Minor characters in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
The following are minor and recurring characters from the television show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Crime Lab
Current
- LVMPD: Undersheriff Conrad Ecklie (Marc Vann, Season 1-)
Conrad is a former day shift supervisor, promoted to Assistant Director in season 5. He is known for his strict adherence to regulations, and takes on more of the role of a bureaucrat and politician. He also appears to be quite ambitious and career-minded and a vigorous self-promoter; thus, he has received praise from senior city and county officials on several occasions. Ecklie and night shift supervisor Gil Grissom have a very rocky relationship throughout the series, with Grissom claiming Ecklie is more concerned with advancement than evidence, and Ecklie maintaining that Grissom shows favoritism toward his subordinates. In season 9, Ecklie was promoted to Undersheriff, following the arrest of former Undersheriff McKeen for the murder of Warrick Brown.
- Lab Tech/Toxicologist Henry Andrews (Jon Wellner, Season 5-)
Henry is the toxicology specialist of the Las Vegas Forensics Laboratory, who mainly deals with identifying toxic substances which have undergone human consumption. He has an impressive knowledge of lethal substances, including, but not limited to: illegal drugs, alcoholic beverages, poisons, and hazardous gases (such as carbon dioxide). He constantly exhibits a thorough understanding of the toxins' properties and effects. Andrews also tends to be present (to his discomfort) when his colleagues David Hodges and Wendy Simms have a "moment". In "Room Service" he tells Greg Sanders how much he admires him for leaving the lab behind and even asks where he gets his hair cut. In "Lab Rats" it was revealed that Henry used to live in Pennsylvania.
- Ballistics Technician Bobby Dawson (Gerald McCullough, Season 1-)
Bobby is a firearms and ballistics expert since the second episode ("Cool Change") where he tests the bullets of fallen CSI Holly Gribbs and proves she was shot with her own gun. He was a frequent suspect of murder in David Hodges's board game as seen in the Season 8 episode "You Kill Me". Bobby is a recurring character throughout the series.
- Fingerprint Technician Mandy Webster (Sheeri Rappaport, Season 1-)
Mandy first appeared in the season one episode "Anonymous". Her quick tongue and witty comments often serve as comic relief throughout the series. Mandy Webster made CSI Nick Stokes serenade her with the song "Mandy" for his results in the seventh season episode "Happenstance". In the seventh season episode "Lab Rats", Mandy mocked fellow lab tech David Hodges's hush-hush attempt to gather lab techs together to investigate The Miniature Killer with an imitation of Miss Moneypenny from the James Bond films. Hodges gives her the nickname "Miss Mockery". Though she once said a murder involving teenagers may have had something to do with Grand Theft Auto games but that she thinks it is a ton of fun.
- Video/Audio Technician Archie Johnson (Archie Kao, Season 2-)
Archie is the audio/visual surveillance specialist. In the 7th season episode "Lab Rats" he assists Hodges, along with the other lab techs, in trying to figure out who the Miniature Killer is. Archie is a fan of science fiction, and he surfs when he can get away from the lab (season 7, "Lab Rats"). At the beginning of season 8 he has also taken over the role of handwriting analysis. He says it is to expand his horizons, and his paycheck.
- Judie Tremont (Victoria Prescott, Season 3-)
Judie is a new secretary of the crime lab in the Season 3 episode Blood Lust and onwards. She was used as an experiment in "Blood Lust" to represent a smaller person trying to drag a larger body. Judy is a semi-recurring character in the series.
Former
- CSI Level 1 Holly Gribbs (Chandra West, Season 1)
Holly was intended to be a series regular, but the character was not well received by test audiences; she did not survive her shooting, and Sara Sidle was introduced instead.
Holly's mother, Jane, was a lieutenant in traffic who put the squeeze on the then-crime lab director Jim Brass to get Holly a job. Holly graduated with honors in criminal justice. Holly revealed being a CSI was her mother's dream, not hers, but was convinced to stay by Catherine Willows.
When Warrick Brown left her alone at a crime scene in the pilot episode to go place a bet, she was shot when the suspect, Jerrod Cooper, returned to the scene. Despite efforts to save her, Holly eventually succumbed, dying during surgery at a hospital. She was mentioned in Season 1 episodes "Cool Change" and "The Strip Strangler", Season 3 episode "A Little Murder", and the Season 8 episode "For Gedda".
- CSI Level 3 Michael Keppler (Liev Schreiber, Season 7)
Mike worked with the CSI team of Las Vegas on the graveyard shift, filling in for Gil Grissom who was on a four week sabbatical. He had shot and killed a man accused of raping his lover Amy in Philadelphia and had since moved away to Baltimore, then to Las Vegas. Amy's father, Frank, got mixed up in the shooting of a police officer and blackmailed Keppler into letting him go. Keppler subsequently figured out that Frank raped his own daughter and killed her, framing an innocent man. While confronting Frank, Keppler was shot and killed protecting a prostitute as well as protecting Catherine Willows.
- CSI Level 1 Ronnie Lake (Jessica Lucas, Season 8)
Ronnie brought in during season 8 to be the trainee partner of Sara Sidle when the latter transferred to swing shift. Lake is very talkative and asks a lot of questions. In the episode "Goodbye and Good Luck" she attempts to get an abused woman into a shelter. When Sara resigns in the same episode, she leaves a note in Ronnie's locker wishing her good luck. The character has not reappeared since that episode however, nor has any mention of her been made.
