Villainous imposter Denise Pikering (aka Cassandra Sullivan)
Denise Pikering aka Cassandra Sullivan (Misti Traya) was the hidden villainess of "Pretend", episode 8.21 of Law & Order: SVU (airdate May 15, 2007).
History[]
Denise was born in Detroit in 1979 and grew up in an abusive home. At sixteen, she was arrested for shoplifting and was placed in foster care after her home situation was discovered. Denise was placed in the foster home of Jeannie Hayes, where she felt happy and loved. When Denise aged out of the system at eighteen, she was unprepared for being on her own and was left homeless. Denise began to manipulate her way back into foster care, sleeping in public areas so the police would pick her up so she could claim she was sixteen and be placed back in the system. Denise would go under different aliases to enter the new foster home and enroll in high school, engaging in numerous relationships with underage students over the course of ten years. Denise became so accustomed to saying she was sixteen that she genuninely began to believe it herself.
By the time of the episode's events, Denise's scheme had taken her to New York City, where she was going under the name Cassandra Sullivan. She was engaged in a relationship with classmate Riley Cuskey, whom she was deeply in love with. But prior to the events of the episode, when Riley briefly broke up with Denise for being too needy, she had a brief affair with Riley's friend Scott Heston. When Riley got back together with Denise, she told Scott that he could never know about their liasion. But by that point, Scott had become obsessed with Denise--and was plotting to kill Riley to have her to himself.
Events[]
After Scott killed Riley during one of the "extreme wrestling" fights they had together, staging his crime to look like an accident, Denise introduced herself as Cassandra Sullivan to ADA Casey Novak right before going into court to hear the verdict, telling her of how Scott had been writing to her. After Scott was only found guilty of criminally negligent homicide, Denise left the courthouse in disgust despite Scott's attempts to talk to her. Novak talked to Denise at her foster home later that evening, where she revealed how Scott had become fixated on her after their brief affair and that she believed him to have killed Riley on purpose after learning about the femory artery in their science class (as that was the artery Riley had bled out from).
After initially refusing to testify out of guilt, Denise agreed to take the stand at Scott's sentencing hearing. But on her way to the hearing, Denise was struck by a car driven by Scott's friend Keith, having been hired by Scott to do so to stop her from testifying. Denise was admitted to the hospital, where medical tests given in regards to her injuries proved that she wasn't sixteen as she claimed. After the SVU detectives uncovered Denise's actions, Benson and Stabler confronted her in the hospital, where she adamantly denied everything and fiercely claimed she was sixteen. Despite this, Denise was kicked out of the high school she was attending and was cut off from foster care services, forcing her to move into a homeless shelter Novak suggested to her.
Denise was then put on trial for the statutory rape of Scott, whose lawyer Oliver Gates was planning to use the charges as a defense for Scott's trial in his attempt on her life. During the trial, against Novak's advice, Denise decided to defend herself to clear her name. But instead, while cross examining Scott, Denise goaded him into angrily admitting to deliberately killing Scott, boldly admitting to Novak later that that had been her plan all along. While with Novak, she had Jeannie Hayes come in to talk with Denise. She denied knowing Jeannie at first, but admitted the truth when she showed her a photo of the two together. Finally willing to face the truth, Denise admitted to what she'd done, saying that she had not been prepared to be on her own after aging out of foster care and had manipulated her way back into the system to continue feeling loved and supported (something she had not had when she was a child). Benson and Stabler then entered the room to reveal that Denise's story had been picked up by the news and Denise's other boyfriends were coming forward. When Benson claimed that she had not loved Riley or any of her past lovers, Denise denied the claim, saying that she'd loved them all, but had to leave them when they began growing up. Denise was presumably arrested for multiple counts of statutory rape.
Quotes[]
- "I was eighteen. No one prepared me to go out in the world alone. You were the first person who ever took care of me. I really just wanted that back." (Denise revealing her reason for going back into foster care to Jeannie Hayes)