...These Are Their Stories: The Law & Order Podcast

Captain Don Cragen awakes to find in his bed a dead hooker who's connected to SVU's ongoing probe into rival prostitution rings and the murder of a former governor. Though the squad is ordered not to investigate, Detective Olivia Benson tries to convince DA Paula Foster that Cragen has been set up by either high-class madam Delia Wilson or sleazy pimp Bart Ganzel. The investigation reunites them with former SVU detective Brian Cassidy who's working undercover in Ganzel's organization. Cassidy thinks Delia is behind the frame job, but Detective Nick Amaro suspects Cassidy knows more than he's saying. 

After 11 seasons, several live shows, awards nominations, and being a speed round question on an ABC game show, “These Are Their Stories” marks its 250th episode! Host Kevin Flynn guides listeners on a jam-packed retrospective of the best moments from the podcast. He also talks about the show’s origins and behind the scenes trivia. 

Celebrate the abundance of special guest stars, marathon winners, Hey It’s That Guys, and Ripped from the Headlines stories from Special Victims Unit, Criminal Intent, Law & Order: UK, Law & Order: LA, Law & Order: Toronto, and the mothership. It’s the f’ing O.G...

Detectives Fin Tutuola, Sonny Carisi, and Amanda Rollins come to the aid of a female programmer who is assaulted at a video‑game tournament. They learn the victim's boss, Raina Punjabi, is being harassed online for her upcoming feminist‑themed game. Despite the growing threats, Raina refuses to delay the product release. At the rollout event, the CEO is abducted from the stage and taken away by a trio of masked extremists opposed to women in the gaming world.

As the violence against Raina escalates, Fin tells Sgt. Olivia Benson the kidnappers are mimicking the game and head...

After little Patty (Abigail Breslin) is nearly snatched from a playground, the SVU squad hunts for two would‑be kidnappers. They learn the pair are private investigators who specialize in retrieving abducted children. They were hired by Michelle Osborne (Lea Thompson), who believes Patty is her long‑missing daughter. Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler discover Michelle’s baby actually died, but DNA proves the two girls are biological sisters. Their fertility doctor claims Michelle consented to donate her unused embryos, but Detectives John Munch and Fin Tutuola find the paperwork was forged.

Though Michelle faces kidnapping charge...

Detectives Lenny Briscoe and Ed Green investigate the murder of a career criminal in a parking lot. While Ronny Buck's death could have been a mob hit, it has the hallmarks of an amateur shooting. The detectives learn Buck was running a cleaning scam to rob businesses. One heist is connected to the unsolved murder of an electronics store owner. Briscoe and Green discover connections between Buck and the victim's wealthy widow, Lorraine Corbin. 

ADA Serena Southerlyn learns Lorraine's daughter lied about her mother's alibi and that an unidentified woman paid Buck to have the store owner k...

Detectives Terry Bruno and Jake Griffin think a man's story of an elaborate kidnapping is just a cover for the murder of his girlfriend. But when she turns up alive, rumors abound she staged the abduction "Gone Girl"-style. Captain Renee Curry and Sergeant Amanda Rollins arrest the ex-boyfriend who's been stalking her, but the complexities of the case make it hard for ADA Sonny Carisi to win at trial. Meanwhile, Captain Olivia Benson finds herself at loggerheads with new Chief Kathryn Tynan, who has a different view on what SVU should be doing and Benson's place in the...

Detectives Briscoe and Green investigate the murder of a teen discovered in an alley. Knife marks on her breast match those from an unsolved case five years earlier. The trail leads Lenny and Ed to creepy cabbie Mark Bruner, who they suspect is also behind the disappearance of more than a dozen other girls. 

Bruner's defense attorney tells EADA Jack McCoy she's so afraid of him she wants off the case. His ambitious new lawyer, Tim Schwimmer, rubs ADA Serena Southerlyn the wrong way. The serial killer reveals his attorney knows where his other victims are - b...

The SVU squad investigates when conservative pundit Martha Cobb (played by Rhea Seehorn) is raped during a riot at Hudson. Unlike other victims, she’s dismissive of Lt. Olivia Benson’s empathy. Sgt. Fin Tutuola arrests the Antifa demonstrator who held the protest sign Cobb was violated with. But Detectives Amanda Rollins and Sonny Carisi find an alternative suspect: a devoted fan who’s also a violent extremist.

