  |
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. |
| “ | My cousin got us into this mess... she wanted all three of us, I swear. But Jason got greedy. | „ |
| ~ Nicky framing Jason for raping Jennifer Durning. |
| “ | It was Jason's idea! | „ |
| ~ Doug insisting that Jason killed Jennifer. |
Nicky Pratt and Doug Waverly are the main antagonists of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Gone". They are two wealthy college students who rape and murder a teenage girl and frame Nicky's cousin Jason King for the crime.
Nicky was portrayed by Paul David Story, while Doug was portrayed by Teddy Eck.
Early life[]
Nicky and Doug are the spoiled, narcissistic eldest sons of the wealthy, politically connected Pratt and Waverly families, respectively. Their parents' wealth and social position in New York City allows them to go the best private schools in the city and all but guarantees them jobs in their respective family businesses, but they feel entitled to have everything they want simply given to them, particularly women; they both sexually harass and assault girls at their schools, and never take "no" for an answer.
Nicky is close friends with his cousin, Jason King, who is from the "poor side" of his family. While Jason genuinely believes that Nicky is his friend and surrogate brother, however, Nicky considers Jason his "inferior" and keeps him around to make fun of him behind his back and to get him out of trouble.
Two months before the events of the episode, Nicky and Doug take Jason out to a nightclub, where they meet Jennifer Durning, a Canadian high school student visiting New York City on a class trip. Jason and Jennifer hit it off, so she willingly goes to the backseat of Nicky's car with him to have sex. Afterwards, however, Nicky and Doug demanded that she have sex with them, too; when she refused, they overpowered and raped her while Jason watched, horrified but too intimidated to stop them.
After they were done, Jennifer went back to her hotel room, crying, and called her friend Dana to tell her what happened. Nicky then said that they should have killed her so she couldn't tell anyone what they did, which so disgusts Jason that he leaves to board a train home. Nicky pays a drunk named Keith Willis to go to Jennifer's room and take her purse, and then to call Jennifer's room and tell her he found her passport.
Once she was once more in their power, Nicky and Doug killed her and dumped her body in the Hudson River.
"Gone"[]
The NYPD's Special Victims Unit investigate Jennifer's murder and come to suspect Nicky, Doug, and Jason of committing the crime after Dana identifies them as the boys whom Jennifer left the club with; they also recover Jennifer's text messages to Dana saying she had been gang-raped, a call from a payphone and hotel surveillance footage showing Jennifer leaving the hotel moments before she was murdered.
They arrest all three boys - Nicky and Jason at school, and Doug as he is about to board a flight to Rio de Janeiro with his father. However, the trial judge dismisses the rape and murder charges against them, without prejudice, because there is no body or complaining witness.
Undeterred, the SVU detectives arrest them for kidnapping, with Detective Elliot Stabler interrogating Nicky, Detective Fin Tutuola interrogating Doug, and Stabler's partner, Detective Olivia Benson, interrogating Jason. When Medical Examiner Melinda Warner takes DNA samples from all three boys to match to the semen in Jennifer's bloodstained underwear, Nicky and Daug immediately blame Jason for Jennifer's murder, claiming that he raped and killed her after she had consensual sex with them. (They also antagonize Tutuola, who is Black, by saying that "some homeboy" stole their car.) Jason refuses to implicate Nicky, however, saying that he would rather jump off a bridge than say anything bad about someone he considers to be like his brother.
Doubting Jason's guilt, Assistant District Attorney Casey Novak confronts him with a recording a call he made to the police from a payphone saying that Doug was about to leave the country. When Jason explains that he was trying to protect Nicky, Novak replies that Nicky and Doug were both trying to frame him for raping and murdering Jennifer. A heartbroken Jason then testifies against Nicky and Doug in front of a grand jury, resulting in them being indicted for rape and murder.
During the trial, however, Nicky's lawyer, Oliver Gates, endangers Novak's prosecution by introducing evidence that a male public hair was found in Jennifer's hotel room that did not belong to Doug or Nicky, raising the possibility that someone else raped and murdered her and resulting in them being released on bail. The SVU team examine the hotel's security footage and see Willis going into Jennifer's room while carrying her coat after she left to use the bathroom - accounting for the pubic hair - and leaving with Jennifer's purse. They track Willis down and he tells forensic psychiatrist Dr. George Huang that he saw Doug and Nicky forcing Jennifer into Nicky's car and taking off, but Huang says that Willis has alcoholic dementia and would be worthless as a witness.
When Jason disappears from his parents' vacation home, Novak suspects that Doug and Nick kidnapped him. District Attorney Arthur Branch suspects that someone in trial judge Elizabeth Donnelly's office told Doug and Nicky where to find Jason, so he tells Novak to keep the trial going while the detectives look for the leak. Novak and Branch go to Donnelly's house and tell her that Doug and Nicky paid off one of her employees to spy on the case, which is confirmed when crime scene technician Ruben Morales finds a microphone transmitter in her office. Nevertheless, Donnelly finds that there is no legal basis to grant Novak a mistrial so she can have more time, leaving her no choice but to dismiss the charges against Doug and Nicky.
Novak and Stabler question Donnelly's staff, who relate that Emily McCooper, a new court officer assigned to guard Donnelly, had asked to use Donnelly's private bathroom a week before the trial started. Donnelly, Stabler, and Novak interrogate McCooper, confronting her with the fact that her tire tracks were found outside Jason's parents' house and threatening her with life in prison without parole. Terrified, McCooper admits Nicky had seduced, and slept with, her after the trial began and that he told her to bug Donnelly's office and take Jason to his father's produce plant so he and Doug could "talk to him", and that he gave her a new Mercedes-Benz as a present. After being convinced by Novak, McCooper agreed to collaborate with her, Donnelly, and Stabler, hoping to receive a lenient sentence.
The detectives do not find Jason at the plant, but they discover traffic footage of Nicky riding in a cab on the night of Jason's disappearance. Tutuola and his partner, Detective John Munch, talk to the cabbie, who says that Nicky and Doug paid him to take them home after their car was impounded. Benson and Stabler find the car at the impound lot and find out that it had been towed from Co-Op City in the Bronx, where they find Jason's dead body under a bridge. They then arrest Nicky and Doug for Jason's murder while they are having dinner with Doug's parents. They are both convicted of murdering a witness to a crime and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Trivia[]
- Nicky and Doug are both loosely based upon Joran van der Sloot, a convicted murderer and the prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in 2005.
External links[]
- Nicky Pratt on the Law & Order Wiki
- Doug Waverly on the Law & Order Wiki
