Throng

Saturday 31st October 11.00pm

The seventh season of the ‘Law & Order’ spin-off following New York’s elite special victims unit continues. This week, Fin’s son comes under suspicion in connection with a double homicide.

Fin discovers that the lad is covering for his cousin (guest star Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges), but once the guilty party is charged, he uses a technicality to have his confession ruled inadmissible in court.

Fin’s son, Ken Randall, is arrested while trying to dig up earth on a vacant lot. Rather than call his father, with whom he has a strained relationship, Ken opts to summon Benson for help. At the police station, he explains the purpose of his nocturnal prowl. “I was looking for something... a body,” he says.

Ken claims that he overheard a man in a bar bragging about how he killed a woman and buried her on the empty lot, so he decided to investigate. Neither Stabler nor Cragen buy the lad’s story. “I think he’s lying. I want to know why,” Cragen says. Fin is ordered to stay out of the investigation, but cannot resist paying a visit to his ex-wife, Teresa Randall, and to Ken’s cousin, Darius Parker (Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, ‘Crash’). They both swear they have no idea what prompted Ken to go digging at night.

Cragen orders his cops to scan old cases for any clues as to who the alleged victim could be. Benson finds a lead in the form of Nina Stansfield, who disappeared three years ago after being stabbed by an assailant. Police found copious amounts of blood on her kitchen floor and a knife covered in the killer’s DNA, but could not trace her body or her baby son. Investigators believed her husband Steven was responsible, but did not have enough proof to charge him. A house call soon convinces Fin and Munch that Steven is not a murderer. “I didn’t kill my wife!” the desperate man insists.

Suspicion begins to form around Ken Randall when Cragen learns that he once lived in the same street as Nina Stansfield. Did Fin deliberately conceal this fact? “I’m trying to protect my son,” is Fin’s response. He goes one step further by preventing Ken from volunteering a DNA sample that would establish whether or not he is Nina’s killer.

Fin’s ex-wife eventually convinces him to make Ken take the test. “He didn’t do this, so make him cooperate,” Teresa says. Ken duly submits his sample and detectives are stunned to learn that it is a close match to the killer. According to the DNA, Nina’s murderer was in fact Ken’s brother – but he does not have any siblings. “My ex-wife never had any other children,” says Fin.

The cop is shocked to discover that Teresa had a son before she met him – none other than Darius Parker. Teresa refused to care for him because he reminded her too much of his father, an abusive ex-boyfriend. “I can’t stand to look at Darius even now,” she says. Darius was raised as Ken’s cousin, little realising that they were in fact brothers. This also explains why Ken lied to police – the man he heard bragging about a murder was Darius.

Cops swoop on Darius’s apartment and find crucial evidence that he knew Nina Stansfield. After confessing to the murders, Darius leads the officers to the spot where he buried Nina and her child. However, Novak’s open-and-shut case is blown to pieces when Darius’s lawyer argues that he should have been present when his client was questioned. The judge agrees and rules Darius’s confession – and the discovery of the bodies – inadmissible. Can the police reopen the case and gather enough new evidence to put the coldblooded killer behind bars?