This episode was originally written to have the girl sexually abused by a male kidnapper. However, shortly before shooting was to have begun NBC felt uncomfortable with the storyline and asked for it to be changed. The writers quickly rewrote it so that the kidnapper was a female who believed she had the best interests of the child at heart. All the locations that had been set up for the original script were used in the episode. The rewrite of the script seems to coincide with the battle Janet Reno was waging for censorship of TV violence, song lyrics, etc....This censorship was the reason that Michael Moriarty (E.A.D.A. Ben Stone) gave as his reason for resigning from the series at the end of season 4, causing his character to resign on the show. This was disputed by show creator Dick Wolf, citing erratic behavior on the part of Moriarty as the reason for the departure of the character E.A.D.A. Stone, and had nothing to do with a censorship battle between the network and Reno, which he stated would not effect his show Law and Order anyway. The timing of an entire script rewrite at this time though does seem to lend some credence to Moriarty's claims of censorship as an issue.
This episode appears to be based on the 1992 Katie Beers kidnapping case. Beers disappeared on December 28, 1992, two days before her tenth birthday. She was lured by the promise of birthday presents to the home of a family friend, John Esposito. She left a message on her godmother's answering machine saying, "I've been kidnapped by a man with a knife." Esposito, almost immediately a suspect due to his own personal history, falsely alleged that Beers was kidnapped by a third party while at the Spaceplex indoor amusement park, but security cameras disclosed that Esposito entered Spaceplex by himself. Beers was held in a 6-foot-by-7-foot concrete bunker under Esposito's garage in Bay Shore, New York, concealed by a 200-pound concrete trap door. The bunker contained a commode toilet, television set, mattress and chains used to restrain Beers. Beers, along with other children, had played in the dirt displaced by the bunker as Esposito dug it a few years earlier. He told police he had built the bunker for Beers. On January 13, 1993, she was found alive in the bunker after Esposito led police to it. Although he was not charged with it, Beers later said Esposito had raped her during her captivity.
Michael Medeiros has portrayed six different characters over the course of the series:
- Episode 4.20 Nurture (1994) - Detective Harding.
- Episode 7.5 Corruption (1996) - Internal Affairs Detective Reynolds.
- Episode 8.19 Disappeared (1998) - Matthew O'Dell.
- Episode 12.3 For Love or Money (2001) - Vince Renalfi.
- Episode 14.8 Embedded (2003) - Defense Attorney Stewart Griffin.
- Episode 18.16 Strike (2008) - Mike Dolci.
Chris Noth (Detective Mike Logan) & Ann McDonough (Peggy Sylvester) also worked together on After the Fall (2012) (episode 3.16), as Peter Florrick & Joan Anderson respectively.
Chris Noth (Detective Mike Logan) & Michael Medeiros (Detective Harding) also worked together on Hi (2010) (episode 1.14), as Peter Florick & a server respectively.