| “ | I didn't wanna do it. She wouldn't shut up. I just wanted the both of them to stop yelling. Like you. You know when to be quiet. | „ |
| ~ Rasmussen rationalizing his murders to Jeannie Kerns. |
Craig Rasmussen is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Dreams Deferred". He is a spree killer who wants to murder as many people as he can before killing his real target, prostitute Jeannie Kerns.
He was portrayed by the late P.J. Brown.
Early life[]
Rasmussen worked as a bus driver. He was married, but regularly patronized prostitutes, particularly Jeannie Kerns, paying for sex with her on and off for 25 years, to the point that Jeannie considered him her friend. Unbeknownst to her, however, Rasmussen was obsessed with her, and over time developed violent fantasies of killing his wife and running off with her.
Shortly before the events of the episode, Rasmussen was fired from his job. For the next nine months, he grew increasingly depressed and drank heavily. His drinking, along with his sessions with Jeannie, put him in serious financial trouble and ruined his marriage.
In "Dreams Deferred"[]
One night after coming home drunk from a bar, Rasmussen gets into an argument with his mother-in-law, who is visiting, and shoots her dead in a fit of rage. Knowing that it is only a matter of time before he gets caught, Rasmussen decides to kill as many people as he can to "get even" with a world he feels has wronged him, before finally killing Jeannie and himself.
The next morning, Rasmussen goes to his wife's workplace, where shoots and kills her and one of her coworkers. He then propositions Jeannie, who has no idea what he has done and so willingly gets in his car, which is filled with guns and ammunition. He takes her to a cheap motel, but she leaves when he does not have enough money to afford her usual rate. Enraged and sexually frustrated, he goes into the next room and opens fire, killing another prostitute and her two johns.
Meanwhile, the NYPD's Special Victims Unit and the FBI form a joint task force to find and arrest Rasmussen, who was last seen picking up Jeannie. Detective Olivia Benson, who had saved Jeannie 20 years earlier from a pimp who tried to kill her, finds her getting out of a john's car, and brings her to the SVU station house. After Benson tells her what Rasmussen has done, she agrees to help track him down. Rasmussen calls her to arrange another meeting as Benson and her partner, Detective Nick Amaro, listen in. The FBI traces Rasmussen's call to an auto body shop, but by the time they get there, he is gone, having killed a mechanic. Moments later, they discover that he has stolen a cab, and then a town car, killing both drivers.
That night, Rasmussen calls Jeannie as she is working her corner, and tells her he is on his way to pick her up. When he arrives, he forces her in his car at gunpoint, moments before Benson and Amaro show up with the FBI in tow, having tracked them from the wire tap Jeannie wore at their request. Cornered, Rasmussen laments to her that he did not want to hurt anyone, but that his wife and mother-in-law had set him off by yelling at him; he then tells her that she always "knows when to be quiet". Just as he is about to shoot Jeannie and himself, however, an FBI sniper shoots him in the back of the head, killing him.
External links[]
- Craig Rasmussen on the Law & Order Wiki
