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| • Butterflied • |
Episode Number: 81#
Original Airdate: January 15, 2004
Written By: David Rambo
Directed By: Richard J. Lewis
Synopsis: "Grissom can't help but examine his feelings for Sara when a dead woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to her is discovered as part of a double murder he's investigating. A second dismembered body is soon located in nearby trash cans. Making the case tough to crack is the fact that the killer took extraordinary measures to clean up after himself."
Guest Stars:
David Berman as David Phillips
Erinn Carter as Debbie Marlin
Tinsley Grimes as Kelly McNeil
Rich Hutchman as Jeff Pike
Romy Rosemont as Jacqui Franco
Kyle Secor as Dr. Vincent Lurie
Josh Stamberg as Dr. Tripton
James Patrick Stewart as Adam Matthews
Jeff Sugarman as Dr. Mulligan
Notes:
- David Rambo was a freelancer when he wrote this episode, but he subsequently joined the writing staff in season five.
- This episode received a "Due to adult content Viewer discretion is advised." warning and was rated TV-14-SV.
| | • Review • |
At a crime scene, Grissom looks over a house, sees two sets of foot prints in the hall carpet, follows them to a room, goes in and walks along the wall to the corner, looks around some more, then goes into the en suite bathroom. There's a dead woman slumped over, posed so that her face is to the open doorway. Her throat has been cut; Grissom looks at her; she bears a resemblance to Sara. Grissom goes outside, and looks at Sara talking to Brass; he tells them that no one goes inside except the CSI team.
Grissom gives out the assignments; Warrick is to go over the cars, Grissom and Catherine will do the inside of the house, and Sara is to do the perimeter. Sara complains that Grissom has just done a hone-hour walk-through, and the perimeter can't be that important. Catherine points out one of the neighbors to Brass, who comments that the guy is on the list. Catherine talks to the dead woman's friend, Kelly Williams; Kelly tells Catherine that she called it in; she works with Debbie (the deceased) and they had plans to go out, but Debbie cancelled because she had a date with Michael Clark, and this was the first time that Debbie had ever blown her off for a guy. Kelly says that when Debbie didn't show up for work she got worried; she had a key to the house, went in and as soon as she saw Debbie, she ran out again, and called the police. Catherine asks if Kelly knows if Michael Clark was just a guy or if he was special to Debbie; Kelly thinks he might have been special.
Sara checks the perimeter; Brass talks to the neighbor, Mr. Pike, who informs Brass that he's elected himself the head of the neighborhood watch, and he knows everything about everyone in the area. He tells Brass that Debbie was a nurse, and she liked to party; he adds that he couldn't get close to her, but her house was like a 'doctor-automat' and he noticed a black Merecedes that was in her driveway all the time; it would come by at all hours. He tells Brass that the car was there two days ago, arriving around lunch time, and stayed for dinner. Brass calls in and finds that Michael Clark owned a black Mercedes.
Sara and Warrick examine Debbie's car in the driveway and note that there are bananas, syrup and condoms in the grocery bag in the back. Warrick comments that she'd been grocery shopping, and Sara adds that maybe she was interrupted while bringing them in from the car.
Inside the house, Catherine comes into the bathroom to talk to Grissom; she looks around and notes the blood on the walls. Grissom smells something; Catherine says that it's bleach, and then notes that the arterial spray is neck-high, so Debbie was standing when she was attacked. Noting the amount of blood, Grissom comments that the killer had to have gotten some on him, but there are no hand- or foot-prints in the house; he also notes that Debbie was placed in the position that she's in.
Sara and Warrick look in the fridge and find low-fat milk, fancy crackers, and brie. They note that the milk expires eight days from now, and counting backwards, figure that Debbie bought the milk two days ago, which was the same day that the Mercedes was in her driveway.
Grissom and Catherine process the bathroom, looking for blood in the drains, and Grissom gets positive results for both blood and bleach in all four drains. He speculates that Debbie was killed in the shower, but wonders why the killer would then wash up in two sinks and a bathtub? Catherine tells him that the answer is in the drains. Under the house, Sara takes the drain pipes apart, takes a sample of the water from the U-bend, and then examines the inside of the pipe leading to the house. In the bathroom, Catherine and Grissom spray the bathroom for evidence of blood, but only find it in the shower.
At the hospital, a doctor tells Brass that Michael Clark hasn't shown up for work today, which is unusual. Brass asks if Clark was socially gifted as well as being medically gifted, and the doctor says that Clark turned the nurses' heads. Brass asks about Clark and Debbie; before he can answer, the doctor gets beeped and has to leave, saying that he hopes Brass is wrong about Clark before going.
Catherine looks in the bathroom cabinets; she finds no cleansers, no rags, no sponges, and no paper towels; she says that the killer probably used them all in cleaning up, but there's no garbage either. Catherine, Warrick and Grissom go out in the back alley, looking through the garbage bins, and initially find nothing. Then Grissom notes that one of the bins has flies around it, and looks inside; he finds a bag of bloody rags and empty bleach bottles. Warrick finds a bag with body parts in it in another bin, and Catherine finds the same. Warrick finds the victim's clothes, and notes that if this is the boyfriend's body and clothing, then Brass is looking for a ghost.
Sara runs tests in the lab on the water she got from the drain, and pulls a hair out of the sample. Greg asks her about it; she tells him that there have been multiple hairs from multiple donors in the water, but all of it has been hit by the bleach, and there's no DNA that can be extracted from it. She then finds a hair that the bleach missed, and it has a skin tag on it.
