Monster (Law & Order: Criminal Intent)

"Monster" is a second season episode of the television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Plot summary

In this episode, Detectives Goren and Eames investigate the case of a woman, Laura Dietrich, found murdered in her apartment.

Goren and Eames initially focus their investigation on the victim's son, Mark Dietrich, recently paroled after serving 15 years for strangling a woman to death. The detectives expand the investigation beyond the scope of the initial case when possible evidence for another case emerges. They meet the lead detective, Officer Ted Marston, who had investigated a case involving a park jogger who had been raped, which had similar details present in their Dietrich case. They begin to believe the two cases could be linked.

After further investigation, not only does Goren suspect Marston might have coerced false confessions from teenagers who subsequently were incarcerated for raping the park jogger, but Goren also suspects a sophisticated cover-up by Marston to rush other cases to closure. Goren and Eames pit Marston and Dietrich against each other to expose the crimes of both. The lead detective is exposed about the coerced false confessions. The lead detective is also found to have murdered the paroled's mother in order to halt her investigation of the park jogger case which might have caused that case to be reopened and the coerced false confessions to be exposed. Ultimately the mother's suspicions are confirmed; her son had raped the jogger.

Cast

Inspiration

• This episode contains elements of both the Robert Chambers case and the Central Park Jogger case.

External links

• IMDb entry
• Official Website