‘Law & Order: SVU’: Stone’s Late Father Helps Solve Serial Rapist Case

In this week’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Olivia Benson and her team solved a 25-year-old cold case that involved Peter Stone’s late father, Ben.

“Dear Ben” started off with Dominick Carisi (Peter Scanavino), Odafin Tutuola (Ice-T) and Benson (Mariska Hargitay) investigating the rape of April Baker (Eden Malyn). While scouring her and her husband’s (Jake O’Connor) apartment, they discovered the signatures of the Infinity Rapist, leading them to believe April and her husband were attacked by a serial rapist who’s been quiet for the past 25 years.

However, they discovered that the attack was actually committed by a copycat who would have only been a year old at the time of the last Infinity Rapist attack. The investigation was not completely at a dead end, though. The copycat had a letter written by the real Infinity Rapist to Stone’s father. Meanwhile, the real Infinity Rapist attacked a journalist who wrote books about him.

The team tracked down the store owner who sold the letter, and discovered he had other Infinity Rapist memorabilia. One of them was a letter with a stamp licked on, so they tested the saliva under the stamp. There was no match in the system, but Carisi went ahead and sent the sample to a DNA genetic testing website without Benson’s permission.

Even though Benson was not happy, they still used the results. The DNA matched a woman whose only surviving family member is her uncle, Edgar Noone (Jude Ciccolella). They arrested Noone, but during the arraignment, the DNA results were tossed out because Carisi never let the DNA testing company know he was a cop.

In typical Law & Order fashion, the team figured out another way to get Noone back in the precinct, arresting him for driving with an expired license. Meanwhile, Carisi got more information from Noone’s niece, who told them that her mother and Noone grew up with a father who raped their mother.

This left Noone without a father figure, but he found one in Ben Stone. He convinced himself that Ben Stone was obsessed with the case and learning more about the Infinity Rapist. Stone (Philip Winchester) knew this was not the case. His father was only obsessed with the case because he wanted to find justice for the women the Infinity Rapist hurt, not because he wanted to get inside the mind of the criminal.

“There was no relationship,” Benson told Noone.

“All those hours Ben Stone spent on the case! He spent more time with Infinity than he did with his own family!” Noone yelled back.

“Ben Stone cared about the women who were raped,” Benson said. “He cared about getting justice for them. You’re a little confused.”

“If you think this is about you, you’re more insane than I thought,” Stone said.

Noone insisted it was not true, then admitting he stalked Ben Stone.

“It was me he loved,” Noone yelled, essentially confessing he was the Infinity Rapist the whole time.

“He’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison. Your father would be proud, Peter,” Benson told Stone after Noone was arrested.

Stone showed Benson a letter he found among his father’s things, proving that his father really did care about the little league games he was missing. Benson told him it’s time to forgive his father, but Stone looked back and left her office without a word.

The episode ended with a heartwarming moment where Stone showed up at Benson’s apartment to play baseball with Benson’s son Noah.

New episodes of SVU air on Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC.

Photo credit: NBC