Dr. Robbins tells Catherine that Debbie bled out, so he can't determine her time of death; he also notes that the cut on her neck was very clean, and made with a sharp instrument, like a scalpel. He tells her as well that dismembering a male adult would take 12 hours at least; Catherine suspects that the person who cut up the male body was a doctor; she gives the fingers from the garbage to David and tells him to get prints from them to find out who the body is.
Grissom looks at items in Debbie's house, a picture of her, and then imagines her there, and she turns into Sara. He gets a call from Sara, and claims that he's in a bad area and he'll call her back. She tells him about the skin tag on the hair, and Grissom ends the call. They find the black Mercedes in long-term parking at McCarron Airport, and figure that the killer took the car after killing Debbie and then took a plane somewhere. They steam the car for prints; Sara notes that the killer cleaned everything off, then notes that he must have put something on the driver's seat, like a plastic bag, and then taken it with him; they find a bit of plastic caught under the seat. Warrick checks the seat position and comments that Clark was 5' 9" according to his driver's licence, but the seat is in a position for a much taller person.
In the lunch room at the lab, they talk about the case, noting that two days ago, Debbie went grocery shopping; Grissom, on the phone, says that she got home, took one bag of groceries in and then got distracted, and probably left her front door unlocked. Greg says that the hair that they found is from the male victim, whom they've now determined is Michael Clark. They know that Clark was dismembered in the bathtub, but they don't know how he got there. Grissom, imagining what happened, says that Debbie got home, lit the candles in the bathroom, and the killer grabbed her from behind and killed her quickly, then positioned her so that her face would be the first thing that Clark saw when he came in. Catherine comments that the killer killed Debbie quickly, but then took hours on Clark, and wonders why. Grissom explains that Clark was the real focus of the killer's rage.
Grissom checks the carpet in the hall for blood; Catherine arrives asks if he went home at all, and comments that this is his third shift; she asks if he's eaten, and gets him some food from Debbie's fridge. At the lab, Warrick goes through the evidence that was vacuumed up from the house, and sorts it into different piles; Sara comes in and asks what the white fibers are. Warrick tells her that they must be from the spare bedroom, because all other carpets in the house are green; Sara notes that the spare bedroom wasn't on the route for entrance or exit from the house. This tells them that the killer was waiting in the spare bedroom; Warrick also finds a butterfly pendant in the vacuum bag. At the house, Catherine tells Grissom to go home. He says he'll leave as soon as they find some evidence; they go over what they know: Catherine says that the bathroom is where things started, and Grissom says that with the romantic date that she was preparing for, things would have ended up in the bedroom. They check the sheets and find nothing; Grissom finds a silk rope on the edge of the bed; Catherine notes that some guys need leverage and checks the foot board of the bed for prints. Warrick calls with the news of the butterfly pendant. Grissom looks at the butterfly collection that Debbie has on the shelf with her pictures; he finds a jewelry box with butterfly necklaces in it. Catherine prints the bed, and gets a toe print. Grissom finds a chain that matches the one that Warrick told them about, and comments that maybe the killer was taking his gift back; he then notices a hair on the shelf, and tells Catherine that this is why he didn't leave.
Sara compares the toe prints to prints taken from Debbie's feet, then looks at her face and notes the resemblance to herself. She asks Catherine where Grissom is; Catherine says that he's still at the crime scene. Sara tells her that the toe print doesn't match Debbie's foot, and Catherine comments on Sara's resemblance to the victim.
At the hospital, they print the doctors, and one of them comments that there's probably a little bit of all of them at Debbie's house. One of the doctors comments to Brass that a lot of the doctors are married, and he'd like to keep all this quiet. They get a match on the toe print to Dr. Tripton.
At the station, Dr. Tripton tells them that he doesn't know why he's there; they tell him that his toe print matched. He explains that he drove Debbie home, and she invited him in and didn't want him wearing his shoes in the house; Catherine comments that the print was on the bed, and it was the only one in the house. Dr. Tripton tells them that Debbie started things, and admits that he gave her a butterfly bracelet.
Greg tells Grissom that the hair found in the spare bedroom has Rogaine on it, so the person that it came from is going bald; there's also Propecia on it, which Greg says is like a cocktail for people suffering hair loss. Grissom asks Catherine where Dr. Tripton is, she says that he's gone as he had an explanation, and then adds that he's not going bald, and has no grey hair.
Dr. Robbins says that it's hard to prove handedness based on a corpse; but that based on the cuts, it suggests that the killer was left handed; however this wouldn't be admissible in court. Greg checks the doctors for hair loss, looking for a left-handed doctor who is balding and using both Rogaine and Propecia and is staff at the hospital. They find one who matches all criteria, but he tells them that he's not unique, and names other doctors who are also left-handed. They show Dr. Lurie the butterfly pendant that they found in the vacuum evidence; he admits that he gave it to Debbie but the last time he saw it, it was in one piece. Grissom admits that they have no other evidence, but Brass says that they have a theory: they think that he killed Debbie because she rejected him, and so Lurie made Clark pay the price. Lurie's lawyer says that the interview is finished, and they're leaving. As they get up to go, Grissom tells him that "it's sad, guys like us who let work consume our lives, we only touch other people when we're wearing latex gloves, then we get a second chance, someone young and beautiful shows up, someone we could care about, it's a big decision, we have to risk everything to have her. I couldn't do it, but you did, you risked it all, and she showed you a wonderful life, but then she took it away and gave it to somebody else and you were lost, so you took her life. You killed them both and now you have nothing." Dr. Lurie tells Grissom that he's still there, and Grissom asks, "Are you?" As the camera pulls back, we see Sara watching the interview from outside the room.
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