ADA Rafael Barba worries Cobb’s affect will turn off the jury. At trial, she seems more focused on scoring political points with the defense attorney than obtaining a convicti...

Detective Olivia Benson looks into the rape of Haley Kerns, an uncooperative victim and member of an environmental protest group. She suspects Haley's boyfriend (played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach) but when she goes missing, Benson is reunited with Special Agent Dana Lewis (Marcia Gay Harden, in an Emmy-nominated performance), who says Haley has been an FBI informant in an eco-terrorist cell. Their search leads to a remote cabin where Detective Elliot Stabler is nearly killed in an explosion. 

The investigators learn why Haley didn't want police help when her rapist turns up dead. Lewis leverages the murder charge a...

When the president of Hudson University meets with foul play, Goren and Eames discover a grad student is the killer. During their investigation, they meet a cunning professor who is not who she says she is. The detectives suspect she convinced the murderer to commit the deed. Bobby finds that Nicole Wallace, an international criminal, is his intellectual equal. And so Goren meets the Moriarty to his Sherlock, an attractive serial killer he will forever obsess over in more ways than one. 

We’re talking about Criminal Intent season 2 episode 3 “Anti-Thesis.” Our guest from our January 2, 2019 episode is Dr...

Benson and Stabler look for a killer who met his victim on an anonymous dating site. They arrest Peter Butler, who's been having quickie sex all over town. The detectives link him to the strangled victim and an unsolved rape, but the physical evidence clears him of those crimes. But they learn Peter is HIV positive and, in a fit of misogyny, has been intentionally infecting women. Cabot charges him with spreading the disease. While on trial, one of his victims sprays acid on his face, leaving him permanently scarred. It's not until Peter's kindly grandfather teaches him a...

Detectives Briscoe and Logan look into a lover's lane murder and hope to identify a bespeckled suspect from a parking ticket. But their investigation is interrupted when they come across a man who just had his penis cut off by his jealous wife (who happens to clock Logan with a frying pan). Briscoe wants to get out on time to see the Knicks, but Van Buren assigns them to a fatal stick-up. When the gunman in the robbery also turns up dead, they arrest a guy who threatens them with a burrito. Meanwhile, Lenny and Mike think the man...

Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler search for a baby who was ripped out of her pregnant mother's body. The detectives learn Nichol Manning was having an affair and suspect the man who may be the actual father. But the alibi of Nichol's husband isn't adding up. Dr. George Huang says Richard Manning (played by John Ritter) is an arrogant neat freak who didn't want another man's baby ruining his life. Though the infant is later found dead, ADA Alexandra Cabot says they have to prove the child took one breath to make a murder charge stick. During a...

Detective Nick Amaro shoots an unarmed Black teen, leaving him paralyzed. IAB Sergeant Ed Tucker (and his new partner Brian Cassidy) take Amaro's badge, while a special prosecutor charges him with a hate crime. Against advice from his lawyer, Nick testifies in front of the grand jury, and convinces them he followed proper procedure when he fired his weapon. Meanwhile, Captain Don Cragen announces he's retiring from the NYPD and is leaving the squad in the hands of newly-promoted Sergeant Olivia Benson.

We're talking about Special Victims Unit season 15 episode 11*  "Amaro's One-eighty." Our guest from our August 1, 2018 e...

Briscoe and Green investigate a skeleton with a diamond ring on her right hand and her left one missing. The detectives are shocked to learn it's Kelly Sommers, whose left hand and purse were discovered years earlier at Ground Zero. The detectives trace the ring to a Senator's son who'd been having an affair with Kelly. Lenny and Ed learn Bradley Hagen took his mistress to dinner on the night of September 10th.

McCoy prosecutes the son of Branch's biggest campaign contributor. Kelly's fiancé identifies the handbag she took to work on September 11th, but Southerlyn realizes i...

Elliot Stabler and his new partner/work crush Dani Beck look for whoever fled after trying to kidnap two children. Eden (played by a young Elle Fanning) says her sister is still missing and Marc stabs Stabler with a pen. Fin and Munch think this a part of a child smuggling operation connected to a sketchy adoption agency. The detectives recover an audiotape of a child being smothered in a "rebirthing" ceremony. Stabler and Beck then arrest some foster parents who've been keeping their children in cages. Novak can't get a conviction because the kids won't testify against the...

