  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, strong drug use, extremely traumatic themes, 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. |
| “ | You'll remember the name of William Labott when the fires of the Apocalypse are raging around you. When you realize that, just as you and your kind have turned your backs on Him, so shall He turn His back on you at the Second Coming. | „ |
| ~ Labott justifying his crimes. |
William Labott is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "The Book of Esther". He is a religious fanatic who imprisons, beats, and tortures his children to indoctrinate them with his twisted, apocalyptic version of Christianity.
He was portrayed by Ray McKinnon, who also portrayed Vernon T. Waldrip in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Proctor John in Fear the Walking Dead.
Overview[]
Labott is a former geology professor and religious fanatic who preaches an apocalyptic version of Christianity that condemns the modern world as sinful and the government and police as agents of the devil.
He and his wife, Debbie, live in New Jersey with their 10 children, and treat them all as prisoners in their own home, refusing to let them go into the outside world without them and "disciplining" them by starving them, chaining them to the radiator, and savagely whipping them for the slightest misbehavior, real or imagined. Their eldest child, Esther, is 27, but is so malnourished that she resembles a child. He forces her to have incestuous sexual relations with her oldest brother, in the warped hope that they will "beget" a new race of believers.
While Debbie shares her husband's religious fanaticism, she knows deep down that the way he treats their children is wrong, and stays with him out of fear that he will kill them if she leaves. At the time of the episode, Debbie is pregnant with Labott's son, whom she plans to name Jacob.
In "The Book of Esther"[]
When Esther tries to escape to New York City, she is found at a subway station by Detective Amanda Rollins of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, who takes her to the SVU station house because she suspects abuse. Rollins and Detective Fin Tutuola find rope burns on her hands and feet and semen with familial DNA in her underwear, but Esther refuses to reveal her abuser's name. Labott shows up to take Esther home, reveals her true age, and says that she has an incestuous relationship with her brother that he had only recently learned of. SVU Lieutenant Olivia Benson is forced to release Esther into his custody because she is not a child and incest is technically legal in New Jersey.
Rollins sees that Esther is afraid of her father, however, and follows them around their neighborhood. She eventually breaks into their house and finds the youngest daughter, Rachel, chained to a radiator. Labott catches her, however, and forces her out of the house at gunpoint. She calls in her SVU colleagues as backup, but Labott barricades the house and threatens to open fire on them, leading to an armed standoff.
The situation worsens when the local police show up, wanting to go into the house shooting. Rollins manages to talk them down by promising to talk to Esther in order to persuade Labott to let his family go. When Rollins asks for Esther, Labott brings her outside with a gun pressed to her side and says that she would rather stay with her family and wait for the "End Times" than go out into the "sinful" world. Rollins asks Esther if that is what she wants, and Esther shakes her head, too frightened to speak. Labott then forces her back inside, and opens fire, wounding three police officers. The SVU team and the New Jersey police are forced to return fire, killing Esther and one of her brothers; Rollins finds out later that she fired the shot that killed Esther. They rescue the surviving Labott children, however, and arrest Labott and Debbie.
During the resulting interrogation, Labott blames the police for his children's deaths, and claims that they died as soldiers for God in a war against the modern world. When Rollins curses him for abusing his children, he replies that the end of the world is near, and that he and his family will ascend to Heaven when it occurs while the rest of the world burns in a "lake of fire". He is then imprisoned for child abuse, kidnapping, rape by proxy, and assaulting multiple police officers with a dangerous weapon, charges that put him in prison for the rest of his life.
Trivia[]
- The Labott case in the episode was based on the real-life Turpin case in Perris, California,
External links[]
- William Labott on the Law & Order Wiki
