The Female Villains Wiki
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Marlene Rosten

The villainous Marlene Rosten

Marlene Rosten (Amy Spanger) is the secondary villainess of "PTSD", episode 10.09 of Law & Order: SVU (airdate Decemember 2, 2008). She was the wife of Lieutenant Gary Rosten, who raped and impregnated Jessica Crewes, a soldier in his unit. When Gary told Marlene about the incident, he claimed Jessica was the "camp slut" and that he had had made a mistake sleeping with her. Marlene wanted to confront Jessica what had happened between her and her husband, but was initially unable to when Jessica went awol to avoid Gary's wrath.

After finding Jessica's phone number from her friend in base personnel, Marlene called Jessica and claimed that she wanted to talk to her in person about what Gary had done to her, claiming she wanted to protect her children if Gary was really a rapist. But in actuality, it was a setup for Gary to confront Jessica himself, which led to him murdering Jessica and cutting her unborn baby out of her body, throwing the infant's body into the Hudson River.

Later on, Master Sergeant Dominic Pruitt (who had been a friend of Jessica's) attacked Gary to get him to tell him what he'd done to Jessica, with Marlene arriving soon after Detectives Olivia Benson and Finn Tutuola broke up the altercation. While Marlene initially proclaimed her husband's innocence, it was later determined that Gary was her rapist once Pruitt was discovered to be innocent. Benson interrogated Marlene, who initially continued to deny Gary's involvement in Jessica's death. But when Benson told her that Gary's DNA matched the blood of Jessica's baby, Marlene tearfully confessed, saying that she didn't know Gary planned to kill Jessica and that she had been motivated by a desire to protect her family, tearfully breaking down upon revealing what Gary had done to Jessica's baby. Marlene was most likely arrested along with Gary.  

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