Callum Donovan was a man who spent 16 years in solitary confinement while in prison.
History[]
Donovan was a bank robber who, along with his crew, got arrested by Detective Stabler during the latter's early years in his career. The arrest kickstarted Stabler's career into becoming a detective. Early in Donovan's sentence, the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist prison gang, told him to join them. When Donovan refused, a fight broke out, with one of the supremacists never walking again. Donovan was sent to solitary confinement, spending enough time alone to become paranoid and to be absent when his mother's Alzheimer's worsened. When the guards came to get him out, Donovan, under the belief they were out to kill him, attacked them. They subsequently left him in solitary until six months before his release. After his release, Donovan swore to avoid illegal activities to prevent being locked up again and abided by the law. He also spent time visiting his ailing mother, who no longer recognized him. After moving into his mother's apartment, he came to have several disputes with his neighbor Lily Milton during his first year of freedom.
When Milton disappeared, Donovan crossed paths with Stabler again and became the prime suspect in the case. His paranoia and desire to never go back to prison caused him to push Stabler off the roof of his apartment building before fleeing. Donovan was later arrested by Detectives Benson and Tutuola at his mother's home. Benson informed him that he was found to be innocent the whole time and that Stabler had actually gone to apologize to Donovan for suspecting him. Although he wanted to see him punished at first, Stabler's intentions changed when he heard Donovan describe the psychologically-damaging horrors from being in solitary confinement. As an experiment, Stabler voluntarily spent three days in solitary, only to experience the same torment Donovan went through, causing Stabler to become sympathetic to Donovan after the experiment was over. When Donovan was convicted of Stabler's attempted murder, Donovan begged to be executed instead of serving his sentence in prison. Later, he attempted suicide by bashing his head against a wall before being sedated by a doctor. ADA Paxton later arranged for him to be released from solitary confinement, much to Donovan's relief. (SVU: "Solitary")