Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

- In the criminal justice system,

sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous.

In New York City, the dedicated detectives

who investigate these vicious felonies

are members of an elite squad

known as the Special Victims Unit.

These are their stories.

- I really wish you would consider

getting out of that unit.

- Come on, Mother. Let's not tonight.

- Do you think this is healthy for you?

- You were raped, for God's sake.

- If your mom were still alive, how old would she be?

- Uh, my mother, Serena, would have been 77.

- Wow. - Yeah.

- And you were already a detective when she died?

I was.

- Did she like that you were a detective?

- Well, it sounds like you're being the detective now.

- Do you miss her? - Yeah.

- 'Cause she was a good mom like you.

Noah, you should know by now

that no one's as good a mom as I am.

Mom, not at school.

- Love you. - I love you.

Have a good day. Put your mask on.

Sorry I was late. I...

So I'm walking Noah to school...

Mm-hmm.

- And out of the blue, he asked me about my mother.

You went with short answer?

- Yeah. - Good.

- So what is this about a suspect?

He walked himself in.

He hasn't confessed yet, but he says

he will only speak to the captain.

And heads up, this guy's a charmer.

- I'm guilty. - Oh, my God, Nick.

Whose idea was this? - Mine.

- What, you're captain now, you don't like surprises?

I've never liked surprises.

Hey. - Hey.

What brings you to New York?

- Work, a job I've been on the last few years.

A company called FORYM. - Yeah.

I thought you were a PI.

- No, I told you he went back to grad school.

- In genetics and forensic science.

We test DNA samples

that used to be considered too small or too degraded.

Solving cold cases.

That seems like a good fit for you.

- Which means we can work together again.

Nick has an old SVU case that he wants to reopen.

- 1996, Haley West is 15 years old.

Raped and strangled on prom night.

- Hold on, this was one of Cragen's.

I remember... I remember him talking about it.

But is it cold?

Didn't they catch the... the boyfriend?

Ian Ridley, yes.

He actually did confess, and he's still doing time,

but he recanted at sentencing,

and the only DNA found on Haley's body

was from his saliva.

I was approached by a true crime writer

looking into wrongful convictions.

He asked me if we could try to salvage old DNA,

so I'm coming to you.

- Well, let's pull the files, see if anything's there.

654.

West. Haley West, right here.

Wow, she's so young. And a sweet face.

- Haley's mother never got over losing her.

Ian's not the killer.

Hm, Burton Lowe, the writer, he's here.

- Nick, I thought you said this place was a dump.

- Ah, well, they've fixed it up since I left.

Burton Lowe, Detective Amanda Rollins.

- How do you do? - Hi.

Captain's waiting for us.

- Captain, Nick's writer is here.

- Burton. - Olivia.

You haven't changed. - Neither have you.

And now that we've established

that we're both liars...

Nick, you didn't tell me

that your crime writer was... was Burton Lowe.

Should I have?

Um, we are old friends.

From a lifetime ago.

- My mother was an English professor.

When I was 16, I started dating one of her students.

He was a senior.

He was 21 years old, and he asked me to marry him.

- Look at this. Serena would be proud.

Well, if you recall,

that wasn't Serena's strong suit.

No, it wasn't, was it?

Anyway, Haley West. - Yeah.

- Yes, of course. Please have a seat.

So I called my former captain, Cragen,

and he said that the boyfriend...

- Ian Ridley. - Confessed within 48 hours.

- He did, but he was 18, concussed, traumatized...

Concussed?

- His initial story was that he and Haley were making out

when an unknown assailant knocked him out.

When he came to, Haley was gone.

- And they found her strangled, beaten body

two hours later in Fort Tyron Park.

- My take, he was probably so guilt-ridden

about what happened.

- He convinced himself that he did it?

Mm-hmm.

- How'd you get involved, Burton?

- Ian's mother wrote to me before she died.

I promised her I'd do right by him.

At his parole hearing,

the board was ready to release Ian if he showed contrition.

When it was time for Ian to apologize, he couldn't.

25 years behind bars,

two words away from walking free,

and instead he says,

"I believe in two things, the truth and miracles.

I know the truth, and I need a miracle."

- New DNA technology can be that miracle.

If there's even 15 cells from the original sample,

my company can tease out a genetic profile.

- After 25 years? - Oh, yeah.

- I'll need to call Carisi. That's our ADA.

Understood.

Here you go.

I had to send my gnomes deep into the crypt

to get this out. - I owe you, Melinda.

- Once an SVU detective, always an SVU detective.

You're lucky this wasn't tossed.

You do know this is a closed case.

Yeah, we know that the saliva

on Haley West matched Ian Ridley.

We're just... we're hoping there might be some other samples.

- Barely... there was a trace of seminal fluid

in the autopsy rape kit. - And it was never tested?

- The quantity was too low in '96,

and, as is stated here, the suspect confessed.

M.E. Rogers had no reason to perform more testing.

- But it's still viable? - Maybe.

The kit sat in freezer purgatory

this whole time.

As DNA degrades, it's much harder to analyze.

- But with our new tech, mixture deconvolution,

KinSNP analysis...

- You get a chance to rebuild the genetic profile.

Well, look at you, Dr. Amaro.

Doctor, no, not yet,

but I am working on it, biophysics.

Yeah, it's good to see you. And thank you for this.

Cognitive reenactment?

How'd you get a judge to sign off on this?

Oh, I didn't.

I pulled a favor from an ADA

who used to be one of my detectives.

- An ADA, a geneticist... Your ex-detectives go places.

Well, I wish they wouldn't,

because, as my mother used to say, everyone leaves.

Serena was a little dark.

- You know, Burton, if you needed help on a case,

you could've just told Nick you knew me or gotten in touch.

I guess I was afraid

that you'd just say no considering how we ended.

- You know, my mother made me write that letter to you

to break off our engagement.

She told me that you had a real girlfriend in college.

I did not.

I was in love with you. I told her that.

But you disappeared.

- Oh, I wanted to write you, to see you.

She told me if I even tried to get in touch,

she'd have me immediately expelled.

- Well, then she lied to both of us.

To be continued.

Hello, Ian.

This is Captain Benson of the SVU.

Hey.

- Mr. Lowe got you to reopen my case?

- If the detectives on the case missed anything back then,

then I wanna find that out.

Okay, well, thank you.

I know it's been, like, 25 years,

but I'm kind of...

Kind of freaked to be back here.

- That's... that's completely normal, Ian.

Returning... Returning to the scene

can trigger memories, right? And that's why we're here.

So anything that comes

to your mind, a sound, a smell, that can be helpful.

- All right, guys, guys, he's not going anywhere.

Yeah, just give him a minute.

Prom night.

Haley and I booked it out here past the chaperones.