The part of Dan Kozlowski is played by Pablo Schreiber in his first appearance on SVU. Pablo Schreiber will later also play the recurring role of the heinous criminal, William Lewis.
The plot was based in part on the disappearance of two-year-old Trenton Duckett, and the subsequent suicide of his mother Melinda Duckett in 2006, who took her own life the day after being grilled by Nancy Grace during an interview for her show.
This plot-line's guest star Marian Seldes and recurring SVU actor David Thornton (as an alleged kidnapper's mother & her attorney) appeared together a decade prior in Home Alone 3 (1997).