Detective Olivia Benson and Detective Eliot Stabler are called to the scene of a crime where an investigative journalist has been found dead in her bed with an "X" carved into her cheek. Captain Donald Cragen recognizes the killer's tactics from a similar case thirty years earlier, when the "Bedtime Butcher" murdered five women in the Bronx. The trail leads the detectives to a patrol cop, a jealous ex-lover of the prime suspect, and even sends Benson on a dangerous undercover mission to uncover the truth.

After a young woman is sexually assaulted and murdered, Detectives Olivia Benson and Eliot Stabler track down the woman's boyfriend - their first suspect - but learn that he is a devout vegan who wouldn't hurt a fly. They soon find that the victim had been deeply involved in the fight to expose questionable practices in the meat-packing industry, even going undercover at a large company to find out the truth. Benson goes undercover herself to retrace the woman's footsteps and to identify who the victim might have angered along the way.