Darla Pennington is the accomplice of her father, Dale Pennington, in the kidnapping of Ella Burton, who was stolen from her parents, Pam and Kevin, when they were swimming in a park lake.
History[]
While camping with her father, the latter spotted Ella Burton swimming with her parents Pam and Kevin while on holiday. Acting on his pedophilic emotions, Dale instructed an unwilling Darla to invite her to play with her, hoping to kidnap Ella and make her his wife. Darla followed her father's instructions and took Ella to him. He subsequently kidnapped her and took her back home. Sometime later, she witnessed Dale beat and rape Ella regularly, assuming he killed her from the brutality and being too scared to save her. As a result, she fled the home to get away from the madness.
She later got employment as a massage therapist, but she was tracked down when the Burton's foster child, Mackenzie Burton, ran away and they were revealed to be making her look like Ella to replace their missing daughter, reinforcing their suspected roles in Ella's disappearance. They saw Darla the day she was kidnapped, and a photograph revealed she was real, so they found her and took her into interrogation. She was threatened with being charged with murder, so she confessed Dale wanted Ella as a "wife" and the assumed death she figured Ella met by Dale's fists.
Dale was arrested and Ella was found alive and well and returned to her parents. Darla's fate remains unknown. (SVU: "Locum")