John Ritter's Haunting Law & Order: SVU Appearance as a Murderous Cuckold Was Jaw-Dropping

In a dramatic departure from the comedic roles that made him famous, Ritter made a chilling guest appearance as Dr. Richard Manning in SVU Season 3, Episode 11 ("Monogamy").

Manning was a psychiatrist who nearly killed his wife Nicole (Tricia Paoluccio) after learning she was pregnant — which he believed was the result of an affair with a construction worker.

Not only did Richard brutally assault Nicole but, after hitting her over the head, he performed a crude Caesarean section to remove Nicole's unborn son from her womb. 

Season 3's "Monogamy" started with Benson sitting in an ambulance with Nicole Manning, who had been brutally assaulted and left with a gaping wound in her abdomen. The wound led Benson to realize that Nicole had been pregnant during the assault.

At the crime scene, Stabler realized that someone had performed a C-section on Nicole, and neither her attacker or the child were anywhere to be found.

As the SVU detective searched for any signs of the baby, Nicole was unresponsive in the hospital and thus unable to give police any information about her attacker. But Benson and Stabler learned from Nicole's distressed husband, Ritter's Dr. Richard Manning, that she had likely been attacked on the way to meet him for dinner.

They also informed Richard that, due to her abdominal injuries from the brutal C-section, doctors had been forced to perform a hysterectomy on Nicole to save her life.

The squad then discovered that Nicole had been cheating on her husband with a construction worker named Kyle Novacek (Bobby Cannavale), who had a criminal record. He became their prime suspect, just as a baby boy was found brutally murdered and tossed in the trash.

Then, Nicole woke up.

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Nicole told them that she never saw her attacker, as she was hit over the head from behind. She also confirmed that she had been seeing Kyle for a year, and that they had hooked up the day she was attacked. But she couldn't believe that Kyle was responsible, because he'd told her he wanted to get married and start a new life with her.

She told the partners that she'd contemplated remained married to Richard for stability, but had decided shortly before her attack to tell him that the baby wasn't his and she was leaving him. When asked how Richard responded, Nicole said  that he had been calmer than she expected and wanted to meet for dinner to discuss their marriage.

But when Benson asked Nicole how Richard reacted when she was late to their 7 pm dinner, Nicole was confused.

"I was meeting him at 7:30," Nicole clarified, surprised. "Did Richard tell you 7?"

After their conversation with Nicole, Benson and Stabler realized Richard was actually their prime suspect: Not only did the affair create a motive, but he had a brief medical internship that would have allowed him to perform a primitive C-section without necessarily killing Nicole. When they then found blood on Richard's car keys, they had enough evidence to bring him in for questioning.

In the interrogation room, Richard eventually admitted to getting rid of the only issue in his marriage — another man's unborn baby. The squad all but had their guy, but they still needed to determine whether the beating and C-section were an assault and a forced abortion, or an assault and a murder.

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The detectives visited the coroner, Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), who confirmed that the baby took a breath before dying — meaning he was legally alive before Richard killed him. Warner agreed to testify, allowing Cabot to proceed with a murder charge.

Proving how the baby died without any reasonable doubt was still an immense challenge, and it inspired Cabot to order a paternity test on the fetus to strengthen her case. She got the results just as Richard took the stand in his own defense and, instead of questioning Richard about the attack itself, she focused on the catalyst: The unborn child.

"How did you know she was telling the truth?" Cabot asked about the child's paternity, and Richard ultimately confirmed that Nicole had been sleeping with him and Kyle simultaneously.

"She told me it was him," Richard said

"Mr. Novacek is not the father," Cabot informed the court, holding up the paternity test.

"I would have known," Richard claimed.

"How could you have known?" Cabot probed. "You were so sure he couldn't have been your child. But he had to be, Dr. Manning. There's no other explanation, is there?"

"I don't know," he choked out.

"You held your own child in your hands, your own living child," Cabot said. "Did he cry? Did your son cry before you killed him?"

"He only cried a little," Richard insisted, shaking his head devastated. "He only cried a little."

His confession meant that the child had been born alive, supporting the murder charge. Richard was ultimately imprisoned for life.