"Missing Pieces" is Episode 5 in Season 13 of "Law & Order: SVU." It aired on October 21 , 2011 at 10pm ET on NBC.
The episode opens with each of the detectives celebrating Halloween with their kid, or knocking on pedophiles doors to warn them not to give out any candy. A woman named Ally goes into a convenience store to buy organic diapers, when she shouts that someone stole her car with her 3-month-old baby in the backseat.
After finding Ally's husband Tim, the couple is brought into the precinct to be questioned separately. Detectives learn that the couple arrived in the city from Buffalo as they wanted to see the Halloween parade. They also learn that Tim has quite the temper, and Ally's sister in Buffalo had called the cops and him before for domestic abuse. Ally however says Tim means no harm, and she knows how to handle his anger.
Soon, detectives find the couple's abandoned car, but no trace of the baby inside. Because there was no foul play, it's suspected that either the thief wore gloves or the couple is lying.
Finn and Rollins pay a visit to the sister in Buffalo, who swears she saw the baby being put into the car before the couple left. Meanwhile, a man comes in with baby's car-seat after he bought it off a peddler, when he sees a matching car-seat on the news. A red cooler is also found, with evidence that a baby was put inside of it.
Suspecting now that either Ally or Tim is responsible for their baby's death, Amaro and Benson continue to question the couple separately, hoping to get answers. Ally finally admits they stopped to sleep at a motel on the drive up, and went to the motel bar to drink. The motel manager reports that the couple brought the baby into the bar, and virtually ignored it as they argued and got drunk. Still, while presenting the other one's weak flaws and traits, the couple essentially defends one another, and neither admits or points fingers that the other one killed their son.
Finally, using a sensitive approach, Amaro gets Ally to draw a map where the baby is buried. After being medically examined, detectives learn the baby showed no signs of physical trauma, no needle marks, no malnutrition, and that it was buried in a 'loving' way, with its toys and blanket.
Tim now admits to Benson that due to the couple's arguing and his need for sleep, he shook the baby until it stopped crying. However, the medical examiner insists the baby's death was neither a murder nor an accident. She proposes that the baby died from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), in which a baby under one year of age suddenly dies without any warning signs, for no apparent reason.
Despite the ordeal of having to put NYC in a bad light due to putting the missing baby on the news, and the stress detectives endured over questioning the couple, Benson is sensible enough to insist they send the couple home, as technically they did nothing wrong.
Overall, this episode was quite different from the usual SVU formula in that no actual crime was committed. Most of the episode dealt with the questioning of Ally and Tim, leaving the audience to assume and try to figure out which one of the couple was lying. However, "Missing Pieces" was successful in presenting a new angle (SIDS), whereby no one gets prosecuted because no one was guilty, despite the tragedy.
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