'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit' Season 14, Episode 14: 'Secrets Exhumed' Recap

‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’: season 14, episode 14: ‘Secrets Exhumed’

The detectives are moving desks around as Detective Munch, who has been working on Cold Cases for months, finally returns. He returns bearing gifts; a cold case from 1987.

The main suspect is being released from jail, so Captain Cragen sends Benson and Amaro down to Florida to pick him up, and has Rollins and Tutuola gather evidence outside of the DNA sample.

When Benson and Amaro arrive, they are greeted by FBI Agent Dana Lewis, and old friend, and informed that the suspect, Brian Traymor, is suspected as a serial rapist, and it’s now the FBI’s case. But Lewis is willing to work with the SVU.

When he is released, they are surprised to find that he’s paralyzed from the waist down, and has been since 1988. They found DNA matches on 2 of his 5 supposed victims, and Benson and Amaro plan to interrogate him when Rollins gets a hit on a former roommate from one of the victims. So they pay her a visit.

They question the roommate, and she positively identifies the suspect’s picture, says he told the victim that he worked for the team. Traymor, on the other hand, denies any knowledge of her. He confirms he worked for the team, but he talked to so many women, he wouldn’t recognize any.

They press some more, and get him to confess that he knew her and maybe went home with her.

The parents of another victim, Kira, come by the station, but they are unable to ID Traymor. They say Traymor could never have killed their daughter.

Traymor, in interrogation, admits to all the rapes and murders, except for one. Kira Stanger.

 The detectives need some evidence to tie Traymor to Kira, so they visit the cold case lab in hopes of getting old evidence. But the box of evidence is empty, already checked out by some other detective years ago. And there’s another box missing somewhere in storage.

Back in interrogation, Traymor still denies even meeting Kira. Agent Lewis dismisses the detectives and continues to interrogate Traymor. She tries to coerce him into a confession. He hesitantly agrees.

Outside the room, the detectives find that the box of evidence was checked out 10 years prior and is likely lost. But they are interrupted when Noah, Kira’s fiancée, drops by for a visit. Agent Lewis walks out celebrating, and Noah recognizes her from a long time ago. She hugs him and says that they finally got the guy.

It turns out Noah and Agent Lewis went to college together back in the day.

Amaro takes Noah into a room and sees if he can identify the suspect, but he can’t seem to recognize Traymor. Noah says that he and Agent Lewis dated on and off after college, so some details of the on-going case might have been revealed to him. Noah also says that Kira’s pregnancy wasn’t planned.

Amaro goes to Captain Cragen and expresses his concerns about Traymor’s confession. He reveals to Cragen and Benson that Agent Lewis and Noah used to date, and that Lewis could have let critical details out. Noah was initially a suspect, but was cleared, by Amaro suggests they reopen that case.

They visit the original detective, and he says Noah had an airtight alibi. And any interviews cleared all doubts about him. But no one knew he and Lewis were dating.

Back in holding, Amaro talks to Traymor, he suspects that Traymor was coerced into confessing. When questioned Traymor doesn’t actually remember anything about her, outside of what Agent Lewis told him.

In a bar, Agent Lewis and Benson enjoy a drink when they get a call that Traymor is recanting his confession on Kira, on grounds of coercion.

Amaro tries to get Benson to understand his suspicions of Agent Lewis, saying she likely helped Noah with his alibi. But Benson is sure Lewis isn’t involved.

Benson and Lewis go to the interrogation room and wait for Traymor, who they are intentionally stalling. Benson begins to question Lewis, asking why a pregnant girl would be at the bar. Or why her parents said she’d never bring a stranger home. Benson asked, since Lewis knew Noah, if she ever met Kira, and she says she might have at a party.

Other detectives are watching the confrontation, and two return from interviewing the original detective. He didn’t think Noah could be involved, but he said Lewis was “all over” the crime scene, even though Lewis told Benson she was in Georgia at the time.

Agent Lewis is upset when she realizes they were investigating Noah and didn’t tell her. She realizes that they are questioning her now. She dares Benson to ask her if she killed Kira.

Benson points out all the flaws in Agent Lewis’ tale, but she says they’ll never find anything on her.

In cold storage, they still can’t find the second box, but they go on to pretend that they’ve found it and confront Agent Lewis anyway. Lewis says that any of her DNA found in the evidence would be there because of cross-contamination, so they couldn’t hold it against her.

Amaro brings Noah in for more questions. He asks if Agent Lewis was ever aware that they broke up, and Noah says he never dumped her, but just kind of faded away. He says she wanted to get married, but he wasn’t ready for that. And then a few months after that, he told Lewis he was going to marry Kira, and she became furious.

Amaro goes into interrogation to help Benson. He tries to help find motive. He reveals to her that Noah said he got Lewis pregnant, and she proposed, but he turned her down, and urged her to have an abortion.

Lewis reveals that Noah promised, if she had an abortion, then they could still be together… but he went on to get engaged to Kira instead only 2 months later. It was because she got pregnant, but Noah didn’t want her to have an abortion.

Lewis went to visit Kira and tell her that Noah was using them both, and learned she was pregnant and that Noah proposed on the spot, and murdered her in a fit of rage. She staged the scene to look like the Traymor profile to cover her tracks.

Capitan Cragen comes in to arrest her, and she goes with him without a fight.