Rosa Doletti (Law & Order: SVU)

Rosa Doletti (Lynn Cohen; 1933-2020), also known as Rosa Reilly and Jane Smith, is the hidden main villainess of "Beef", episode 11.20 of Law & Order: SVU (airdate April 21, 2010). She was the owner of the Donna Rosa's Meats processing plant, which had been in her family for at least three generations. Having been working in the meat processing business for 50 years, Rosa was fiercely protective of her business despite the deplorable working conditions there. Furthermore, her son John Reilly (the episode's hidden secondary villain) worked as the foreman of the plant and also ran it with an iron fist.
When Rosa found out that journalist Laura Santiago had infiltrated the plant by posing as an employee and was putting together a documentary in order to expose the plant's highly unsanitary practices, she and Reilly went to her apartment and murdered her, with Rosa slitting Laura's throat with a knife after her son refused to do so. She also manipulated Vanessa Vargas, the wife of former meat cutter Jorge Vargas, into unwittingly helping her frame him for Laura's murder by writing and sending her a letter claiming that she was an illicit lover of Jorge's and also planned to make a false rape accusation against him as revenge for leaving both of them for Laura. Furthermore, Rosa also sent pictures of Laura and Jorge with her letter to Vanessa in order to make her claims seem to be true. With that, Vanessa provided Rosa with Jorge's DNA, allowing for the callous murderer to plant said DNA at Laura's apartment in order to frame him for the latter's murder. The villainess' first appearance in the episode came when she was filming a commercial advertising her company's products.
After the SVU detectives took Reilly in for questioning, believing him to have been Laura's killer, Rosa arrived at the station with Donna Rosa's attorney Alberto Seraphine, proclaiming his innocence. However, after talking with Captain Donald Cragen, he allowed her to confront her son in the interrogation room. To protect his mother, Reilly deceitfully confessed to murdering Laura. Later on, while watching the undamaged portions of Laura's footage, Detectives Olivia Benson and John Munch noticed that Reilly is left-handed despite the evidence indicating that the murderer is right-handed, therefore revealing that Rosa was Laura's real killer. The two went to her residence to confront her just as she was preparing dinner for her family, with Benson and Munch revealing that they knew Reilly was her accomplice. Furthermore, the detectives deduced that he was her son after seeing photos of his wedding and his family—which Rosa confirmed to be true—and Munch discovered the typewriter that she used to write her letter to Vanessa. Cornered, the villainess went into her kitchen and grabbed a knife to hold the pair back. She went on to confess to killing Laura, saying she had perpetrated the murder to protect her business, while also viciously accusing her son of being too weak. At the end of the episode, Rosa was talked into surrendering, and she was promptly arrested by Benson and Munch.
== Rosa's Letter to Vanessa ==
I only found out about you after I was seeing him. But the fact is, Jorge doesn’t want either of us anymore, now that he's planning to run away with Laura. How can we let him do this?
If you can get me one of his shirts, a pair of his pants, and some of his semen, I will cry rape and get him in a whole lot of trouble. We’ll teach him a lesson, and he’ll never cheat on anyone again. Just leave it in a cooler under the bench in the park next to your church and I will take care of the rest.
Jane Smith
== Gallery ==
Rosa in Cragen's office.jpg|Rosa in Captain Cragen's office
Rosa Doletti knife.png|Rosa armed with a knife after her villainous reveal
Category:2010s
Category:Boss
Category:Callous
Category:Conspirator
Category:Knife
Category:Live Action Villainess
Category:Mother
Category:Murderer
Category:Murder: Severed Jugular
Category:Villainous Reveal
Category:Fate: Arrested