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| “ | I didn't wanna do it! It just happened. | „ |
| ~ Roberts about the rape and murder he committed. |
Sean Roberts is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Making a Rapist". He is a wrongly convicted sex offender who, after being exonerated and released from prison, rapes and murders the daughter of the woman he was falsely accused of assaulting.
He was portrayed by Henry Thomas, who also played a young Norman Bates in Psycho IV: The Beginning, Tom Mahout in Gerald's Game and Jack Torrance/Lloyd the Bartender in Doctor Sleep.
Early life[]
In 2000, Roberts, then 18, was arrested by Detective Fin Tutuola of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit for raping Melanie Harper. He was innocent of the crime, but he was convicted anyway thanks to Harper's testimony and circumstantial evidence. He spent the next 16 years in prison, during which he was repeatedly raped, beaten, and tortured by his fellow inmates.
In 2016, a rape kit in an unrelated case matched the DNA found at the scene of Melanie's rape, proving that Roberts did not commit the crime. He was exonerated and released and sued the NYPD for $30 million for wrongful imprisonment. He also befriended Melanie, who felt great remorse for sending him to prison, and her 22-year-old daughter, Ashley, who was only six years old when he went to prison.
While Roberts was a free man, however, he was irreparably traumatized by the years of abuse he suffered in prison and did not know how to exist in the outside world with other people - especially not women. He developed an obsessive crush on Ashley even though she was engaged, mistaking the kindness she showed him for romantic feelings.
In "Making a Rapist"[]
A month after his release, Roberts holds a press conference with SVU Lieutenant Olivia Benson and Vice President Joe Biden and tells the assembled reporters that he has a second chance at life, and that he bears no ill will for Melanie, saying that she is as much a victim as he is. Melanie, in turn, says that she and Ashley want him in their lives, and invite him to Ashley's wedding in a month's time.
That night, however, Benson and Tutuola respond to a crime scene, and find that Ashley has been beaten, raped, stabbed, doused in bleach, and set on fire; she later dies of her injuries. Melanie mentions that she had been talking to Ashley over the phone at the time of the attack and heard a man's voice in the background. When Tutuola asks if she recognized the voice, she replies that she thinks it was Roberts.
Tutuola and his partner, Detective Amanda Rollins, try to question Roberts, who had gone to dinner with Melanie and Ashley earlier that evening and appears stunned by the news of Ashley's death. They notice a cut on his hand, so they ask him where was at the time of her murder. He replies that he had gone to a strip club with a friend, a fellow ex-con named Jeff Phillips who had also gone to dinner with Roberts, Melanie, and Ashley. They question Phillips, who backs up Roberts' story; Tutuola senses he is lying, however, and says that he will go back to prison if they find out he isn't telling them the truth. Intimidated, Nichols admits that Roberts had called him that morning and begged him to give him an alibi. He also mentions that Roberts had gotten drunk at the dinner and behaved inappropriately toward Ashley and followed her when she left.
Tutuola, Rollins, and Detective Dominick Carisi Jr. briefly suspect Charlie Dobkins, a peeping tom who had been spying on Ashley shortly before her death, but his girlfriend Shyvon says that he had been with her at the time and shows them a recording on her cell phone to prove it. Rollins and Carisi show Dobkins a picture of Roberts and ask if he had seen him while spying on Ashley, and he replies that he did. Benson, Tutuola, and Rollins get a search warrant for Roberts' apartment and find Ashley's engagement ring in his sink and traces of blood on his shoes, giving them enough evidence to arrest him for her rape and murder. As he is taken into custody, he accuses Tutuola of framing him as revenge for suing the NYPD and making him look bad.
Roberts and his lawyer, John Buchanan, insist that, as someone who had been raped in prison, he would never rape anyone else, let alone kill them. Roberts then sees Melanie talking to Benson, and runs to her, insisting that he is innocent before prison guards take him away.
During the trial, Assistant District Attorney Rafael Barba questions Nichols, who testifies that Roberts had made inappropriate jokes about Ashley "running away with him" during the dinner and followed her home. Barba then calls a psychologist to the witness stand who testifies that people who have been wrongly convicted and brutalized in prison, as Roberts was, have little chance of ever leading a normal life or having healthy relationships. When he has Dobkins testify about seeing Roberts leaving Ashley's house, however, Buchanan insinuates that Rollins told him to lie and that he told her what she wanted to hear because he was attracted to her.
With his case in trouble, Barba asks Melanie to testify about hearing Roberts' voice over the phone, but she refuses because she is afraid that she is mistaken; she does not want to risk sending an innocent man to prison again. Barba forces her to testify by calling her as a hostile witness, however, and confronts her with the reality that she blames herself for Ashley's death because she is responsible for Roberts being wrongly imprisoned; if she tells herself that he did not kill Ashley, he reasons, she will not have to face the fact that she indirectly turned him into the monster who committed the crime. Melanie bursts into tears and says that she knows she heard Roberts' voice over the phone and that he killed her, but that she is just as guilty as he is.
Fearing a conviction, Buchanan tries to make a deal with Barba, offering to have Roberts plead guilty to manslaughter and serve five years in prison, which would still be a severe punishment for someone who had already served 16 years. Barba counters that he will only accept a guilty plea for second degree murder, with a sentence of 20 years. Roberts agrees to the deal, and then admits before the court that he followed Ashley home after the dinner to apologize for his behavior, and raped and murdered her in a fit of rage because she laughed at him when he told her he liked her; he says that 16 years in prison taught him to never let anyone laugh at him. He then tearfully expresses remorse for what he did and apologizes to Melanie, saying that that the murder "just happened". He then goes to prison to begin serving his sentence.
Trivia[]
- Roberts is loosely based on Steven Avery, who in 2005 murdered a woman named Teresa Halbach after serving 18 years in prison for a rape and attempted murder that he did not commit.
External links[]
- Sean Roberts on the Law & Order Wiki
