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| “ | She needed me to do it. I got drawn into it. It just happened. | „ |
| ~ Gary claiming that he only beats and rapes escorts to please his wife Darlene |
Gary Sutton is the secondary antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Folly". He is a murderer and serial rapist who targets male escorts as part of a sex game with his wife, Darlene.
He was portrayed by J. Tucker Smith.
Early life[]
Gary and his wife Darlene are voyeurs and sadomasochists who derive sexual pleasure from Gary beating and raping men who have sex with Darlene while she watches. Their "hobby" started when Gary attacked a delivery boy after catching him having sex with Darlene; he assumed that he was raping her. Darlene was aroused by the idea that Gary was "protecting" her and had sex with him. Afterward, she demanded that they regularly roleplay that fantasy.
Soon afterward, Darlene picked up a businessman in a bar and took him back to her hotel room. Gary attacked the man while he and Darlene were having sex, and they both took turns raping him until they finally knocked him unconscious with a telephone receiver and robbed him to add to the thrill.
From that point on, they began preying on male escorts, always following the same routine: Darlene would arrange to meet an escort in a hotel bar and take them back to her room to have rough sex, only for Gary to attack the man and rape him while Darlene watched. Afterward, they have sex. They finance their sex game with credit cards that Gary, an accountant, orders using the identities of the people whose taxes he audits, which also allow them to operate with a series of fake names.
"Folly"[]
After Darlene hits her and Gary's latest victim, Tommy Dowd, over the head with a lamp, he staggers naked into the middle of a wedding ceremony being held at the hotel where they are staying. Gary and Darlene get dressed and add another layer to their fantasy by talking to Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, who are investigating the assault, claiming to be tourists from Pennsylvania who overheard Dowd screaming in pain.
The following day, they pick up escort Victor Coe, and Gary bashed his head in with an ashtray, hitting him so hard that he falls into a coma and eventually dies. Benson, Stabler, and Detectives John Munch and Fin Tutuola investigate further and find out from forensic evidence that the assailant is working with a partner.
After Gary kills another escort named Gregory Moore by bashing his head in with a vase, Benson, Stabler, and Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot suspect Dowd's pimp, Leslie DeSantis, of using the killer couple to get rid of underperforming escorts. They arrest her in a sting operation after she maims Dowd, but she protests that she does not know who the mysterious couple are because they paid for her escort services with stolen credit cards.
Benson and Stabler trace the stolen credit cards to Gary's accounting firm, and they recognize Darlene from a framed picture in his office as one of the "tourists" they spoke to about Dowd's assault. They search the Suttons' house and find credit cards under multiple names, including one that was used to book a room at a hotel that very night. Benson, Stabler, Munch, and Tutuola catch Gary and Darlene just as they are preparing to kill another escort and arrest them for rape and murder.
Munch and Tutuola interrogate Gary, who explains how his and Darlene's sex game started and claims that he only went along with it to please her. Darlene, meanwhile, confesses to their crimes to Stabler because she sees him as the "big strong man" type who turns her on. Cabot charges them both with second-degree murder and first-degree assault, and they are convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
External links[]
- Gary Sutton on the Law & Order Wiki
