Murderer Virginia Hayes
Virginia Hayes (Lynn Collins) is the hidden villainess of "Wanderlust", episode 1.05 of Law & Order: SVU (airdate October 18, 1999). She was the teenage daughter of Annabel Hayes, who she was estranged from following her father abandoning them under the belief that her alcoholism drove him away. When Annabel rented out a room of their house to travel writer Richard Schiller, Virginia became drawn to him and the two began an affair--though Richard created more friction between Virginia and her mother, who was also taken to him.
When Virginia learned that Richard was planning to leave on another trip despite his promise never to leave her, she had a tryst with her older lover in his room and asked him to take her with him. When Richard refused, callously saying he needed to "pack light", Virginia responded by suffocating Richard, pressing her knee against his throat. She then stuffed her underwear in his mouth and duct taped it shut before leaving the apartment to go ride on the trains for a few hours.
When SVU detectives Benson and Stabler began investigating Richard's murder, they picked up Virginia at Central Station and took her home, where she angrily tried to attack her mother and blamed her for Richard's death. Later on, after learning that Annabel's latest boyfriend Scott Dayton (going under his deceased brother's name Thomas) was a former pedophile, they questioned Virginia while she was at a community pool, where she claimed that Thomas had molested her and that Richard intervened in one instance. But she aroused Benson's suspicions when she failed to remember the position of Richard's body, having claimed to have discovered him.
After discovering that Virginia lied about Dayton raping her, they went to her house to question her, only to be stopped by Annabel as Virginia stood by watching. Later on, however, Virginia attempted suicide by cutting her wrist and was sent to the hospital. Later on, when Benson and Stabler went to talk to her, Virginia detailed her relationship with Richard as well as how she killed him when he told her he was leaving again, breaking down as she confessed that she missed him and only wanted to escape her self-centered mother with Richard. Virginia was presumably arrested offscreen.
Trivia[]
- Lynn Collins also appeared on Elementary as the evil Tanya Barrett.