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| “ | A drug addict or a rapist broke into her room. How about lack of personal responsibility as a motive, or atheistic hedonism? | „ |
| ~ Hadley turning his daughter-in-law's murder into a sermon for his own gain. |
Dr. Benjamin "Ben" Hadley, Sr. is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Misleader". He is the president of a prominent fundamentalist Christian university who manipulates the investigation of his daughter-in-law's murder to cover up the fact that he is the father of her unborn child, his own grandson.
He was portrayed by Robert Foxworth, who also portrayed Frederick Barrett in the original Law & Order, Paul Buher in Damien: Omen II, V'Las in Star Trek: Enterprise, and James Leyton in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Early life[]
Hadley and his wife Sharon ran Midvale College, a private, fundamentalist Christian university in Baltimore that lobbied for legislation and causes championed by neoconservatives and the Religious Right. Hadley ran the university with an iron fist, firing anyone who disagreed with him, to the point that Midvale was censured for abuse of administrative power.
Hadley and Sharon had a son, Ben Jr., and they got him a job as a professor at the university. Nevertheless, Hadley treated Ben Jr. more like an underperforming employee than a son, when he paid attention to him at all. When Ben Jr. married a young woman named Sylvia Stone, Hadley began sleeping with her almost immediately. Eventually, he got her pregnant.
Hadley, Sharon, and Sylvia went to New York City together on a business trip to New York City, all staying in the same hotel, where Hadley and Sylvia had sex in his and Sharon's room while his wife was at a meeting. Ben Jr., who had found out about the affair and followed Sylvia to New York, confronted her about her infidelity and strangled her to death in a fit of rage. Terrified, he went to his father for help, and Hadley altered the crime scene to make it look like Sylvia had been raped and murdered by a random stranger.
"Misleader"[]
Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit investigate Sylvia's murder and talk to both Hadley and Ben Jr.; the former blames the murder on "atheistic hedonism", while the latter in angry and uncommunicative. Hadley later makes a public statement that the "moral decay of America" is responsible for Sylvia's death and all but advertising Midvale as the last bastion of Christian faith.
Benson and Stabler briefly suspect Brad Weber, Midvale's financial manager, who was seen drinking and flirting with Sylvia on the night of her death. Hadley tells them that Weber is a heavy drinker who frequently harasses female employees in order to steer suspicion toward him and away from Ben Jr. Weber vehemently declares his innocence, however, even offering to submit to a blood test to prove it. The test clears him of suspicion, and Benson and Stabler start looking into the Hadley family, learning that Midvale was losing money thanks to Hadley's mismanagement and that Hadley has started a charitable foundation in Sylvia's name to get more funding from donors.
Benson asks Sylvia to meet with her and tells her that Sylvia was two months pregnant at the time of her death. Stunned and saddened, Sylvia tells Benson that Hadley had confessed his affair with Sylvia to him, but she says she did not know he had gotten her pregnant.
The SVU team brings Hadley and Ben Jr. both in for questioning, believing that one of them killed Sylvia. When surveillance footage from the hotel proves that Ben Jr. was there at the time of Sylvia's death, while DNA from Sylvia's fetus proves that she was carrying Hadley's child.
Benson, Stabler, and Captain Donald Cragen interrogate Ben Jr. in front of Hadley, confronting him with evidence proving that he strangled Sylvia to death; they also tell him that Hadley fathered her unborn child. Devastated and enraged, Ben Jr. confesses to killing Sylvia after forcing her to admit she was cheating on him. Sharon enters the interrogation room and tells Cragen that Hadley staged the robbery to cover for their son and conceal the fact that he fathered his own grandchild; she then tells Hadley that she is going to divorce him.
Hadley is then presumably jailed for obstruction of justice and tampering with a crime scene.
Trivia[]
- Hadley is loosely based on the Reverends Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, who both concealed extramarital affairs from their families and followers.
- Robert Foxworth, who portrayed Ben, Sr., and Bo Foxworth, who portrayed Ben, Jr., are father and son in real life.
External links[]
- Benjamin Hadley, Sr. on the Law & Order Wiki
