'Law & Order: SVU' Fans Left in Tears After Stabler Family Death

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit brought back Christopher Meloni's Elliot Stabler in a dramatic way, bringing Mariska Hargitay's Olivia Benson back into his life and taking another person close to him. "Return of the Prodigal Son" was a whopper of an episode, providing longtime fans with an emotional roller-coaster that led into Meloni's new spinoff, Law & Order: Organized Crime. This was the first time Meloni played Stabler since he left SVU in 2011.

In "Return of the Prodigal Son," Stabler's wife Kathy (Isabel Gillies) was hurt in a car bombing. While the SVU team investigated the crime, they later discovered it had links to a case Stabler was working on while in Rome as a New York City Police Department international liaison. Stabler was the intended victim. Meanwhile, Kathy spent the entire episode in the hospital. Sadly, she died after her spleen ruptured and the doctors could not save her. Stabler cried in Liv's arms.

In Organized Crime, viewers saw Kathy's funeral. But that was only after Stabler was confronted by his children about their mother's death. It turns out that Stabler never really told Kathy about the dangerous work he was doing in New York. He also told his children he was not going back to Rome with his youngest son Eli (Nicky Torchia). At the funeral, Benson was there to help comfort Stabler's children. He also thanked her for coming. While we wait for the next dramatic episode of the two shows on Thursday, April 8 on NBC, scroll on for a look at how fans responded to the heartbreaking death at the center of the crossover.