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| “ | I am her lord and master. Her life belongs to me, and she will beg to keep it. | „ |
| ~ Gorman's diary entry about one of his "brides" |
Horace Gorman is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Control". He is a serial rapist who imprisons his victims for months at a time and forces them to pose as his "brides".
He was portrayed by Austin Pendleton.
Early life[]
Gorman made a fortune at a young age by inventing a popular puzzle game. A confirmed bachelor, he had little in the way of a social life and hoarded old newspapers and antiques, even refusing to throw out expired food. He also gave generously to several causes, especially a synagogue in his neighborhood, even though he was not Jewish.
Behind his eccentric, philanthropic public image, however, he was a sadistic psychopath with a savage hatred of women. His pathology led him to kidnap women of various races, ages, and body types and hold them prisoner in a cell underneath his apartment as his "brides", forcing them to call him "sir" and pose in wedding gowns so he could take pictures of them. He also repeatedly raped them, starved them, and forced them to keep diaries recording when they ate, drank, and urinated; he also kept diaries in which he reveled in the power he held over his victims. When he grew bored with them, he blindfolded them and let them go.
Four years prior to the events of the episode, he kidnapped Hilary Barclay, an alcoholic and drug addict, and raped and tortured her for months. After he tired of her and let her go, she got drunk and went to the NYPD's Special Victims Unit to report her rape, but Detective Olivia Benson did not believe her because she was intoxicated; Benson, a child of rape, also unconsciously resented Hilary because she reminded her of her late mother, an alcoholic who was drunk when she was raped by her biological father.
Benson did not pursue an investigation, which unintentionally allowed Gorman to rape several other women over the years. Hillary's estranged mother, Juliet, did not believe her, either, thinking that Hillary was trying to manipulate her into giving her money for drugs.
"Control"[]
One day, Hillary, who had gotten sober shortly after Gorman released her, encountered him on the subway and recognized him instantly. She stalked him until he learned his routine, and then she confronted him in Grand Central Station while making sure to keep her face hidden, threatening to make him pay for what he did. Gorman laughed aside her threats, saying that no one would believe "a drunken, drugged-out whore". Hilary hit him over the head and dragged him into the sewers below the station, where she castrated him with an antique knife she stole from Juliet's antiques shop.
Gorman is found and hospitalized, and Benson and her partner, Detective Elliot Stabler, investigate his attack. They question Gorman in the hospital after he regains consciousness, but he does not tell them who mutilated him for fear of his crimes being exposed; he does, however, lament to them that he is "not a man anymore".
Benson and Stabler eventually find Gorman's genitals, and doctors at the hospital are able to reattach them. They search Gorman's apartment and find several framed photos of Gorman and his "brides", which strikes them as strange considering that there is no record of his ever having been married.
Hilary tells her story to the media, and several of Gorman's victims come forward. Benson realizes that Hilary had been telling the truth, and she and Stabler tell Juliet what happened to her daughter.
Gorman, meanwhile, checks himself out of the hospital and holes up in a cheap hotel to recuperate and avoid the publicity and the police. One night, a woman knocks on Gorman's door, asking if he wants company; Gorman, eager to reassert his manhood, lets her in. Unbeknownst to him, the woman is in fact Juliet, who conspired with her daughter to track him down. She stabs him in the chest with the same knife that Hilary used to castrate him, killing him instantly.
Benson and Stabler arrest Hilary for Gorman's murder, but Juliet confesses to the crime over her daughter's objections. However, her lawyer, Lionel Granger, is able to raise enough reasonable doubt - and exploit the jury's hatred of Gorman - to weaken the case against her, which is finally destroyed when Hilary tells Benson and Stabler that she killed Gorman. They eventually find security footage of Hilary at a coffee shop at the time of the murder, and she admits Juliet murdered him after she castrated him. Neither the detectives nor Assistant District Attiorney Casey Novak can prove that she conspired with Juliet to kill him, however, so both mother and daughter are released.
External links[]
- Horace Gorman on the Law & Order Wiki
