Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Episode 12.22 Bang

At a children's gym, Roger, a handsome gym instructor, interacts with mothers and their kids. A mother named Vera flirts with Roger but gets politely rejected. She goes outside and finds that someone has left a baby by the trash dumpsters! Later, Dr. Larom tells Benson and Stabler about the condition of the baby. He's Caucasian, two months old, severely hypothermic, and there are no obvious signs of abuse.

Fin tells Benson and Stabler that the baby was wearing an expensive onesie sold at the fancy Upper East Side store, Bebetique. Benson and Stabler show the Bebetique salesperson a picture of the abandoned baby; she immediately recognizes him as Jasper, the son of Dede Aston. Dede adopted Jasper and was raising him alone. Benson and Stabler arrive at Dede's house but she's not home. Instead, they meet Wade Fisk, the renter of her garden apartment. He says he heard yells coming from Dede's apartment the night before.

Fin and Stabler let themselves into Dede's home and find Imelda, Jasper's nanny, crying beside his crib. She says Dede's been out of town on business. Imelda woke this morning only to find Jasper gone. Fin mentions that the neighbor heard screams coming from the apartment the night before. Imelda claims she was alone, but Stabler finds a used condom in the trash can. Imelda's forced to admit she invited her wealthy boyfriend, Ken Turner, over the night before.

Stabler interviews Ken, a former ADA who currently works at Daschle Private Equity doing credit default swaps. Stabler tells Ken he met Imelda and discovered Ken's broken condom. Worse, Ken's fingerprints were all over Jasper's crib. Ken claims he's a friend of Dede's and looks very concerned when he learns that Jasper was kidnapped and left by a dumpster. Ken says he checked on Jasper around midnight, but he didn't take him from Dede's house. Then Ken implies that perhaps Imelda snapped and decided to leave the baby outside to die. Moments later, Dede arrives at the precinct. She gives Ken a hug and kiss and suddenly Stabler realizes: these two are engaged!

Benson tells Dede that she can take Jasper home, but first she needs to answer some questions. Dede explains that she adopted Jasper seven weeks prior. It was a closed adoption, so Dede has no idea who the mother was. Ken handled the legal work. A friend of one of Ken's associates knew of a pregnant girl who couldn't care for her baby. Ken helped with the adoption and soon thereafter he and Dede were engaged. At the precinct, Ken tells Stabler that the Imelda tryst was just a moment of weakness. He claims it won't happen again.

Imelda tells Fin that she and Ken have sex all the time. She claims he's not in love with Dede and will dump her as soon as he gets the courage. Meanwhile, Benson enters the precinct with Dede. Dede and Imelda get into a screaming match. Dede accuses Imelda of abandoning Jasper and trying to seduce Ken! Benson and Fin separate the women. Then Benson asks Dede to prove she was away on a business trip when Jasper disappeared. Dede crumbles under the pressure and reveals that she never went out of town on business; she was at the Waldorf the night Jasper disappeared!

Acting as Dede's lawyer, Ken enters the precinct. In front of Benson, the two get in a heated argument. Dede is furious that Ken slept with Imelda. Then Dede reveals that she's pregnant. She spent the night at the Waldorf to think about what to do. Ken's thrilled; he thinks a sibling for baby Jasper would be a wonderful thing. Ken tells Dede he loves her and says he's glad the condom broke. Benson interrupts to say that Ken's condoms seem to break a lot. She tells Dede that Ken is a "reproductive abuser"; he wants babies and he uses women to make them. He pokes tiny holes in his condoms, a typical move of a reproductive abuser. Unfortunately, Dede clearly still loves Ken and disregards Benson's warning.

Benson and Stabler learn that a hair belonging to Wade Fisk (Dede's neighbor) was found on Jasper's blanket. But why would he kidnap Jasper? Stabler invites Wade to the precinct and interrogates him. Wade says he wasn't trying to kill Jasper, he was trying to save him from that hellhole. Jasper was weeping while Ken and Imelda were having sex. In fact, Ken constantly cheats on Dede. Wade felt it better to leave Jasper near Tumbleweeds where a doting parent would hopefully take Jasper in. When Dede learns Wade kidnapped Jasper, she thinks the nightmare is over. But moments later, Benson and Stabler tell her that Ken has fathered over 20 children in the past 10 years! In fact, Ken is Jasper's father!

Benson and Stabler invite Dr. Audrey Shelton to the precinct. Audrey specializes in reproductive abusers and tells Benson that these abusers often use coercion to force women to bear their children. Benson thinks they should interview some of Ken's victims to see if Ken abused any of them. Benson decides to start with Bridget, Jasper's biological mother. Benson and Audrey interview Bridget, a broken woman who struggles with drug addiction. She says Ken took their baby, claiming he knew someone who could give Jasper a better life. It's clear Bridget still mourns the loss of her child and still wants him back. Audrey tells Benson that now they can bust Ken for the illegal adoption.

Stabler and Fin track Ken down at an upscale hotel where he's seducing yet another beautiful woman. Stabler arrests Ken for putting Jasper up for adoption without Bridget's consent. At the precinct, Ken is unapologetic, claiming Bridget's a coke fiend. Dede, on the other hand, is stable and secure. Later, Audrey tells Stabler that Ken is the worst reproductive abuser she's ever seen. "His charm is what makes him so dangerous," Audrey says. Free on a technicality, Ken gets ready to leave the precinct. Before he leaves, Benson intercepts him, along with all of the women - and children - Ken's victimized! Ken learns that one of his victims killed herself - and their child - when Ken abandoned them. Ken is unapologetic, claiming he loves all of his children. Hours later, Ken is found beaten to death behind Dede's home.

Stabler and Fin find Wade getting ready to skip town. Wade claims he discovered Ken's dead body but had nothing to do with the murder. Inside Wade's home, Stabler finds a wasp injection knife, a weapon that Stabler feels Wade might've used in the murder. Benson and Stabler interrogate Wade, but he claims he's not the only diver in the builder who has a wasp knife. In fact, Dede has one too. Benson and Stabler meet with Dede who immediately confesses to owning a wasp knife. She says she didn't kill Ken, but she does admit that it's possible someone stole her knife to commit the crime. Benson and Stabler then meet with Ken's other victims who claim that only Audrey was missing from their dinner the night before. Benson and Stabler go to Audrey's house where she is calmly sipping wine and holding the bloody knife! Ken invited her to Dede's the night before and rather than sleep with him, she decided to kill him.