While performing a rape fantasy sequence during her livestream, cam girl Zoe is attacked by an intruder. Captain Benson discovers the assailant is one of her fans. "ShyGabe" tells Fin he believes Zoe is in love with him and he thought she was inviting him over to role play. The victim tells Kat she does not want her double life exposed. ADA Carisi believes a jury may not convict Gabe if they think the performer consented to the violent sex. 

Gabe represents himself at trial, using the opportunity to get Zoe to admit she said "I love y...

Detectives Lenny Briscoe and Ed Green track down a young family that skipped town, leaving behind a bloody crib. Each parent claims the other fled with the baby. When the detectives find the infant’s body buried in a backyard, Dr. Rogers determines he starved to death. A lactation specialist tells ADA Abbie Carmichael the mom refused to breastfeed, so EADA Jack McCoy assigns Carmichael to go solo and prosecute the mother for manslaughter. The defense argues the child starved because the father refused to help and the specialist pressured her to not use formula. Carmichael counters that if a...

Detectives Benson and Stabler are called in when an infant dies after drinking baby formula mixed with cocaine. When more tainted formula is found in the home of Derek Pfeiffer, Fin and Munch suspect he's been smuggling in the liquid coke from Mexico. But things take a turn when IAB takes over the investigation and Pfeiffer is murdered. Cragen strong-arms Tucker to let Elliot go undercover and infiltrate the drug ring. It's managed by a dirty cop, and when a sting goes sideways, Stabler is forced to shoot him in self-defense.  

Still looking for the kingpin, Benson a...

A retired cop tells Detective Elliot Stabler the perp he's looking for is Ray Schenkel (played by Robert Patrick), who got out of jail the morning a girl was raped. Schenkel had kidnapped victims with the help of his cousin, and Huang predicts he'll seek a new partner. Stabler poses as a sex offender, befriends Schenkel, and joins his therapy group to monitor his actions. They set up a sting, but he resists attacking their decoy. Captain Cragen thinks Schenkel might be sincere in his effort to change his ways, but Detective Olivia Benson thinks it's just a matter...

Three young boys are killed by a car bomb, their mother Doreen and older brother in the front seat are the only survivors. Detectives Goren and Eames learn Paul Whitlock developed a new kind of land mine and his wife had spotted some threatening-looking Middle Eastern men before the blast.  But there are indications the pipe bomb was built in their garage and someone swept it up. Bobby and Alex suspect the depressed Doreen blew up the car in a murder/suicide attempt.

ADA Ron Carver insists the overbearing husband is their best suspect. The detectives find a...

Lt Olivia Benson helps a victim who can't remember the details of her attack the previous day. Laurel Linwood is spiraling emotionally. She says after her father's funeral she wound up in a bar, met a man with the same after-shave and expensive watch as her father, and now has vague memories of a pair of scissors. 

The SVU investigation shifts after Detectives Fin Tutuola and Sonny Carisi find the suspect dead. Laurel tries to bond with Olivia over emotionally distant fathers who never loved them. Laurel says her dad had sex with her as a child, b...

After a health insurance executive is gunned down on the sidewalk by a vigilante, Det. Vincent Riley chases the suspect all over Manhattan. Lt. Jessica Brady discovers, not only are citizens unwilling to help them find the fugitive, people start dressing like him to disrupt their manhunt. ADA Samantha Maroun says Ethan Weller targeted OptiShield's CEO because the company denied his late mother's claim for an experimental drug. DA Nicholas Baxter worries the jury will not convict a defendant who's gained folk hero status for killing a man who represents the worst kind of corporate greed. EADA Nolan Price...

Det. Stabler and Cpt. Cragen investigate what they think is a botched kidnapping at a playground that left a toddler in a coma. They give up the hunt for a creepy guy with a camera when doctors determine little Lucy's injuries occurred days earlier when she was violently shaken. Though suspicion falls on the nanny, Stabler homes in on Lucy's widowed mother, Evelyn. 

After ADA Novak puts the mom on trial, the child's condition worsens. If Evelyn keeps Lucy on life support, her daughter will suffer immense pain. If she takes her off the respirator, the charges w...

