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| “ | She'd never grow up in a computer. | „ |
| ~ Searle explaining why he kidnapped Rachel McGarrett. |
Gregory Searle, also known as Julian Cooper, is a supporting antagonist in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, serving as the main antagonist of the episode "Avatar" and a supporting antagonist in the episode "Sheltered Outcasts". He is a kidnapper, rapist, and murderer who preys on young women to relive the experience of kidnapping and abusing his first victim.
He was portrayed by Kevin Tighe, who also portrayed Edwin Lindgard in Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Anthony Cooper in Lost.
Biography[]
Early life[]
In 1982, Searle had a sexual relationship with 15-year-old Lauren Molby, manipulating her into believing she was in love with him and that he could take her away from her abusive parents. He eventually kidnapped her and held her captive in his isolated lake cabin for a year. At one point, he told her she could leave voluntarily, but by then he had so thoroughly brainwashed her that she refused. The following day, however, he was arrested for kidnapping and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Lauren, meanwhile, hid from the police so they would not take her back to her parents, and was presumed dead. The police were convinced that he killed her, but they could not find enough evidence to charge him with her murder.
After he was released from prison, Searle stole the identity of a man named Julian Cooper so he could have a fresh start in life, and then opened a bookstore under his new identity. He remained sexually fixated on teenage girls, however, and started playing an online virtual reality game called Another Youniverse, using an identity stolen from regular customer Tobin Willis, so he could have virtual sex with avatars he designed to look just like Lauren. He became obsessed with another player whose avatar, "Vixy Platinum", also resembled Lauren, and began stalking her in the game.
After she banned him from visiting her profile, he paid a hacker to find out who she really was. He kidnapped the woman, Rachel McGarrett, and held her prisoner in his rented storage facility, drugging and raping her for days. To cover his tracks, he made his avatar hang out with that of his employee Nestor Buchanan to make it look like Buchanan had been stalking McGarrett.
"Avatar"[]
While investigating McGarrett's kidnapping, Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit trace her activities in Another Youniverse and see that Buchanan is apparently stalking her online. Fellow SVU Detective Chester Lake, a regular customer at Searle's bookstore, arrests Buchanan for kidnapping, giving Searle enough time to remove the computer equipment from his store and home to erase any evidence of his guilt.
Eventually, however, the SVU detectives discover that Buchanan has an alibi and learn "Cooper"'s real identity, and he becomes their main suspect. Benson and Stabler find a barely alive McGarrett in Searle's storage space, but are too late to stop Searle from fleeing. He is detained while trying to cross the border into Canada, which gives Lake and Benson the chance to take him in for questioning. He denies kidnapping and raping McGarrett, and the detectives do not have enough evidence to formally arrest him, even after McGarrett dies of a bad reaction to the drugs he gave her.
Determined to prove that Searle murdered Molby, Stabler monitors him in the hopes that he will lead him to her body. When Stabler sees Searle jaywalking, he uses the minor offense as an excuse to arrest him. Searle maintains that he did not kill Molby, and in the ensuing investigation Benson discovers that Molby is still alive, having hidden in Searle's old cabin for 25 years for him to return.
When she reunites with Searle, however, he is horrified to find that she has "gotten old" and rejects her. She angrily accuses him of causing McGarrett's death, and he admits that he did in fact kidnap her to relive the experience of having sex with Molby as a teenage girl, the way he always wanted to remember her. He is then imprisoned for rape, kidnapping, and murder.
In "Sheltered Outcasts"[]
Nine years later, Searle is diagnosed with terminal colon cancer, and given compassionate release from prison. He moves into a homeless shelter for level-3 sex offenders and undergoes mandatory group therapy with Dr. Robin Daughtry. When three women are raped near the shelter, Benson, now in command of SVU as a Lieutenant, along with Tutuola recognize him and express surprise at his release and he explains his circumstances. Much later, SVU sends Detective Dominick Carisi Jr. to go undercover at the shelter as a sex offender to find the rapist. They both suspect Searle at first, with Carisi describing him as "malignant", but he protests that he is too sick to rape anybody, while his lawyer, Thomas Zimmerman, explains that the victims are too old for an ephebophile like Searle.
After Daughtry is raped and murdered, Carisi discovers that the culprit is in fact Zimmerman, who is raping women near a shelter for sex offenders so the suspicion will fall on them. Searle's roommate, Gerald Loomis, is also arrested and imprisoned for rape.
Trivia[]
- Searle is partly inspired by Bruce Haims, a former bookkeeper from Great Neck, New York who, in 1983, raped and murdered Pamela Sharon, the 21-year-old daughter of a friend.
External links[]
- Gregory Searle on the Law & Order Wiki
