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| “ | Don't ask me for an explanation. I've searched the depths of my soul, and I can't for the life of me find one. | „ |
| ~ Walter Thornburg to Don Cragen after his pedophilia is exposed. |
Judge Walter "Walt" Thornburg is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Justice". He is a judge who secretly raped his 11-year-old stepdaughter and fathered her son, and who abuses his power to conceal his crime after she is murdered.
He was portrayed by Keir Dullea.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Thornburg is a circuit court judge with a reputation for imposing harsh sentences on criminals, particularly child molesters. He is wealthy and well-respected in New York City's legal and law enforcement communities, particularly the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, which is led by his old friend Captain Donald Cragen, a former classmate from St. John's University.
Thornburg married single mother Brooke Stephens, and from there Thornburg's dark side emerged - he began sexually abusing Brooke's 11-year-old daughter Tricia soon after the wedding. Traumatized, Tricia started acting out by abusing drugs and alcohol and having anonymous sex with much older men, both as a cry for help and as a way to embarrass Thornburg. He hypocritically posed as a concerned parent, sending Tricia to therapy and manipulating Brooke into believing he was as worried about the girl as she was. Also, he was known for delivering heavy punishments on child sexual abusers, out of self-loathing for his own pedophilia.
All the while, he continued abusing her, ultimately raping her and getting her pregnant. After the child, a boy named Brian, was born, Thornburg took him away from Tricia and raised him as his son with Brooke, with whom he already had a son, Josh. He then sent her to Westchester Residential Treatment Center, a hospital for mentally ill adolescents, both to keep her quiet about the abuse and to punish her for embarrassing him and Brooke.
After getting out of the hospital, Tricia found a new way to antagonize Thornburg - she began writing to sex offenders he had personally sentenced, promising them sex when they got out. She had sex with one of her pen pals, convicted rapist Tommy Gordon, and promised him more if he killed Thornburg. Before Gordon could do anything, however, Brooke found out that Tricia had been with him, and killed her in a fit of rage after she revealed that Thornburg was Brian's father.
"Justice"[]
After Tricia's body is found, Cragen goes to Thornburg and Brooke personally to deliver the bad news. While Brooke feigns grief, Thornburg confides in Cragen about Tricia's behavioral problems. Soon afterward, Gordon shoots and wounds Thornburg, putting him in the hospital. When Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler arrest Gordon, he admits to having sex with Tricia, and that she told him to kill her stepfather.
Benson and Stabler find out about the pregnancy, raising their suspicions that Tricia had been abused, but Cragen, blinded by loyalty to his old friend, insists that she was simply "sick". When DNA reveals that Tricia was Brian's mother, however, Thornburg's crime is exposed. Cragen visits Thornburg in the hospital and confronts him about what he did. Thornburg expresses remorse, saying that he has searched his soul to try to understand his pedophilia, but cannot find any answers. When Cragen accuses him of killing Tricia, however, he says that he could not have done it because he had been in chambers that entire day.
Soon afterward, Benson and Stabler find out that Brooke killed Tricia, and arrest her. Thornburg, meanwhile, is disbarred and imprisoned for rape and child sexual abuse.
Trivia[]
- Thornburg is primarily inspired by John H. Wood Jr., a federal judge assassinated by hitman Charles Harrelson.
- Thornburg's rape of Tricia and the attempt on his life is also derived from the shooting of James Pierson, the father and rapist of his daughter Cheryl, who hired Sean Pica to kill him.
External Links[]
- Walter Thornburg on the Law & Order Wiki
