  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | She was like something out of my dreams, so I invited her in. She had the most perfect, tiny feet. | „ |
| ~ Jerry describing his victim |
Jerry Dupree is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Tortured". He is a murderer whose pathology is the result of brain damage he suffered at the hands of his abusive mother.
He was portrayed by Charlie Hofheimer.
Early life[]
Jerry was raised by his mother, Mrs. Krug, after his father died. From a young age, he had a sexual fetish for high-heeled women's shoes, but whenever his mother caught him wearing them, she would beat him viciously over the head with whatever blunt object was handy; her favorite weapon was a frying pan. She remarried and had a son named Brendan, who tried to protect Jerry from their mother's violent rages. When her second husband left her, she took it out on Jerry, hitting him so hard that that he often had to go to the hospital. His pediatrician suspected abuse, but he could not prove it, so he could only warn her that Jerry would suffer permanent brain damage if he had any more "accidents".
As an adult, Jerry got a menial job at a bowling alley, and kept wearing women's shoes, for which his mother kept hitting him. One day, while visiting his mother at her bakery, Jerry started asking a female customer if he could have her shoes, which made his mother so angry that she beat him over the head with a frying pan in front of her customers.
The abuse damaged the frontal lobe of Jerry's brain, diminishing his ability to control his impulses, manage his anger, and distinguish between right from wrong. He began engaging in antisocial behavior, including stalking women and burglarizing their homes, taking only their shoes. He choked a woman named Greta Thorson unconscious after following her from his mother's bakery and stole her shoes. He also stole a pair of boots from Lori Schneider, a fashion photographer with whom he went on a bad date.
"Tortured"[]
When a woman named Kunsong Bennett shows up at Jerry's apartment mistakenly believing that he is selling his couch, he is instantly aroused by her feet and asks her to try on the boots he stole; when she refuses, he strangles her with a piece of wire and cuts off her foot to keep as a souvenir. He then puts the boots on her and uses his mother's delivery van to dump her body in an alley.
Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit investigate Bennett's murder and trace the boots to Schneider, who tells them about her date with Jerry. They then learn that Kunsong went to Jerry's apartment by mistake and talk to his mother, who identifies her as a customer. They search the bakery and find Kunsong's blood in the delivery van and on one Mrs. Krug's bakery knives, so they bring Jerry to the SVU station house for questioning. He confesses to the murder, but he claims not to remember killing her, a crime he swears he only committed because the shoes in his collection look better "with a real foot in them".
Jerry pleads insanity, with his lawyer, Gina Berrando, arguing that he his violent behavior is the result of a subdermal hematoma on the frontal lobe of his brain. His mother testifies that he began acting out violently months earlier after being hit in the head with a hammer by a man robbing the bakery.
Forensic psychiatrist George Huang examines Jerry's medical history and discovers that there are several healed lesions covering his entire brain, not just his frontal lobe. Detectives John Munch and Fin Tutuola question the EMT who treated Jerry, who says his injury was the result of an apparent accident, not an assault. Meanwhile, Benson and Stabler question Brendan, who says that that Jerry's brain injury resulted from their mother hitting him, and that she often beats both of them.
At first, Jerry denies that his mother hit him and laments that he is sick beyond saving. When they say that Brendan will be never be safe with her, however, Jerry tells them that she kept hitting him in the head long after she was warned about the potential for brain damage. Benson and Stabler then arrest Mrs. Krug for second-degree murder, while Jerry is institutionalized.
Trivia[]
- Jerry is loosely based on the late serial killer Jerry Brudos, who was also a shoe fetishist who severed his victims' feet, and who also suffered traumatic brain injuries and severe physical abuse as a child.
External links[]
- Jerry Dupree at the Law & Order Wiki
