The Law & Order franchise deals with all manner of violent crimes, from homicide to robbery and sexual assault. It's known for its dramatic use of artistic license, often emphasizing the most sensational aspects of a crime purely for entertainment value. Surprisingly enough, the vast majority of its episodes are "ripped from the headlines" cases, that over the years have revealed the shockingly disturbing crimes happening right here in the United States.
From husbands cutting the 7-month-old fetuses from out of their dead wife's wombs to sexual deviants forcing their murder victims to do degrading acts before they're slain, Law & Order doesn't have to look very hard for content when it's home-grown. It also doesn't have to stretch the truth very much to highlight some of the worst crimes in US history.
10 GIRL KIDNAPPED WHILE HER MOTHER AT DINNER 100 FEET AWAY
When a couple loses their child because of a hotel robbery, it's up to Detectives Eames and Detective Goren of Law & Order: Criminal Intent to track down the kidnapper. “Folie à Deux” uses the 2007 case involving Madeleine McCann, a child who was abducted while her mother sat 100 feet away eating dinner, as inspiration for the harrowing tale.
In this episode, $2 million dollars in ransom is demanded, which the couple cannot possibly pay. The real Madeleine McCann was abducted in Portugal while on holiday with her parents and remains "the most heavily reported missing persons case in modern history" to this day. She has never been found.
9 OLDER BROTHER USING YOUNGER BROTHER FOR PORN RING
In one of the most disturbing episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a family is torn apart by sexual abuse for two generations. A mother has just accepted her ex-husband has been put away forever after sexually abusing her eldest son, only to find out that he may have begun sexually abusing his younger brother.
It's revealed that her eldest son, himself a minor, has been running a child pornography ring online, publishing content he also stars in. Eventually, he starts using his eight-year-old brother to entice web traffic, which ends up getting him flagged by the SVU not a moment too soon.
8 MAN SEXUALLY ASSAULTS THE SAME WOMAN FOR ALMOST 2 DECADES
In Season 12 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Jennifer Love-Hewitt guest stars as a woman who is repeatedly sexually abused by the same man for more than fifteen years. Detective Olivia Benson tries to help the victim, but the case keeps getting bogged down with the back-log of rape-kits and bureaucratic ineptitude.
The episode was inspired by a real sexual assault victim in California, whose case also didn't get processed for years. The horror of the episode resides in both the brutality of the act committed by the aggressor, and the fact that it highlights the real problem that there are hundreds of thousands of kits that go untested every year.
7 MOTHER "REBIRTHS" HER DAUGHTER UNTIL SHE DIES
In a particularly unnerving episode of Law & Order, the body of an 11-year-old girl is found asphyxiated near a park, but it isn't the original setting of her demise. The detectives approach her mother, who claims that her daughter had severe behavioral problems, and had been seeing a special behavioral therapist to try to curtail them.
What she failed to mention, was that one of the remedies imparted by her therapist involved "rebirthing" her daughter. By wrapping her daughter tightly in blankets and forcing her to fight her way free, she would effectively be "Reborn", devoid of the behavioral problems she developed in her formative years. The tragedy was both that her daughter died from the process, and that this case was based on a true story.
6 BROTHERS PARTICIPATE IN A QUADRUPLE HOMICIDE
"Dominance" is an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit that just keeps getting darker the longer it unfolds, beginning with an engagement dinner that turns into a quadruple homicide. The male victims were forced to sexually assault the women, before doing the same to each other. They are all then murdered by a perpetrator who desired revenge through the domination of their victims.
The detectives soon discover that the crime is linked back to two brothers, one of whom (the more dominant) has been forcing himself on partners and making his brother participate, before murdering them and concealing their remains. His reign of terror ends when his brother stands up for himself and tells the detectives were the last of the victims are.
5 GRANDMOTHER POISONS GRANDDAUGHTER AND LETS HER GET MOLESTED
In an attempt to extort a famous billionaire known for having a giant toy store and befriending young children, a grandmother sends her cancer-ridden granddaughter, April, to one of his "sleepovers". Afterward, she claims the child was sexually molested, though the accusation is later dismissed. It's later revealed that April never had cancer - she's been slowly poisoned by her grandmother with mercury.
While it's tragic that April has been forcibly made ill by her grandmother, the real horror comes from the fact that Billy never gets a day in prison, even despite other allegations of real victims who have been victims of his sexual appetite. Their lives are ruined and many of them flee the country to escape his reach.
4 MAN KEEPS A PERSONAL SEX SLAVE CAGED IN HIS HOUSE
In the first season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a Romanian housekeeper is kept by her employer as a sex slave. When she isn't performing her domestic duties, she's bound and gagged, and kept in a dirty steel cage out of sight. While an episode about a fancy lawyer keeping a sex slave isn't remarkable by SVU standards, this was based on a real case.
The real victim, Tanya Kach, was abducted by a security guard and forced to be his sex slave for ten years before authorities knew what happened to her and were able to help her escape. She would go on to use the horrible experience as the impetus to write a best-selling book about surviving trauma.
3 MAN BURIES GIRL ALIVE
"911" has been hailed as one of the most innovative and pulse-pounding episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, in which Olivia Benson takes a call from a frightened nine-year-old named Maria, who explains that she's been kidnapped and fears for her life, and remains on the phone nearly the entire episode trying to pinpoint her location.
While some of her colleagues question the authenticity of Maria's call (especially since problems arise corroborating a story about her dead mother) and her phone can't be traced, Benson never loses faith that she'll find her before it's too late. She eventually finds Maria, who is barely breathing, buried alive in the parking lot of an old restaurant.
2 CHILD PAGEANT STAR IS ABDUCTED
In Season 8 of the original series, a young model is abducted, forcing Detectives Briscoe and Curtis to travel all the way to Baltimore to investigate her disappearance. They also work alongside Detective John Munch, who would become prominent in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
The missing model, unfortunately, turns out to be deceased, mimicking the real case of JonBenét Ramsey from the '90s, whose body had been found asphyxiated in the basement of her home eight hours after it was reported missing by her parents. Her case has never been solved to this day.
1 MAN REMOVES FETUS FROM DEAD WIFE'S WOMB
John Ritter famously guest-starred in "Monogamy", an episode in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit's 3rd season that investigated the strange death of a woman who had been 7 months pregnant at the time she was beaten, except that the fetus had been primitively removed from her body.
Eventually the investigation points to her husband, a psychiatrist with many secrets, several involving his late wife. He eventually is found to have taken the fetus, after murdering his wife because she strayed outside their marriage. The case was actually based on the slaying of expectant mother Bobbie Jo Stinnett.
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