The squad investigates the case of a dead woman found with hundred dollar bills shoved in her mouth. Detectives Benson and Stabler learn the woman was an undocumented worker at a woman's sex club. A community activist (Rita Moreno) tells the detectives 16 undocumented women have been attacked by the same rapist - but none will report the crimes for fear of deportation. When Serbian refugee Nina gives Olivia the cash her attacker left, they link a fingerprint to an attorney (Bradley Cooper) who handles the estate for socialite Eleanor Duvall (Angela Lansbury, in an Emmy-nominated performance). Elliot suspects her...

The squad goes after a ring of New Yorkers uploading child sexual abuse material. Detectives Amanda Rollins and Sonny Carisi are stunned to find one of the culprits is Deputy Police Commissioner and major asshole Hank Abraham. As ADA Rafael Barba decides how best to prosecute him, Lt. Olivia Benson has sympathy for Abraham's wife: ADA Pippa Cox. The arrest threatens to both destroy her family and her career as a prosecutor of crimes against children. Meanwhile, Deputy Chief William Dodds urges his son, Sgt. Mike Dodds, to leave SVU for a high profile position. And Benson and Captain...

An off-duty cop is stabbed to death, and her assailant is critically wounded. Eyewitness Monica Johnson tells detectives Lenny Briscoe and Rey Curtis that she saw the man follow the victim into the park—but holes in her story lead them to arrest her for the officer’s death. District Attorney Adam Schiff faces political pressure to seek the death penalty for the cop killer. After prosecutor Jack McCoy gets Monica to confess on the stand, she undergoes a religious transformation and chooses not to fight her execution. McCoy and ADA Jamie Ross debate whether a repentant killer should face...

On a flight to Paris, distraught 12 year old Dominique says she was forced to give a naked massage to well-connected New York billionaire Jordan Hayes. Detectives Benson and Stabler suspect his ex-girlfriend Dahlia is helping him procure underage girls from around the world. Before they can arrest him, Hayes shows up at SVU to accuse Dominique of raping him. ADA Hadwick is unsuccessful at getting a warrant for the video footage from the billionaire's massage room. After Munch convinces another of Hayes's victims to post her experience online, several pre-teens step forward to tell their stories. Benson tries to g...

The official One Chicago Podcast kicks off with Jason Beghe, who has played Sergeant Hank Voight on Chicago P.D. since day one. He joins host Brian Luce, a former Chicago cop and current P.D. producer, to discuss their work on set, Voight’s moral complexity, and the importance of telling the truth of the story. Production Designer Greg Van Horn, known on set as “Merlin,” also shares how he creates the iconic locations that bring the series to life.

You can watch this interview on the One Chicago YouTube channel, and check out the season premie...

Harris and Katharine Vernon are sent videos showing a man entering their home and having sex with her - but she has no memory of the incident. Sgt Fin Tutuola thinks she's lying to her husband, but Captain Olivia Benson believes she was raped after taking her sleeping pills. Captain Renee Curry locates the man who claims he'd been chatting online with Katharine about her "Sleeping Beauty" sex fantasy. With help from Professor Amanda Rollins, the squad learns Harris has been posing as his wife and inviting men to rape her while she's unconscious.

Still traumatized from...

Detective Munch thinks a woman has been abducted by the killer he's hunted for a year: the "Bowery Stalker," who tortures and rapes his victims before killing them. With a lead on a new suspect, he and Tutuola drive upstate looking for the secluded cabin of Darryl Kern. They find he's been using the identities of other missing people. Fin and John are forced to share a motel room, where the new partners bond for the first time. 

A hot tip leads them to a bunker in the woods where multiple bodies are found. The detectives are s...

When a college co-ed accuses raunchy rock star Clarence "C-Square" Carmichael of raping her in his hotel room, Detectives Mike Logan and Lenny Briscoe have to decide whether she's an actual victim or a willing participant now looking for a payday. Lt. Anita Van Buren is the only one who believes Julia's story, and Logan and Briscoe turn up evidence the musician has paid off other victims in the past.

DA Adam Schiff can't believe Julia didn't know what she was getting into when she visited the man's room late at night. But prosecutor Ben Stone says...

