
Premise: A Canadian teenager disappears on a school trip to New York, and the case against three prep school boys rests on a gentle witness who then vanishes himself.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 7, Episode 16
- 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 Casey Novak (Diane Neal), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson), Judge Elizabeth Donnelly (Judith Light), CSU Ryan O’Halloran (Mike Doyle), TARU Ruben Morales (Joel de la Fuente)
- Guest stars
- Harry Zittel as Jason King, Paul David Story as Nicky Pratt, Teddy Eck as Doug Waverly, Maggie Siff as Emily McCooper, Susan Saint James as Monica Bradshaw
- Director
- George Pattison
- Writers
- Jonathan Greene
Summary
“Gone” opens with arrests: Doug Waverly is pulled off a chartered plane bound for Rio, while his friend Jason King and Jason’s cousin, Nicky Pratt, are picked up at school. All three are charged with raping and killing Jennifer Durning, a 17-year-old Canadian student who vanished two months earlier on a senior class trip to New York. With no body, the judge dismisses the rape and murder counts, and DA Arthur Branch tells Novak to find Jennifer or turn one of the boys.
Detectives confront the boys with club video of them leaving with Jennifer, hotel footage of her returning in tears and her call telling a friend she was gang raped. Doug and Nicky blame Jason, but the hotline tip about Doug’s flight is traced to Jason, who was shielding his cousin. Before a grand jury, the shy piano student says the other two raped Jennifer under the FDR Drive, then talked about killing her, and that he took the train home. Nicky and Doug are indicted, and Jason’s parents hide him in a rented house in the Catskills. A stray hair in Jennifer’s bathroom leads to Keith Willis, a confused alcoholic who had her purse and used its room key to take her coat. He says the boys paid him $50 to lure her to a pay phone with a story about her passport, then forced her into their car, but his memory is unreliable.
Jason then disappears, leaving tire tracks from a small car. Branch suspects a leak in Judge Elizabeth Donnelly’s office and keeps her uninformed while Novak stalls with character witnesses. When Donnelly demands Jason, Branch and Novak tell her, and a sweep finds a listening device in her chambers. Without proof that Jason was harmed, his grand jury testimony cannot be read, so after the people rest, Donnelly grants the defense motion and dismisses every charge.
Spoiler, the ending: Branch pushes Novak to keep going, and she traces the bug to court officer Emily McCooper, who is sleeping with Nicky, owned a car matching the tire tracks and delivered Jason to a Bronx produce business run by Doug’s father. A toll camera and a hired driver fill in the night of Jennifer’s murder, and the boys’ Chevelle turns up in a police tow pound, its trunk holding blood and hair, after a typing error hid it. Dogs near the river find Jennifer’s sneaker but not her body. Jason’s body is pulled from the water, and Nicky and Doug, already cleared in Jennifer’s death, are arrested for his murder.
Why it stands out
- Fred Thompson makes his last SVU appearance as DA Arthur Branch; he went on playing the role on the original Law & Order for another year.
- Susan Saint James guest stars as a defense attorney, her first television role in ten years.