Lauren Ryder (Crossing Jordan)

Lauren Ryder (Sara Botsford) is the villainess of "Believers", episode 1.06 of Crossing Jordan (airdate October 29, 2001). She was the wife of Senator Ryder and the mother of their teenage daughter, Stacey. As revealed over the course of the episode, Stacey was a troubled drug addict, but her parents refused to admit her to rehab out of fear of drawing bad publicity to the Senator's campaign.
One night, after returning home early from a trip with her husband to Cape Cod, Lauren found Stacey unconscious in the bathroom, having passed out after taking several of Lauren's medications. Believing Stacey was dead and that her death would ruin her husband's political goals, Lauren took Stacey's body out to an abandoned field and stabbed her in the chest with a screwdriver, wanting to stage her death as a murder. But unbeknownst to Lauren, Stacey was only in a drug-induced coma and the stab wound had been what resulted in Stacey's death.
When Stacey's body was found, Lauren appeared heartbroken when viewing her body, keeping her villainous secret hidden. The Senator's bodyguard, George Falk, became a suspect in the case due to Lauren using his screwdriver to stab Stacey. But when Falk revealed that he had been transporting the Senator's mistress to Cape Cod at the time of Stacey's death, along with the fact that Lauren hadn't been staying in the same hotel room as her husband, Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh realized Lauren was Stacey's killer and went to talk to her as she was gardening. When Jordan told her that she knew about Stacey's drug problems, the callous Lauren stated that there was nothing she could do for her daughter and that she believed Stacey hadn't wanted help (with Jordan rebuffing both claims). When Jordan revealed that Stacey had been alive when she was stabbed, however, Lauren reacted with horror, fully exposing herself as a self-serving murderer. Lauren was later arrested (offscreen).
Category:2000s
Category:Callous
Category:Deceiver
Category:Family Murderer
Category:Hero's Lover
Category:Live Action Villainess
Category:Makeshift Weapon
Category:Mother
Category:Murder: Stabbing
Category:Murderer
Category:Politics
Category:Redhead
Category:Villainous Reveal
Category:Fate: Arrested