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| “ | They come to me as refugees from Babylon... Your world, where drones work McJobs and have no idea what it is to be truly free. Where adults abuse children for sex behind closed doors. I set them free. | „ |
| ~ Roderick rationalizing treating his "family" like slaves |
Cole Roderick is one of the main antagonists of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Streetwise". He is the patriarch of Phalanx, a "family" of homeless children, who murders anyone who he perceives to have disrespected him.
He was portrayed by Thom Bishops.
Biography[]
As a child, Cole was physically abused by his father until he ran away from home. Growing up on the streets, he became convinced that the outside world was "Babylon", where children were abused and trapped in a world of oppressive rules, and living on the streets was the only true freedom. As an adult he started Phalanx, a "street family" consisting of homeless children who he lured in with promises of love and shelter before convincing them to do his bidding in order to prove they were worthy of being part of his "family". This often consisted of helping him rob passers-by and pawn their expensive accessories. Although Cole claimed the robberies were to feed the family, much of the money went to supporting him.
Cole ran Phalanx with the help of his "wife", a lover who would act as a mother to the children. This was initially a woman named Larissa Rhedd, but Cole later discovered that she was having sex with her drug dealer in return for heroin, so he expelled her from Phalanx and hooked up with another of his followers named Cassidy Cornell (who, unknown to him, was actually a wealthy runaway named Helen Braidwell).
Cole became obsessed with punishing anyone who disrespected him in front of the children; as a result, when he later got into an altercation with a homeless man in Prospect Park in front of the children, he ended up beating the old man to death with a smiley chain before declaring that anyone who disrespected him or Cassidy would die. Cole killed two more people under this law: a homeless man named Byrnsey Ross, who he stabbed 30 times for telling the children he could be a better father than Cole, and Rhedd, who he tracked down and beat to death for cheating on him as the law also applied to past crimes.
One night, Cole and Cassidy/Helen were in the park when Cole decided to rob a teenage girl he saw with an expensive phone and diamond earrings. Cole beat the girl up with his smiley chain and tore out her earrings; however, as he was leaving, Helen recognised the girl as Shelby Crawford, who was her classmate before she ran away and could have identified her. She called Cole back and told him that Shelby had called him a "stupid f*g", meaning she had to die for disrespecting him. Cole hesitated, but at Helen's urging he decided he had to kill Shelby and beat her to death with his smiley chain. He later had one of his "children", 11-year-old Josie Knox, sell Shelby's earrings at a pawn shop.
"Streetwise"[]
Detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit investigate Shelby's murder and begin tracking Josie after discovering that she pawned Shelby's earrings and track her to a youth crisis center, where her social worker Paige Beddels tells them about Phalanx. Benson and Stabler find Phalanx's camp and ask "Cassidy" and Cole about Josie. Cole denies knowing where she is, but she returns from panhandling during the conversation and Cole tells her to run before running away. Stabler chases after him, but he manages to escape by hanging onto the side of a passing truck; however, Benson manages to catch Josie.
While interrogating Josie, Benson and Stabler convince her to talk and she tells them that Cole mugged Shelby and then killed her for insulting him. However, meanwhile Cole realizes that Josie will probably betray him and, over "Cassidy"'s objections, sentences her to death for betraying Phalanx. He vacates the camp before tracking Josie to the crisis centre, where he murders Paige and kidnaps Josie. Taking her to the abandoned warehouse where he is hiding out, he tortures her for 12 hours, carves a Glasgow smile into her face, gouges out her eyes and eventually kills her before dumping her body, which is found by police the next day.
Searching the centre after Josie's abduction, the SVU team finds several short stories written by Josie in which she talks about the "lion cubs" beating up "crows" and robbing them on the orders of the "boss lion" and his "lioness", realizing she was writing about the crimes Cole made the children commit. This includes the murder of three "crows", who are buried around the city, by the "boss lion". Meanwhile, "Cassidy" goes the police to help find Josie; when she discovers that Josie was killed by Cole, she agrees to testify against Cole and tells the police about all the other murders he committed, as well as giving them directions to the warehouse where Cole is hiding. Benson and Stabler go to the warehouse, where Cole ambushes Stabler and tries to strangle him with his chain, but Stabler manages to subdue him and arrests him for murder.
At trial, Cole remains calm until "Cassidy" testifies against him, at which point he berates her for betraying their family and tries to attack her before being dragged out of the courtroom, threatening her that their family will get revenge on her for betraying him. He is soon convicted of six counts of murder and receives six consecutive 25-year prison sentences. However, the day after his conviction, the SVU team discovers both that "Cassidy" is really Helen Braidwell, and that she was a classmate of Shelby Crawford, and realize that Helen intentionally provoked Cole into killing Shelby in order to cover up her secret life. Helen is charged with manslaughter, and, knowing that she will never be convicted without Cole's testimony, Benson goes to talk to him in prison. She finds that, despite his earlier threats to her in the courtroom, Cole is unwilling to hurt "Cassidy" and refuses to testify against her, even when Benson reads out Helen's testimony where she called him a bloodthirsty tyrant. When Benson reveals that "Cassidy" is actually Helen and was not abused as she previously claimed, though, Cole is outraged at having been lied to as he considers this the worst form of disrespect. Cole agrees to take the stand and testifies that Helen goaded him into killing Shelby for disrespecting him. His testimony sways the jury and Helen is convicted of manslaughter while Cole goes back to serving his sentence.
External links[]
- Cole Roderick on the Law & Order Wiki
