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| “ | You say you see something in me? Well, I see something in you, too. You think you control. You can't. You're controlled. By your boss, by your job, by your wife, your kids. What would you be if all those controls went away? | „ |
| ~ Gordon Rickett taunting Elliot Stabler. |
Gordon Rickett is the main antagonist in in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Rage". He is a serial killer, serial rapist, and serial kidnapper of young girls. He is the prime suspect in four murders - two in New York City, one in Nevada, and one in Arizona.
He was portrayed by Matthew Modine, who also played Martin Brenner in Stranger Things and Anders Muller in Retribution.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Rickett's father abandoned him when he was a child and left him in the care of his mother, an abusive, neglectful parent who favored his half-sister. As a result, he felt cheated by life, and blamed his many failures, including flunking out of high school and losing his family's bar, on the world refusing to give him his due. He took his rage out on little girls, raping and murdering them because he resented them for having the hope, trust, and potential that he never would.
Over the course of 14 years, he kidnapped, raped, and murdered four prepubescent girls, mutilating their bodies postmortem. He also had a long history of domestic violence, including a tendency to degrade his adult sexual partners by making them wear pigtails so they would resemble little girls.
In 1991, NYPD Detective Elliot Stabler investigated Rickett's first murder, which he committed after his girlfriend dumped him. During the resulting interrogation, Stabler threw him through a plate glass window. The victim, 11-year-old Dana MacNamara, lived in the apartment above Rickett's bar. Rickett was tried for the murder, but there was not enough evidence to prove his guilt, so the jury acquitted him. While he was set free, however, his reputation was damaged by the publicity from the trial and his family disowned him. He blamed Stabler for his misfortunes and held a grudge against him for years.
Rickett later moved around the Southwestern United States and was questioned by the police about the murders of two other little girls in Nevada and Arizona; in both cases, however, the police were forced to let him go because there was insufficient evidence to charge him. Rickett settled in California and lived there for nearly a decade, but he was evicted from his apartment after he sexually assaulted his girlfriend's 14-year-old daughter.
He then returned to New York City, where he worked as a trash collector. After he got fired, he vented his rage by raping and murdering 11-year-old Kerry Lynn Palmer.
In "Rage"[]
Stabler, now working in the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, arrests Rickett on suspicion of Palmer's murder. Stabler and Detectives Olivia Benson and Fin Tutuola interrogate him for 24 hours, but they are forced to let him go when he does not reveal anything incriminating. Before leaving the SVU station house, he taunts Stabler by insinuating that the two of them harbor the same kind of rage, and that, without his job and family to hold him in check, Stabler would be just like him.
Benson and Stabler question Rickett's girlfriend and her boss, and the latter tells them he suspects Rickett of stealing his car. They find what is left of the car in a junkyard across the street from a nursing home, which reminds Stabler of a lie Rickett told during his interrogation about having moved back to New York to take care of a sick aunt. The "aunt" in question turns out to be a friend of Rickett's late mother whom he has tricked into giving him control of her finances and her house. Benson and Stabler go to the house, where they find blood stains and a pair of girl's shoes in the soundproofed basement.
Just then, Rickett bursts in with another young girl, threatening to kill her mother unless she does what he wants. Benson and Stabler try to arrest Rickett, but he holds the girl at gunpoint and dares Stabler to kill him in cold blood, wanting to wreak a final revenge on his nemesis by turning him into a murderer. Stabler appears ready to kill Rickett in cold blood, but Benson stops him by shooting Rickett in the shoulder. They arrest Rickett, and he is imprisoned for life for Palmer's murder.
Victims[]
- December 4, 1991, New York City, New York: Dana MacNamara
- July 19, 1994, Carson City, Nevada: Chloe Lynch (her body was never found)
- Unspecified date, Tempe, Arizona: Heather Morrison (her body was never found)
- 2005:
- Unspecified dates:
- California: Sandra Brophy's unnamed daughter (assaulted)
- New York City, New York: Kerry Lynn Palmer
- February 24, New York City, New York: Unnamed girl (assaulted)
- Unspecified dates:
External links[]
- Gordon Rickett on the Law & Order Wiki
