Signature (Season 9, Episode 12)
Premise: Benson and Lake team with an FBI profiler to hunt a serial sexual sadist, only to find he has already been executed, and that the shooter may be on their side.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 9, Episode 12
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Chester Lake (Adam Beach), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Erika Christensen as FBI Special Agent Lauren Cooper, Jane Cronin as Helen Moore, Priscilla Lopez as Executive ADA Lydia Ramos, Frankie Faison as FBI Agent Tom Nickerson, Rosemary De Angelis as Mrs. Tillman
- Director
- Arthur W. Forney
- Writers
- Judith McCreary
Summary
“Signature” opens after an anonymous email about a dead dog sends park workers to a remote corner of Central Park, where they find two bodies. A woman was bound, burned and tortured before dying of “dry drowning,” and a man was shot once in the head at point-blank range. FBI behavioral analyst Lauren Cooper arrives and recognizes the work of a sexual sadist the Bureau calls the Woodsman and links to more than 20 murders in several states. With Stabler and Fin in Montreal on an extradition, Benson and Lake take the case with Cooper. The dead woman turns out to be Kate Barrow, a waitress who belonged to a park foraging group, and Cooper reveals that the Woodsman profile was compiled by her mentor, Dr. Carl Tillman, before his mental decline and suicide.
DNA from the scene identifies the shot man himself as the Woodsman: Larry Moore, a seasonal park ranger in the Blue Ridge Mountains. His aunt, Helen Moore, says he molested girls as a teenager and loved watching ships leave the docks, and an old cruise-line receipt leads to a waterfront warehouse in New Jersey. Inside, the team finds a tortured woman, Amy, locked in a drawer; she dies in the hospital without giving her full name. Video from the internet café that sent the email then shows Cooper leaving it minutes later. She refuses to answer Benson’s questions, and a search of her apartment turns up the missing pieces of Moore’s skull and the shell casing.
Cooper is charged with second-degree murder, but at the arraignment Executive ADA Lydia Ramos drops the charge, later arguing that no jury will convict someone for killing a serial murderer. She tells Novak to come back with enough evidence to force Cooper to plead guilty to manslaughter. Tillman’s widow admits she gave Cooper her husband’s .45 as a keepsake, and because ballistics were run when he used the same gun to kill himself, the casing can be matched to it without the weapon.
Spoiler, the ending: Benson and Lake go to Cooper’s apartment. She says the gun is scattered in pieces around the city and admits that Moore, with the barrel against his head, refused to reveal where Amy was; she sent the email hoping someone would find her in time. Urged to accept the plea, Cooper refuses, remarking that people who fight monsters must be careful not to turn into one, then produces a gun and turns it on herself, dying in front of the detectives.
Why it stands out
- Erika Christensen guest stars as FBI profiler Lauren Cooper.
- With Stabler and Fin away on an extradition, Benson partners with Lake, who joined the squad full time this season.
- Frankie Faison appears as FBI Agent Tom Nickerson, a role he also played in season 8’s “Florida.”