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| “ | I'm a professional. These women are desperate, and I'm their savior, why wouldn't they come on to me? | „ |
| ~ Bogden dismissing the women he assaulted. |
Ned Bogden is the secondary antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Bedtime". He is a serial killer known as "The Bedtime Butcher" who resurfaces after thirty years of inactivity.
He was portrayed by William Atherton.
Biography[]
Bogden was a senior benefits administrator with the New York Bureau of Public Assistance. He was awarded six times for meritorious service and didn't receive a single complaint against him in thirty years, even receiving a commendation from the mayor.
However, Bogden was secretly a violent misogynist who moonlighted as a serial killer known as "The Bedtime Butcher". His killing spree was sparked in 1973 when he was sacked from tending bar at a catering company after arguing with a wealthy client, Gloria Kelly, and retaliated by breaking into her home during the night, raping her, slashing her throat, and disfiguring her corpse by carving an "X" into her face. His next victim the following year was Elizabeth Giles, the mother of a student at the school where he working as a substitute teacher, who he targeted out of jealously that she was wealthy and could afford to send her daughter to Harvard. Over the next two years he killed two more women, Anne Witherspoon and Catherine Price, in the same way after they upstaged him in his professional and personal life.
Three months after Catherine Price's murder, Bogden got a job at a benefits administrator. This allowed him to find another outlet for his rage by sexually assaulting vulnerable women who came to him for help in return for benefits payments, meaning he no longer had any need to kill to satisfy his urges. The murders stopped, and the Bedtime Butcher case went cold after the lead detective died.
Thirty years after the case went inactive, a journalist named Jane Whitmore was working undercover as a homeless drug addict when she heard about Bogden's activities from some of his victims. Seeking to expose Bogden, Jane visited him under her addict guise while wearing a wire, hoping to record him assaulting her; however, Bogden felt the wire while he was groping her and flew into a rage. After kicking Jane out, he followed her home, broke into her apartment, raped her, slashed her throat, and carved an "X" into her cheek like he did with his other victims.
In "Bedtime"[]
Detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson of the Special Victims Unit investigate Jane's murder and find out from one of the women she spoke to that she went to see Bogden on the day she was killed; the woman also tells them about Bogden's reputation for abusing women. Benson visits Bogden pretending to be homeless and begging him for assistance. As she had hoped, Bogden begins touching her inappropriately during the benefits assessment and eventually grabs her breast, at which point Benson reveals her true identity and arrests him for sexual assault.
Bogden denies assaulting any women, claiming that he touched Benson by accident and that the other victims propositioned him in return for extra payments. He also denies knowing Jane Whitmore. Meanwhile, SVU Captain Donald Cragen remembers the Bedtime Butcher case and, noting the similarities with Jane Whitmore's murder, realizes Bogden is the Butcher. Benson and Stabler manage to find the connections between Bogden and the Butcher's victims before confronting Bogden and accusing him of the murders. However, when they mention the supposed fourth victim, Emily Cutler, Bogden tells them they got it wrong - he didn't kill Emily Cutler, and can prove that he was in Wyoming when she was murdered.
Bogden's joy is short-lived however, as medical examiner Melinda Warner enters and informs Benson and Stabler that Jane Whitmore's killer left dandruff on her body. Bogden immediately realizes that his DNA will link him to the dandruff and suddenly admits that he did have sex with Jane, but still denies killing anyone, desperately repeating that he was in Wyoming when Emily Cutler was killed. Bogden's DNA is soon linked to Jane, and to dandruff found on all of the Bedtime Butcher's victims minus Emily Cutler, who he genuinely did not kill - it is later discovered that she was murdered by Susan Delzio, who staged the crime to look like the Bedtime Butcher. Bogden is then charged with five counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
External Links[]
- Ned Bogden on the Law and Order Wiki
