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| “ | I told her, I'm not a little boy anymore. | „ |
| ~ Jason after murdering his sexually abusive mother, Grace Mayberry. |
Jason Mayberry is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Pique". He is an emotionally disturbed stalker who rapes and kills his boss, Veronica Tandy, when she rejects his advances.
He was portrayed by Chad Lowe.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Jason was born into the wealthy Mayberry family. His father died when he was five, leaving him to be raised by his mother, Grace, who began sexually abusing him from childhood until well into adulthood. Even when he was a grown man living on his own, she forced him to have sex with her whenever she visited him.
His mother's abuse warped Jason's mind, molding him into a disturbed misogynist who suffered from piquerism, a sexual compulsion to stab women in the back, legs, and buttocks with hat pins, which he kept as trophies. His lifelong dream was to become a police officer, but he failed the police academy's psychological exam, so he got a job as a security guard at a software company. While at work, he covertly took pictures of women he later planned to attack.
He became obsessed with his boss, Veronica Tandy, when she wrote him a letter of recommendation for the police academy out of simple kindness. He deluded himself into believing she was in love with him and began stalking her, even though she was married and pregnant with her husband's child. Disturbed by his harassment, she withdrew her recommendation, which sent him into a violent rage; he then raped, strangled, and stabbed her to death.
"Pique"[]
While investigating Veronica's murder, Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit learn that Jason had been bothering her and take him to their station house for questioning, under the guise of wanting him to help them with their investigation.
After consulting with FBI forensic psychiatrist George Huang, Stabler tries to establish a rapport with Jason by pretending to hate women as much as he does. Jason tells several conflicting stories: He first says that he and Veronica were just friends, then that they had been having an affair, and then that she had been sexually harassing him and withdrew her recommendation for the police academy because he ended their "relationship".
Meanwhile, Benson interviews Jason's coworkers, and discovers that he had been taking pictures of Veronica without her knowledge and telling people she was his girlfriend. Benson then interviews Grace and discovers their incestuous relationship after finding out that she frequently stays overnight at his apartment, which only has one bed. She interrupts Stabler's interrogation of Jason and shows him the evidence of Grace's abuse. When Stabler confronts him, Jason breaks down and admits that Grace molested him, and that he believes it was his fault.
He is charged with raping and murdering Veronica, as well as with the piqueristic attacks. Grace bails him out of jail, but she covers up for her own crimes by calling him a "lying bastard". With help from Benson and Stabler, Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot manages to get a search warrant for Grace's house, hoping to find the murder weapon and charge Grace with murder as well, with the reasoning that her abuse created the warped man who murdered Veronica.
When they arrive at Grace's house, however, they find Jason in her bed, caressing her mutilated corpse; they had slept together before Jason stabbed her to death. Jason tells the detectives that, before killing his mother, he had said to her "I'm not a little boy anymore." He is then arrested and imprisoned for life for raping and murdering Veronica and murdering Grace.
Trivia[]
- Jason is inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Richard Farley, a mass murderer responsible for stalking and killing a colleague.
- William Chandler Shurbsall, the murderer of his own abusive mother who was later arrested and imprisoned for sexual assaulting women across the United States and Canada.
- Edmund Kemper, a.k.a. "The Co-Ed Killer", a serial killer of women driven by rage at his abusive mother, whom he later murdered. Kemper also wanted to become a cop.
- Antony Baekeland, the rape victim and later murderer of his mother, socialite Barbara Daly Baekeland.
External links[]
- Jason Mayberry on the Law & Order Wiki
