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“ | Society's not ready for me. I can look at women and know how beautiful and powerful they can be, like you two. You think you're special? You're boring. But you could be so much more. | „ |
~ Brightman rationalizing his crimes to Olivia Benson and Amanda Rollins. |
Harold "Hal" Brightman is a the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Strange Beauty". He is a psychiatrist who kidnaps, mutilates and murders a woman named Nina Raedo.
He was portrayed by David Eigenberg.
Biography[]
When he was Hal was 13 and his brother Gene was nine, their mother lost her leg in a car accident. Hal was going through puberty at the time and became sexually fixated on women with amputated legs.
As an adult, he became a psychiatrist, specializing in the treatment of teenage girls coping with having lost limbs. He also started paying women to let him cut off their legs, starting with a drug addict and prostitute named Lisa Everly. He started treating 15-year-old Jess Hardwicke, whom he helped get a job with Gene, a dentist. Hal became obsessed with Jess, making her so uncomfortable that she ended the therapy.
After amputating the legs of four other women, Hal began stalking Nina Raedo, eventually kidnapping her and forcibly amputating her leg. When she died as a result of a bad reaction to anesthesia, Hal panicked and left her body in an abandoned car.
The NYPD's Special Victims Unit started investigating his case, and Detectives Olivia Benson and Amanda Rollins come to suspect Hal after learning of his connection to Jess and his obsession with amputating limbs. They convinced him that they were in fact investigating his brother in order to get him to talk. When they brought up his mother, Hal realized that they were onto him, and confessed to murdering Nina. He even appeared to take pride in what he did, saying that he made his victims "so much more". Benson and Rollins then arrested him.
Personality[]
Hal originally seemed like a kind man who wanted to help people. However, he showed his true colors by cutting off the legs of as many victims as he could, and heartlessly tried to incriminate his brother by stealing some of his anesthesia tanks under his name.
He was delusional as well, claiming that Nina would have wanted to cut off her leg if she lived longer, and that his actions should be legal. He was implied to be an ephebophile, as he was sexually attracted to Jess when she was only 15 years old,
Trivia[]
- Hal is inspired by real-life surgeon and convicted murderer John Ronald Brown.
External links[]
- Hal Brightman on the Law & Order Wiki