The estranged daughters of famed author Walter Briggs (Robert Vaughn) tell Sgt. Benson their stepmother is plying their senile father with Viagra and daily sex. They say Charmaine Briggs (Marcia Cross) is preventing them from seeing him and risking his life to conceive a child to get a bigger cut of his estate. Briggs brags about his youthful sexual prowess, but ends up having a heart attack. Dets. Carisi and Amaro block Charmaine from flying him to Canada against medical advice and court orders. After Briggs has a fatal heart attack, they discover Charmaine extracted semen post-mortem. ADA Barba...

When a young woman is kidnapped by a rapist targeting virgins, psychic Sebastian Ballentine (played by Martin Short) offers to help. Stabler dismisses him as a phony. But when details Ballentine offers about the crime are suspiciously accurate, the detectives suspect he’s actually the culprit. Benson learns his wife is his accomplice, enabling his hunt for virgins. Then a final twist: the couple murdered a pregnant woman to steal her baby.

We’re talking about Special Victims Unit season 6 episode 18 “Pure.” Our guest is Amye Archer from the Little Miss Recap podcast.

Plot points for this...

When a baseball fan despised for costing the team the pennant is killed in a bar, Detectives Briscoe and Green connect the crime to Walter Grimes, a man released from prison after 20 years for a murder he didn't commit. Attorney Rodney Fallon (played by Giancarlo Esposito) argues he's innocent because his time as a wrongfully convicted man made him a murderer. 

McCoy and Southerlyn find the cop who originally framed him. He says the bloody knife he planted was from a different murder committed by Grimes. The prosecutors must rely on planted evidence and the dirty cop t...

Benson and Stabler investigate the murder of a pregnant woman found in a burning apartment. A shameless golddigger, she worked for wealthy coffee importer Pierson Bartlett (played by Stephen Collins) and was his son PJ's fiancée.  But those paternal bonds are strained when Warner says the baby belonged to Pierson, not PJ. 

Novak charges them both with conspiracy to commit murder, but someone bribed a juror to get a mistrial. Father and son are ready to flip on each other. That's when Elliot and Olivia find a hidden camera in the victim's bedroom. It shows the kil...

The squad searches for a rapist who has been targeting lesbians. Their suspect is a heavy metal vampire, but a blood bank employee gives him a solid alibi. Frustrated by the pace of the investigation, a radical lesbian group pickets SVU. Leader Babs Duffy (Kathy Griffin) has a way of insulting everybody, then becomes a target herself. She's placed in protective custody where she makes a move to kiss Benson, who says "That's not on the menu." Olivia might not be gay, but she lets their lesbian-hating prime suspect think she is. The perp's motive: he thinks he can...

While investigating a man stabbed in the groin, Benson and Stabler learn the victim and his wife frequent a sex club. The partners go undercover as swingers and meet the victim's paramour, Cassandra (Rose McGowan). They suspect her jealous ex-boyfriend, Doug, might be the attacker. Elliot and Olivia are shocked to learn that not only have Cassandra and Doug been running a con on the unsuspecting victim, they're actually twins committing - as Stabler calls it - "twincest."

We're looking at SVU season 12 episode 19 "Bombshell." Our guest from the September 12, 2018 episode is Toronto Sun sex & relationship columnist...

After an extended undercover assignment, Benson is reunited with Stabler to investigate the poisoning of a model. The case involves drugs, a mute eyewitness, a rabid dog, and an affair between the victim's husband and Naomi, a beautiful dancer (Catherine Bell). Later, the detectives learn her husband Glenn (Bob Saget) has secretly implanted a microchip in his wife to keep tabs on her. He confesses to the revenge murder, but the chip has made Naomi gravely ill. Glenn donates part of his liver to save Naomi before being wheeled back to jail.

We're talking about Special Victims...

Benson and Stabler have an open-and-shut case against psycho killer Peter Harrison. But annoying lab tech Dale Stuckey makes an error with the bloody knife, leaving Judge Donnelly no choice but to set the suspect free. Munch and Fin tail Harrison to Coney Island and "chase" him through a fun house before another body is discovered. Soon the detectives are dealing with booby traps, secret lairs with secret tunnels, poison-filled needles and poison-filled gas. Munch reaches out to his mentally ill ex-wife (Carol Kane) to help capture the elusive culprit. While visiting the crime lab, Stabler discovers the killer's...