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| “ | Since when is it a crime to bring a lady flowers? | „ |
| ~ Blessard after being caught about to kill a woman. |
Arthur Blessard. also known as "The Soho Strangler", is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Redemption". He is a serial killer who rapes and strangles women whose tax returns he audits.
He was portrayed by Ken Marks.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Blessard is a serial killer and tax auditor with the IRS who preys on women in New York City whose returns he audits. Once he is assigned his victims' returns, he offers to take them to dinner, which lowers their guard enough for him to rape and strangle them. After they are dead, he places a white rose next to their bodies.
His crimes were blamed on a mentally handicapped man named Roger Berry, thanks to the NYPD detective on the case, John "Hawk" Hawkins, who coerced a confession out of Berry. While Berry was put in prison, Blessard committed murders in Chicago, Illinois, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
"Redemption"[]
Shortly after Berry is released from prison, the IRS transfers Blessard back to New York City, where he resumes his killing spree. He buys his trademark white roses at the flower shop where Berry is employed to frame him once again. After Blessard rapes and murders Jennifer Walton and Celia Mitchum, Detective Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, a friend of Hawkins', joins him in investigating the murders, which Hawkins is convinced Berry committed.
Ultimately, however, Stabler and Hawkins discover that Berry has an ironclad alibi for both murders; since they were undoubtedly committed by the same killer as the earlier murders in the series, that means that he is innocent of all of them.
Determined to find the real killer, Stabler and a repentant Hawkins re-examine the evidence and discover that Blessard had audited all of the victims' tax returns. They find him just as he is about to kill his latest victim and detain him for questioning, but they are forced to let him go for lack of evidence.
Blessard's luck finally runs out after Hawkins persuades the parents of his first victim, Marcia Johnston, to allow him to exhume the body, and medical examiner Melinda Warner finds Blessard's DNA on it. Stabler and Hawkins go to Blessard's apartment to arrest him, but Blessard takes off running to the roof of his apartment complex, with Stabler and Hawkins in hot pursuit. Blessard trips and falls, grabbing a ledge for dear life while Hawkins stands over him. Hawkins considers letting Blessard fall to his death, but Stabler persuades him to do the right thing, and they pull him up. Stabler allows Hawkins his redemption by letting him arrest Blessard before they take him away.
Blessard is then found guilty of multiple rapes and murders and executed.
External links[]
- Arthur Blessard on the Law & Order Wiki
