Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Episode 12.03 Behave

Benson and Stabler are called to the hospital, where the doctor informs them his patient has been raped and severely beaten. The doctor also tells them that the patient, Julie, is claiming this is the fourth time her assailant has attacked her. Before she can be questioned, Julie flees the hospital.

Benson goes looking for Vicki at her apartment in Washington Heights. Benson meets Vicki through her window and tells her she will help. Stabler agrees to help stake the apartment out. The detectives notice that Vicki never leaves her apartment and a friend helps her work and manage her life from her apartment.

Benson catches Vicki trying to illegally buy a gun and arrests her as an excuse to bring her into the SVU. Benson tells Vicki it's not too late to run a rape kit, since Vicki still hasn't showered since her attack. Vicki reluctantly agrees to the exam. She tells Benson she was first raped when she was 16, as she was leaving her candy striper job, the second attack was when she was a sophomore in college, the third attack was a week before her wedding when she lived in Los Angeles.

After a bottle of moisturizer that was found at the crime scene matches what was found in Vicki's rape kit, Benson and Stabler head to The Amsterdam Hotel, where the moisturizer bottle was from. There, they interview a man fitting Vicki's description hitting on a woman at the bar. They bring Bill in to join a lineup and Vicki instantly points him out as her rapist.

Bill has an airtight alibi - he was out of the state on business during Vicki's attack, so the detectives have to turn him loose. Vicki finds out and corners Bill outside the elevator and pleads with him to not hurt her because she went to the SVU. Bill tells her he has no idea who she is and hopes she gets help.

Benson stands by Vicki's identification of her rapist. After staying at work all night trying to fit the pieces together, Bensen receives an email from the Rhode Island hotel where Bill was staying during Vicki's attack. The email states that Bill had taken off the screen to his hotel that night, causing some damage. Benson is convinced that Bill slipped out of the hotel to drive to New York and rape Vicki.

Benson and Stabler run Bill's business travel through the database and discover 10 more victims of attacks that match where he was, city for city. Each victim worked in the health care business and one was a patient. The ADA alerts Benson that charges can't be filed because those attacks happened past the statute of limitations. But if Bill's DNA matches what's on file from the previous attacks, she may be able to open the cases again.

As Benson calls from state to state in search of the Bill's alleged victims' rape kits, she discovers backlogs in the thousands for each one. Benson has decided she'll go to the cities where the rapes took place and offer to dig through the rape kits herself, starting in Detroit with a woman who was repeatedly raped throughout the years by the same assailant. Benson is shocked at how many untested rape kits she finds in the city of Detroit's storage.

After being disappointed with what she's found in other cities, Benson flies to Los Angeles and meets with their department. Rex tells Benson that they are facing the same backlog on rape kits as the other cities but they did find a storage locker that Bill has kept for years. Benson is convinced this may be the key to solving her case.

Benson and Alex crack open their case when they discover countless photos, videos and "artifacts" that Bill has taken throughout his years as a rapist. Even though Rex can do anything with evidence since the statute of limitations has ran out in the state of California, he tells Benson to take this evidence back to New York and put him behind bars.

Vicki testifies that Bill was the man who raped her a total of four times. Bill's lawyer tries to prove that even though the case against Bill is strong in California, it is not in New York. The judge has to decide if Vicki's rape case should go to trial, despite the statute of limitations being up in California. The judge is disgusted that Vickie's case would not have been questioned if only her rape kits in California had been processed earlier. The judge is forced to throw out all evidence Benson collected in California.

Benson discovers new evidence in the SVU's files proving that after Bill raped Vicki in 1998, he held her against her will. Even though the evidence of rape is so vague, they can at least prosecute Bill on kidnapping charges, based on Vicki's DNA still being on the duct tape Bill used to bind her. Since there is no statute of limitations on kidnapping, Stabler and Benson bring Bill in to the SVU and Vicki is there to watch him go behind bars.