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| “ | I took what I wanted because I could. It was there, it was easy. I moved up and down those highways and I left not a ripple in my wake. | „ |
| ~ Aaron Wesley Parker bragging about his rape spree. |
Aaron Wesley "Wes" Parker is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Eighteen Wheels a Predator". He is a serial rapist who has used his job as a long-haul truck driver to victimize women across the U.S. for more than 20 years.
He was portrayed by Trevor Long.
Biography[]
Parker is a long-haul truck driver from Kentucky whose job requires him to drive down routes all over the U.S., trips that he uses to stalk, kidnap, and rape women in multiple states. He has gotten away with it for more than 20 years because he is careful never to leave evidence such as DNA, and because he knocks his victims unconscious before assaulting them so they cannot identify him. While he uses his anonymity to commit his crimes, he fantasizes about achieving the infamy and media status of a "celebrity criminal" in the vein of Ted Bundy or O.J. Simpson.
He and his wife of 22 years, Winona, have two daughters. His family has no idea what he has done, and they consider him a good husband and father.
During an attempted rape of a woman named Raelynn Cole, Parker got a call from his wife while his victim was slowly waking up. He quickly covered her mouth and spoke with his wife who questioned him on why he was late for his birthday party, allowing Cole to learn his name before she managed to make an escape.
"Eighteen Wheels a Predator"[]
Parker visits a bar in New York City, but he is kicked out for changing the music on the jukebox. He follows Kayla Stuart into a park from the bar. He knocks her unconscious, rapes her, and folds her pants before he leaves her to be found by the police.
The NYPD's Special Victims Unit arrests the bar's owner, Dustin Tinsley, for Stuart's rape, since he was the last person seen with her. However, the news report of Tinsley's arrest so angers Parker that, after returning home, he makes an anonymous phone call on a disposable cell phone to SVU Captain Olivia Benson. He claims credit for the attack by revealing the folded pants, a detail that the police had kept out of the media, and bragging that he has just committed another rape. To make sure they know he is serious, he calls out to his unconscious victim. Benson asks him his name, but he replies only that he dares SVU to hunt for him.
SVU Detectives Fin Tutuola and Amanda Rollins travel to Kentucky to talk to Parker's victim, Shay Landry, who reveals that her attacker left her pants folded next to her after he raped her. Benson, Tutuola, and Rollins investigate further, and discover 15 other women who were raped by a man with the same M.O. and signature as Stuart's rapist.
After several setbacks in the investigation, they talk to victim Raelynn Cole, who managed to get a good look at her attacker while he was preparing to rape her. She had also overheard his nickname, "Wes", when someone she thought was his wife unexpectedly called his cell phone to yell at him for missing the birthday party their daughters had planned for him. Benson researches the truckers working for the company whose logo Cole saw on her rapist's hat whose routes would have put them at the scene of Cole's assault, cross-references that list with one of truckers with birthdays matching the day of Cole's rape, and finds Parker. She sends a photo of Parker to Tutuola and Rollins, and Cole identifies him as her rapist.
Benson joins her detectives in Kentucky, where she interviews Winona, who tells them that Parker has gone out to his favorite casino. They go to the casino, and Benson approaches Parker and strikes up a conversation with him, pretending to be a tourist. He becomes suspicious when she keeps asking him about his travels to New York, before he finally realizes who she is from their talk on the phone and watching her press conference about the rapes. He tries to get away, but Tutuola and Rollins, backed by local police, block his way and arrest him.
He is taken back to New York, where he is interrogated by Fin and Rollins. He pleads his innocence in the face of damning evidence of DNA and voice recognition, but Rollins ultimately gets him to confess by appealing to his ego and saying that he now has the opportunity to be famous. He asks if the interrogation is being recorded and after being told yes, he remarks that someday Dateline and Netflix will make documentaries about him. He then brags about getting away with his crimes for so long.
Afterwards he is convicted of several rapes, ultimately being imprisoned for life.
Trivia[]
- Parker is primarily inspired by Canadian-American serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson, a.k.a. "The Happy Face Killer", a truck driver who raped and strangled several women and girls across state lines. When a woman framed her abusive boyfriend for Jesperson's first identified murder, Jesperson was furious and started sending confessions, all signed with a happy face as a calling card.
External links[]
- Aaron Wesley Parker on the Law & Order Wiki
