A murder in a church of a young cross-dresser leads Benson and Stabler to an alleged cover-up involving sexual child abuse by a priest.

The detectives are on the trail of a recently paroled rapist responsible for the murder of a prostitute during a raid at a men's club and are called to the scene where he was shot in self defense by his own gun. However, the murder weapon was also used in another crime while he was still in prison, leading the detectives to investigate the victim through a trail of previously unsolved cases, a spending spree and another victim. They uncover a more serious criminal in the process.

A female undercover agent for the DEA is raped and murdered, leading to a complicated investigation and the arrest of a suspect highly connected with a Colombian drug cartel. This is the toughest case of Cabot's career as she is faced with death threats on herself and her family along with pressure to yield the case to federal authorities.

When it becomes obvious that a forensics expert raped and murdered a student, the investigation focuses on a criminology professor Cragen arrested decades earlier for similar crimes, but is the professor a perpetrator or a victim?

Complications ensue in the investigation of a Stone Cold Assassins gangbanger who fell off a building after the victim that he tried to rape bit him in self-defense when the vic's twin sister cops to the crime, seemingly impossible due to the evidence until the secrets regarding the sister's true genetic identity are revealed.

After an 18-year-old girl is kidnapped, psychic Sebastian Ballentine comes forward claiming to have information on the killings. Stabler refuses to believe that Ballentine is a real psychic, and is convinced that the hints he is dropping about the case indicate he is somehow involved.

After a third young teen is found dead, a paw print tattoo on her lower back, Stabler and Beck investigate the tattoo, which leads them to Broder House, a foster home for young girls. They learn that Chantal was one of a number of girls who had ended up working the streets for a man named Victor. Stabler warns Beck that she can't get emotionally involved in every case, but the two work together to bring down Victor, relying on one of his girls to get the evidence that they need.

When a woman is murdered during an afternoon shopping trip with her daughter, Detectives Benson and Stabler are called in because she was scheduled to testify in their high-profile rape case. As the detectives continue to investigate the correlation between the murder and their case, they discover unlikely friendships that will lead them to the truth.