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Joseph Hollister is the overarching antagonist of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He is a serial rapist who is the biological father of series protagonist Olivia Benson, having raped her mother Serena in 1967.
Biography[]
Hollister raped three women between 1967 and 1969, using his job as a salesman for RPB Food Distributors to victimize female students in the colleges he sold food and beverage equipment to. He suffered from severe depression, and raped women in part because he wanted to make someone else feel as bad as he did. One of his victims was Serena Benson, who got pregnant as a result of the rape and gave birth to a daughter, Olivia.
In his everyday life, Hollister had a son, Simon, with his wife, Sharon, neither of whom knew anything about his crimes; Simon would later remember him as a loving father. Hollister was aware of Olivia, having told Sharon that he had a daughter from a previous relationship, and covertly followed Olivia's life through the media, collecting newspaper clippings about her academic achievements and her early career as a detective with the NYPD's Special Victims Unit. Ironically, Olivia was inspired to become a police officer and advocate for rape victims by her mother's rape.
Hollister started taking antidepressants in 1969, which killed his sex drive and thus his desire to rape. Eventually, however, the drugs stopped working, and he began drinking heavily to numb his depression. Sharon left him after he drove drunk with Simon in the car, taking the boy with her and changing his last name to Marsden, her maiden name. With nothing left to live for, Hollister committed suicide by overdosing on his medication.
Legacy[]
Years later, Olivia Benson meets Simon while investigating him as a suspect in a rape case, later discovering that he is innocent. While examining Simon's DNA, she discovers that he is her half-brother, and asks him about their father. When Simon describes Hollister as a kind man and a good father, Benson briefly suspects that her mother, an abusive alcoholic who had died years earlier, had lied to her about being raped. She finds the report of the crime and interviews Hollister's other victims, however, and realizes that he did indeed rape her mother. After talking with FBI psychiatrist George Huang, she comes to understand that it is possible for a person to be both a rapist and a good father.
External Links[]
- Joseph Hollister on the Law & Order Wiki
