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| “ | Stupid whores. They know I'm out there. They still fall for it. 'Oh, hey, honey, are you crazy walkin' home alone? You know, there are guys out there that'll snatch you up. Come on, get in.' The dumb, drunk bitches did. You ask me, they wanted it. They liked the thrill of getting some scary strange. | „ |
| ~ Ryan bragging about his crimes. |
Alex Ryan is the secondary antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Know It All". He is a serial killer and rapist who preys on drunk women who walk home alone from bars.
He was portrayed by Bill Dawes.
Overview[]
Ryan is a misogynistic psychopath who takes pleasure in raping and killing women. He uses his job as a gypsy cab driver to pick up drunk women who walk home alone from bars, and then tie them up and rape, torture, and strangle them to death. He takes strands of hair from the backs of their necks as trophies.
By the time of the episode, he has murdered several women in Boston and three in New York City, earning him the nicknames "The Second Avenue Strangler" in the press and "The Pattern 23 Rapist" among the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, who are investigating his crimes.
"Know It All"[]
When Jennifer Knowles is found murdered in the same manner as the "Second Avenue Strangler"'s previous victims, the SVU detectives investigate the murder as another in his series.
Meanwhile, Ryan picks up another drunk woman with the intention of raping and murdering her, but she recognizes him from a police sketch and texts the police tip line, and a patrol car pulls him over. When an officer finds a rope, a knife, condoms, and bloodstains in Ryan's trunk, he arrests him and notifies SVU.
Detectives Dominick Carisi, Jr. and Marcus Perry interrogate Ryan, who at first claims he was merely trying to help the woman get home safe. When the detectives reveal that they have damning DNA evidence against him, however, he realizes that he has finally been caught, and starts bragging about what he did to his victims, whom he derides as "dumb, drunk bitches" who "wanted it".
Carisi shows him photos of three of the victims and asks if he killed them; Ryan confirms that he killed all of them, taking ghoulish pleasure in recounting what he did to them. When Perry shows him Knowles' photo, however, he merely shrugs and says, "Sure, that one, too - keep 'em coming." Ryan's affect when seeing Knowles' face - as if it was for the first time - makes Lieutenant Olivia Benson skeptical that he is responsible for her death. Additionally, the autopsy report on Knowles' body reveals that the semen found inside her does not match Ryan's DNA, and that she died of blunt force trauma to the head, not strangulation. These inconsistencies motivate Benson and her detectives to keep investigating the case.
By the end of the episode, the detectives discover that Knowles was in fact murdered by her boss and lover David Willard, who struck her over the head during a post-coital argument and strangled her corpse to make her death look like the work of the "Second Avenue Strangler". Willard is imprisoned for murdering Knowles, while Ryan is imprisoned for the other murders; both receive life sentences.
Trivia[]
- Ryan is inspired by real-life serial killer Chester Turner.
External links[]
- Alex Ryan on the Law & Order Wiki
