Friends & Lovers (CSI episode)
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| “Friends & Lovers” | |
|---|---|
| CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 5 |
| Guest stars | Judith Scott (Dr Jenna Watsons) |
| Written by | Andrew Lipsitz |
| Directed by | Lou Antonio |
| Original airdate | November 3, 2000 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "Pledging Mr. Johnson" | "Who Are You?" |
"Friends & Lovers" is the fifth episode from the first series of the popular crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
The episode opens in the desert with two boys running naked, looking behind them. Cut to Grissom and Warrick looking at a body; Grissom “calls it,” saying that the boy was running when he died and was looking over his shoulder. Grissom thinks the cause of death is fear; someone chased this kid to death.
Back at the lab Grissom hands out assignments: Sara gets a dead body in a dumpster, Catherine and Nick get a dead body at a school, called in by the suspect, and he and Warrick take the body in the desert.
In the morgue, the coroner tells Grissom that the body of the boy is dry as a bone. Grissom tells Warrick to check the stomach contents of the maggots in the boy’s body, which will tell them what he had ingested. The tests reveal that maggots contain jimsonweed.
Brass questions Bobby, a friend of the dead boy in the desert. Bobby tells him that he and his friend attended a rave and that they were drinking but had done no drugs and he can’t really remember what happened, but he hasn’t seen Eric, his friend, since around midnight the night of the rave. Brass informs Bobby that they have a body that might be Eric and Bobby confirms the identity of his friend. Warrick comes in with the jimsonweed test results and Grissom comments that this would make him “Blind as a bat, red as a beet and mad as a hatter.”
Bobby explains that he and Eric thought that jimsonweed was safe because that’s what the seller told them. He can’t remember much about the rave, but Warrick checks Bobby’s arm for a black light stamp and finds one, recognizing the name of the D.J.
In the lab, Grissom mixes some jimsonweed tea. Warrick has a report of trace elements from Eric’s nose and the one item that stands out and is also not explainable, is aluminum.
Grissom, Warrick, Brass and Bobby attend a rave in the desert and look for the guy who sells jimsonweed. Bobby sees him and attacks him. Ethan, the seller, is unconcerned and claims they have nothing on him allowing them to search his car, also claiming that if they find anything, jimsonweed will get him a mandatory suspended sentence. Grissom finds jimsonweed seeds in the car and then tells Ethan that they’re going to get him for murder. Grissom has the coroner re-examine Eric’s body for seeds, which she finds. They test the seeds and find that the chemical composition is the same as those found in Ethan’s car, but that doesn’t prove anything.
At court, Grissom waits in the hallway and tells Warrick that he can’t impose his will or hopes on the evidence. Ethan comes out and gloats because he’s been released. Grissom tells him that he’ll be back.
Grissom tells Bobby that Eric didn’t die because of the tea, that the seeds weren’t toxic enough to kill him. Bobby is scratching his arm; he says he thinks a spider has bit him and shows the bite to Grissom, who sees a different kind of bite. Grissom talks to the coroner about the bite mark, thinking it might be human. He asks her for an impression of Eric’s teeth. Warrick comes in with some fireworks results from the rave in the desert; Bobby works at a fireworks shop.
Brass questions Bobby again but he still can’t remember anything about what happened after drinking the jimsonweed tea. Warrick tells him that “photo-phobia,” fear of light, scared Eric; he was burning up in his skin and that’s why he was naked. Brass explains that they don’t know if it was an act of aggression or self -defense. Grissom tells Bobby that he was having auditory hallucinations and that he attacked Eric to keep him quiet. Bobby’s lawyer tells them that it’s all speculative. Warrick tells them that there was aluminum in Eric’s airways and that it came from Bobby’s hands. Grissom matches the mould of Eric’s mouth to the bite on Bobby’s arm. The lawyer wants to make a deal on “diminished capacity” but Bobby says that it doesn’t matter what happens to him because he killed his best friend.
Warrick and Grissom sit outside and drink coffee; Bobby is taken away by officers. Grissom leaves and rides the roller coaster at New York, New York to get away from everything.
Sara arrives at the dumpster and photographs the body. While processing, she discovers that the woman’s body has been embalmed. She runs the prints at the lab and finds out the woman was buried the week before.
Sara talks to a funeral director who suggests that the grave was robbed for gold or jewelry. The exhume the grave but there is no casket and the director suggests the casket was stolen too as it would be just as valuable. Sara arranges a viewing of the caskets.
She looks at the caskets and is baffled by the prices. She asks if once bought, it’s yours, she’s told yes. She looks inside one of them and pulls hairs from multiple donors.
Sara asks the funeral director if he is selling time-share caskets, he says no, and she can’t prove it. But she thinks she can. She has a set of prints from the plastic wrapped around the body in the dumpster and she’ll bet they’re his. His only response is that it’s a cut-throat business and she has no idea. Sara tells him that he has to pay back the money for the casket and have the body reburied, and then the case will go to the D.A.
Catherine and Nick arrive at the school and find the body of a man, the Dean of the school. The cause of death is blunt force trauma to the head and the suspect is Kit Armstrong, the founder of the school. She called in the death saying the victim attacked her and she grabbed the closest thing she could and hit him, once, in order to get him off her. Catherine asks her what her relationship was with the deceased. Armstrong said they just worked together, she didn’t like him, but he was good at raising money. Catherine tells Armstrong that the deceased was hit more than once; Armstrong doesn’t deny it but says she’s not sure.
Catherine and Nick “string” the room and find that based on the blood spatter analysis, there were three points where the Dean was hit, all while he was on the floor. They also discover a void in the spatter pattern, meaning there was someone else in the room when Dean Woods was killed.
Catherine, Nick and an officer talk to Armstrong who admits that there was someone else in the room, Julia Easton, who was doing her a favor. Catherine talks to Julia who says she was there as a witness to harassment and was standing in the doorway. Nick tells her that they’ve re-enacted the crime based on the blood spatter and it revealed that the Dean was on the floor when he was killed and that Armstrong would have needed help to hold him down while she hit him.
Catherine and Nick review the evidence in their case: the blood, the confession and the void in the spatter. Nick believes they’re missing something… The blood on Julia’s clothes. Julia tells them that she burned her clothes because the blood wouldn’t come out. They process the Dean’s shirt and find a void in the blood spatter. They trace it and find a hand print, one with a disproportioned pinkie finger, it seems to be much too long.
Catherine asks Julia to make a fist, she can’t make a complete fist, her pinkie finger was sprained playing tennis. Nick offers her a finger splint as Catherine brings out the Dean’s shirt and puts on the splint, showing the hand print with the splint in the void of blood. Catherine speculates that Julia held down Dean Woods while Kit killed him. Catherine says that’s it a little bit much to kill a guy for being “handsy.” Neither woman says a word while being arrested. Catherine says it’s not over, Nick says from a forensic prospective it is, but Catherine isn’t satisfied.
Catherine looks over bank records and finds withdrawals marked as loans from Armstrong’s account. The officer questions Armstrong who tells them what happened: she and Julia confronted the Dean about their relationship and threatened to make it public saying parents wouldn’t be accepting of a lesbian relationship. She says the school would never have survived the media if her relationship with Julia became public.
[edit] Episode Soundtrack
Opening Credits: "Who Are You" by: The Who
While Grissom is on the Roller Coaster: "Grissom's Overture" by: Composed by John M. Keane
