7 Law & Order: SVU Episodes Inspired by Real-Life Crimes

THE CRIME: Man snatches young girl and holds her as his personal sex slave.
EPISODE: Slaves (Season 1)
PLOT: A hotshot lawyer, played by the incredibly well-preserved Andrew McCarthy, is accused of keeping his Romanian immigrant maid locked up as a sex slave used by the lawyer and his seemingly straight-laced wife.
REAL-LIFE HEADLINE: Pennsylvania teen Tanya Kach was held captive by Thomas Hose, a charming security guard from her school, who kept her squirreled away as his sex slave for nearly a decade.

THE CRIME: Baby stolen from inside womb, mom left for dead.
EPISODE: Monogamy (Season 3)
PLOT: A seven-months-pregnant woman is found beaten in the park with her unborn child having been stolen out of her belly by someone who performed a DIY C-section.
REAL-LIFE HEADLINE: In 2004, Lisa Montgomery was convicted of killing pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett and then kidnapping the unborn child from Stinnett’s womb. Stinnett died and Montgomery was found a day later, trying to pass off the baby as her own. Currently behind bars at Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, Montgomery is one of the few women on death row.

THE CRIME: Teen blames video game for inspiring heinous acts of violence.
EPISODE: Game (Season 6)
PLOT: The squad can’t crack their case until Stabler’s young son points out the similarities between the gruesome crime scene and the plot of a popular – and extremely violent – video game, which turns out to be the catalyst for a couple of delusional teens to commit murder.
REAL-LIFE HEADLINE: In 2005, Alabama teen Devin Moore claimed his addiction to the video game Grand Theft Auto led him to go on a killing spree, shooting two police officers and a civilian, then trying to flee in a stolen police car.

THE CRIME: Jilted lover sets ex on fire.
EPISODE: Burned (Season 8)
PLOT: A woman accuses her husband of rape, but the squad isn’t totally convinced as the suspect has no history of violence – plus, the guy is played by Blair Underwood, so he is smooth. Not only do the claims turn out to be true, but the ex-husband isn’t satisfied unless his wife is dead, so he lights her on fire.
REAL-LIFE HEADLINE: In 2005, Yvette Cade tried to get a restraining order on her estranged husband Roger Hargrave, but it was dismissed. Three weeks later, Hargrave set Cade on fire at her job at a T-Mobile store, leaving her with third-degree burns blanketing her torso, arms, and head. Cade survived, although, as of 2010, she had undergone almost 30 surgeries. Hargrave, meanwhile, was sentenced to life in prison.

THE CRIME: Teen girls make pregnancy pact.
EPISODE: Babes (Season 10)
PLOT: The department uncovers a group of high school girls who’ve made a pregnancy pact with one another. The ringleader appears to have committed suicide after being cyber-bullied because of the agreement. However, it’s a former boyfriend who really murdered the teen, after she refused to have sex with him.
REAL-LIFE HEADLINE: In 2008, it was discovered 18 students had become pregnant at Glouchester High, which led to the reveal of a not-so-secret pregnancy pact amongst female students at the school who wanted to have children at the same time. The story was also made into a wonderfully campy Lifetime movie called, The Pregnancy Pact.

THE CRIME: Coach preys on young male students to satiate sexual appetite.
EPISODE: Personal Fouls (Season 13)
PLOT: A highly regarded high school basketball coach is accused of sexually abusing former students but the squad has a hard time finding victims that’ll admit to the abuse, especially when the key witness in their case is now a successful NBA player.
REAL-LIFE HEADLINE: Technically, this episode is based on 2009 allegations from hockey player Theoren Fleury that he had been sexually abused by his former coach Graham James throughout the 1980s. However, the plot is also scarily familiar to the 2011 case against Jerry Sandusky, the beloved football assistant coach who was arrested and charged with 52 counts of sexual abuse to young boys over 15 years, including his adopted son.

THE CRIME: Man kidnaps young girls and holds them captive.
EPISODE: Imprisoned Lives (Season 15)
PLOT: A young boy is abandoned in Times Square and ends up leading detectives to the home of a man who had kidnapped two women and kept them locked up in cages in his basement.
REAL-LIFE HEADLINE: In 2013, it was discovered that Ariel Castro had kidnapped three young women in Cleveland and held them prisoner in his basement for over a decade. He even fathered a child with one of the victims. After the women were rescued, Castro was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. A month into his sentence, he was found hanging by a bed sheet in his cell.