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| “ | I'm the man you're looking for. | „ |
| ~ Pruitt after Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler arrest him. |
Arthur Pruitt is a supporting antagonist in the Law & Order franchise; he is the overarching antagonist of the 1994 Law & Order episode "Mayhem", and the main antagonist of the 2000 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit two-part episode "Entitled".
He is a misogynistic serial killer who murders couples in "lovers lanes" because he is jealous of them for enjoying the intimacy and sexual pleasure that he cannot have. He is loosely based upon the infamous serial killer David Berkowitz, also known as the the "Son of Sam".
He was portrayed by Sean Cullen.
Biography[]
Personality[]
In "Mayhem", forensic psychiatrist Elizabeth Olivet profiles the then-unidentified killer as a sexually frustrated loner with poor social skills who broods over a long list real and imagined slights. She theorizes that he targets couples because he envies and resents them for experiencing the pleasure and closeness denied him. She also believes that the female partners are his true targets; his female victims serve as surrogates for the women who have rejected him in the past.
In "Entitled", Pruitt says that he spared the woman in his first attack out of old-fashioned chivalry; he considers himself a "gentleman of the old school".
Appearances[]
"Mayhem"[]
In Queens, New York City, Pruitt attacks a couple who are making out in their car, and shoots and kills the man. He then moves to Manhattan, where he kills Ken Scofield, a fashion model, while he is about to have sex in his car with Jill Templeton, a magazine editor, who witnesses the murder and flees the scene. NYPD Homicide Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Mike Logan investigate the case and, based on Jill's description and a series of coincidences, they arrest a florist named Scott Hexter as the killer. Hexter is later cleared of the murders, but is killed in prison before he can be released.
"Entitled"[]
Pruitt later commits two more murders before turning to con schemes, being subsequently arrested inside an Indian bingo casino on charges of check kiting, forgery, mail and credit card fraud, and weapons possession. He is sent to Lompoc Prison, where he befriends mob hitman Cesar Ordoniez, to whom he confessed his murders. They are both eventually released.
When heiress Stephanie Mulroney kills her former fiancée, Dean Woodruff, her wealthy mother Regina contracts Gus Iacone, a gangster and employer of Ordoniez, to help clean up the mess. On Iacone's orders, Cesar stages the crime scene to appear as if Pruitt killed Woodruff and Stephanie witnessed it. He later kills another man named Stanley Brecker, who owed money to the mob, with the help of a call girl named Helen Katish, again mimicking Pruitt's modus operandi.
Briscoe and his new partner, Detective Ed Green, eventually arrest Pruitt, with help from Detectives Olivia Benson, Elliot Stabler, John Munch, and Monique Jeffries of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit. Three witnesses (Jill Templeton, Stephanie Mulroney and Helen Katish) identify him as Woodruff and Brecker's murderer. He confesses to killing Woodruff, but not the other victims, in an attempt to avoid the death penalty. He is then presumably imprisoned for life.
External links[]
- Arthur Pruitt on the Law & Order Wiki
