  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, strong drug use, extremely traumatic themes, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | I'm nothing like him. | „ |
| ~ Darrell dismissing his father, a serial rapist who assaulted his mother |
Darrell Guan is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Inheritance". He is a serial rapist and murderer who preys on Chinese women because they remind him of his mother's family, who abused him as a child because he was the product of a rape.
He was portrayed by Marcus Chong, who also portrayed War in The Crow: Wicked Prayer.
Early life[]
Darrell's biological father was Harold Starnes, an African American serial rapist and murderer who assaulted his Chinese mother, Susan Guan, shortly before he was arrested and imprisoned in 1977. Susan got pregnant as a result of the rape and decided to keep the baby, even though her family objected. After she gave birth to Darrell, her family ostracized the boy, calling him "devil" because he was half-Black; he was also severely bullied by other children in his neighborhood. Susan did nothing to protect him because, deep down, she hated him for being a living reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to her.
Darrell grew up to hate Chinese women and nurtured sadistic fantasies of revenge involving rape and mutilation. His violent fantasies drove him commit evermore depraved acts against Chinese women, beginning with voyeurism and sexual harassment directed at women he encountered in his job as a deliveryman and escalating to stabbing a prostitute who mocked his inability to perform.
Shortly before the events of the episode, Darrell was rejected by a Chinese woman he met through a personal ad, and he threatened her with a utility knife before running away. He then began targeting random Chinese women he encountered on his delivery route, stalking and raping them in a secluded area, before viciously beating them. Afterward, would clean up the scene with bleach to destroy traces of DNA.
"Inheritance"[]
Darrell attacks another woman, Helen Chan, beating her so severely during the rape that she has to have steel plates surgically inserted in her jaw to keep it together. His bloodlust unsatisfied, he rapes another woman, Lucy Jiang, the next day, beating her to death when she tries to fight back. He carves a racial slur into her chest before once again cleaning up the crime scene with bleach.
Meanwhile, Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, who are investigating the rapes, look into hate crimes committed against Chinese women and find the woman he threatened. They track the credit card used to take out the personal ad to a stockbroker who reported it stolen, and then to the prostitute Darrell attacked.
DNA from the rapes, meanwhile, leads them to the recently paroled Starnes, whom they rule out as a suspect because he is suffering from multiple sclerosis. Deducing that the rapist is the product of a rape Starnes committed before he was imprisoned, Benson and Stabler talk to his victims, eventually questioning Susan, who explains Darrell's traumatic childhood and the abuse he suffered at her family's hands. They also find bloodstained clothes in Darrell's room and Helen and Lucy's addresses in his work computer, which makes him their chief suspect. When they confront him at his job, he tries to run away, but they manage to catch and arrest him.
Faced with overwhelming evidence of his guilt, Darrell pleads insanity. His lawyer, Margo Nelson, argues that he is genetically predisposed to rape and murder because Starnes is his biological father; this particularly unsettles Benson, who is herself a child of rape. Forensic psychiatrist George Huang, who is also Chinese American, evaluates Darrell and asks him about his father, which provokes him into a fit of violent rage.
During the trial, Nelson takes testimony from a geneticist who argues that Darrell inherited a genetic abnormality from Starnes that makes him prone to violence. She then makes the closing argument that his genetics. combined with the abuse he suffered as a child, left him helpess to resist his violent impulses. Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot counters that he was in complete control of himself when committed his crimes, which makes him guilty of rape and murder regardless of his genetic makeup. The jury finds him guilty of rape and first-degree murder, and he is executed.
Trivia[]
- Darrell is inspired by serial killer and rapist Guy Georges, who was ostracized as a child by his mother's family because he was half-Black.
External links[]
- Darrell Guan on the Law & Order Wiki
