| “ | I know you think I'm a monster, but I love Tory like a son. | „ |
| ~ Roger Kraslow rationalizing his crimes. |
Roger Kraslow is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Captive". He is a pedophile who holds a young boy, Tory Quinlann, captive as his sex slave for several years, and who kidnaps another young boy, Kevin Fogarty.
He was portrayed by David Warshofsky.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Kraslow is a pedophile who preys on young boys. In 2002, he kidnapped nine-year-old Tory Quinlann in order to fulfill a long-held fantasy about "raising" a boy as both his son and his lover. He told Tory that his parents did not want him anymore, which the boy believed because his stepfather, Doug, regularly beat him.
Kraslow molested Tory for the next five years, until the boy became too old for him. By then, however, Tory had come to think of Kraslow as his father, and willingly remained in his house, coming and going as he pleased and even taking Kraslow's last name.
Eventually, however, Kraslow desired another plaything, and kidnapped eight-year-old Kevin Fogarty. Tory, jealous of the attention Kraslow gave Kevin and fearing that he would be sent back to his stepfather, murdered Kevin by smothering him with a pillow.
"Captive"[]
NYPD Homicide Detectives Ed Green and Nina Cassady investigate Kevin's kidnapping, eventually finding his body and interviewing Tory, who tells them he was kidnapped five years earlier. They ask Tory where they can find Kraslow, and he directs them to a nearby shipyard where Kraslow goes to watch the boys in the community center next door play basketball. Sure enough, they find him there and arrest him for kidnapping and murder.
Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy and Assistant District Attorney Connie Rubirosa meet with Kraslow and his lawyer, offering him a sentence of 40 years to life in prison if he confesses and spares the families the trauma of a trial. In an uncharacteristic show of humanity, Kraslow takes the blame for the murder to keep Tory out of trouble, saying that he killed Kevin after catching him trying to escape. McCoy and Rubirosa notice inconsistencies in his story, however, and re-examine the evidence, finding out that Kraslow had not been home at the time of the murder. They ultimately find out that Tory killed Kevin and charge him with murder.
Kraslow is called as a witness at Tory's trial and says that he and Tory were "a family". This makes Rubirosa suspicious about Tory's home life prior to being kidnapped, and he later finds out about the abuse the boy suffered at his stepfather's hands, which helps him prove that Tory killed Kevin in cold blood because he did not want to go back to his old home. Tory goes to prison for murder, while Kraslow is imprisoned for the rest of his life for kidnapping and child sexual abuse.
Trivia[]
- Kraslow is loosely based upon two real-life convicted child molesters: the late Kenneth Parnell, who kidnapped Steven Stayner in 1972 and held him prisoner for seven years until Stayner escaped with Parnell's latest kidnapping victim, Timothy White; and Michael J. Devlin, who kidnapped Shawn Hornbeck in 2002 and held him prisoner for five years, only to be caught four days after kidnapping another boy, Ben Ownby.
External links[]
- Roger Kraslow on the Law & Order Wiki
