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“ | Beauty is power... until you lose it, and then you're garbage. Nobody gives a damn about you. See, you wouldn't understand that, Detective Benson, because you're still a beautiful woman. You have no idea what kind of doors that opens up for you until they're slammed in your face! | „ |
~ Deborah Latrell explaining her reasons for killing Jasmine to Olivia Benson. |
Deborah Latrell is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "...Or Just Look Like One". She is a former supermodel whose career ends after she is disfigured by serial rapist Ricky Blaine, and who murders two young models in a fit of rage after finding out that they are sleeping with her ex-boyfriend and business partner Carlo Parisi.
She was portrayed by Catherine Dent, who also portrayed Dena Carter in Law & Order and Kay Marquette in CSI.
Biography[]
Past[]
Latrell was once a supermodel with a booming career, gracing the covers of magazines such as Glamour and Elle. She was also engaged to photographer Carlo Parisi, whose career she launched after discovering him doing small-time work for catalogs. Unbeknownst to her, however, Parisi regularly cheated on her with other models, including ones she considered her friends.
Her career ended after she was sexually assaulted and disfigured by serial rapist Ricky Blaine, who gouged out her right eye while attacking her. Everyone in her life abandoned her except for Parisi, who offered to help support her by starting a modeling agency with her, even though he broke off their engagement.
One day, teenage models Jazmin Burgess and Vanessa Wong came to her claiming that Parisi had forced them to have sex with him and pose nude for him. Latrell refused to believe their accusations, until Jazmin showed her the pictures. Latrell, who was high on methamphetamine at the time, flew into a rage and struck both girls with a hammer, killing them. Panicked, she called Parisi, who covered up her crime by sexually assaulting both girls' corpses with the hammer to make their deaths look like the work of a rapist. They then dropped off both girls in the parking lot of a hospital before driving away.
"...Or Just Look Like One"[]
Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit question Latrell and Parisi about the murders, but they deny knowing anything about their deaths. They eventually learn that Parisi fired Jazmin after she "failed" a weigh-in, and that she was last seen leaving his office crying, with what clothes she had on in disarray.
Benson and Stabler search Parisi's studio, where they find his pictures of Jazmin and Vanessa, which legally qualify as child pornography. After arresting Nina Laszlo, Jazmin and Vanessa's agent, for dealing drugs to her clients, they offer to put in a good word for her with the District Attorney's office if she cooperates. Laszlo agrees and tells them that Jazmin had tried to get the pictures back by performing oral sex on Parisi, but that he had still refused to part with them. Jazmin and Vanessa had then gone to Latrell with the pictures, intending to blackmail her. Benson and Stabler arrest Parisi and Latrell for rape and murder, respectively, but they believe that both are responsible for the girls' deaths.
The detectives try to get a confession out of either Latrell or Parisi by using the "prisoner's dilemma" strategy: separating them, telling each one that the other has betrayed them, and offering to give them a better deal if they confess. The ruse works on Latrell, who admits to killing Jazmin and Vanessa out of jealousy upon seeing the pictures, and to having Parisi sexually assault the bodies with a hammer to make it look like rape. She then reveals what Blaine did to her and says that Parisi was all she had after her disfigurement. She and Parisi are imprisoned for life for murder, rape, and possession of child pornography.
External links[]
- Deborah Latrell on the Law & Order Wiki
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Villains | ||
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