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Albert Lawrence Cheney is the antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Vengeance". He was a serial killer who tortured and murdered women and left their bodies in degrading poses. He was loosely based on the late Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler".
He was portrayed by the late James Rebhorn who also portrayed Belcher in The Adventures of Pluto Nash.
Biography
Cheney killed his first victim while working as an electrician. Police eventually connected him to the victim, and he was imprisoned for five years for manslaughter.
Upon his release, he married a woman named Sara who corresponded with him in a prison pen pal program, and started a new career as a bookkeeper, working mostly for doctors in his area. He also went to church and prayed with Sara obviously in order to help throw off suspicion that he was a serial killer. He had also kept his electrician's badge and the elevator keys to his old building, which allowed him to claim more victims.
Detectives Mike Logan and Phil Cerreta come to suspect Cheney after discovering that his latest victims had all gone to the same doctor, who had employed Cheney. They question him for twelve hours, but he does not confess. They learn that he has a storage locker, where they find gruesome Polaroids of his victims. Cheney's lawyer argues that the search was illegal, and his wife gives him an alibi for the time of the murders.
When Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone shows her the Polaroids, however, she admits she lied to protect him because she didn't know he was now a serial killer (despite her clearly knowing the fact that he was convicted of manslaughter) and also because she was now a unwitting accomplice to murder which broke spousal privilege along with the fact that she learned it from Stone and not Cheney and along with all the evidence against him and as a result Cheney is found guilty of several murders, and sentenced to twenty-five years to life in prison.