- DNA Technician Mia Dickerson (Aisha Tyler, Season 5)
With Greg Sanders being transferred into the field in Season 5, Mia took over the DNA lab. Many lab techs had a crush on her, most notably David Hodges. She has a compulsive personality, once telling Greg that she refuses to eat food prepared by others because people cook while they talk and the food ends up being tainted with DNA.
- Questioned Documents Technician Ronnie Litre (Eric Stonestreet, Seasons 1-5)
Ronnie is the questioned documents technician from seasons 1-5, who is fascinated by the technology that he uses. He does not know how many aces are in a deck of cards as seen in "Revenge Is Best Served Cold".
- Fingerprint Technician Charlotte Meridian (Susan Gibney, Seasons 1-2)
Charlotte was a fingerprint technician. In the pilot episode, we found out that Charlotte once dated Gil Grissom, but the occasion turned sour when Grissom discovered that Charlotte did not share his passion for Pink Floyd.
- Dr. Jenna Williams (Judith Scott, Season 1)
Dr. Williams was a medical examiner in the Crime Lab who appeared before Dr. Albert Robbins.
- Consultant Specialist Teri Miller (Pamela Gidley, Seasons 1-3)
Teri was a forensic anthropologist called in by Gil Grissom's team several times throughout season one of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation to assist with their investigation. She first appears in the sixth episode of first season where she reconstructs a woman's face from a skeleton and mould in order to identify her. The next time she appears is in the fourteenth episode, To Halve and to Hold where she helps Catherine Willows and Gil Grissom to piece together a skeleton found in the desert. In this episode, at the end she has dinner with Grissom, a romantic date. However, Grissom is called away to a crime scene for his expert knowledge of forensic entomology and before he can apologize to Teri, she is gone. She later appears in the seventeenth episode Face Lift where she uses age progression software which identifies a missing girl as Tammy Felton. During the episode Grissom asks her, "Will we ever have dinner again?" She replies, "Oh we'll have dinner. Just not together." She appears again in the penultimate episode of season one, Evaluation Day, where she identifies a headless body as a gorilla, not the human they assumed it was at first. In season 3, she appears again in Snuff to reconstruct the face of another skeleton, which turns out to be a down syndrome boy. In this episode, Grissom talks to her and finds out she got married to a teacher, thus removing any possibility of a romance between her and Grissom.
- Consultant Specialist Prof. Rambar (Tony Amendola, Seasons 1&6)
Professor Rambar was the Forensic Document Examiner who analyzed the writing on the bathroom stalls in "I-15 Murders". He appeared again for two episodes in Season 6: "Secrets and Flies" and "Pirates of the Third Reich".
Las Vegas Police Department
- Sheriff Sherry Liston portrayed by Barbara Eve Harris (season 12-): Sheriff Liston is the current Sheriff of Las Vegas County. She was present at the opening of the Mob Museum where former-Mayor Goodman was shot. She was determined to see the crime solved quickly, as an assassination attempt looked bad for the city. She later appeared in "Brain Doe", where she and Catherine discussed the latter's demotion and asked how she was doing. She then told Catherine about a nice job opportunity in Washington, and that she had recommended Willows. She comments that it's hard being a woman in law enforcement and that they need to look out for one another.
- Detective Lou Vartann portrayed by Alex Carter (seasons 4–6 and 9-): Detective Vartann is a recurring homicide detective. He has a son and is divorced. ("The Panty Sniffer") He believes Las Vegas has no history, that history in Vegas gets imploded ("Bang-Bang"). In Season 10, it is shown that there is something going on between him and Catherine Willows, although neither character says so. They are seen having sex during Season 11, and even consider moving in together.
- Detective Frankie Reed portrayed by Katee Sackhoff (season 11-): Detective Reed is a recurring LVPD Detective. She works closely with Nick Stokes, and is not very sensitive, which she has been working on. [1]
- Detective Sam Vega portrayed by Geoffrey Rivas (season 1-12): Sam is a former member of the LVPD's gang unit. He has a son who owns comic book collectibles. In the Season 12 episode "Crime After Crime", Detective Vega murders a number of people who escaped justice in cold cases (hired by a dying former detective). He is confronted by Brass and Stokes as he attempts to kill his fourth target but is foiled and instead opts for suicide by cop.
- Officer Metcalf portrayed by Joseph Patrick Kelly (season 1 onward): a uniformed officer in the LVPD.
- Officer Akers portrayed by Larry Sullivan (seasons 4 onward): a uniformed officer in the LVPD.
- Officer Mitchell portrayed by Larry Mitchell (season 1 onward): While he has appeared in many episodes, Officer Mitchell has only had one major line. When the CSI team is investigated regarding allegations of racism following a shoot-out with a Hispanic street gang ("A Bullet Runs Through It, Part 1"), Mitchell arrives at the scene of the shootout in progress and says sardonically to an injured gang member who is begging for help, "I don't speak Spanish."
- Sheriff Rory Atwater portrayed by Xander Berkeley (seasons 4–5): Rory is the Sheriff of the LVPD. In "Grissom Versus the Volcano" he was nearly killed in a car bombing while exiting a hotel. The car bomb turns out later to be a completely unrelated event.
- Sheriff Brian Mobley portrayed by Glenn Morshower (seasons 1–2): The sheriff was very politically motivated when in office, and would prefer that Grissom behave more like his day-time counterpart, Conrad Ecklie, who knows how to play politics ("Unfriendly Skies"). Portia Richmond ("Table Stakes") helped the Sheriff get elected, and he wanted to close her case quickly, much to Grissom's annoyance.
- Detective Sergeant Ray O'Riley portrayed by Skip O'Brien (seasons 1–4): Ray is a detective who does not understand the science of forensics, referring to the CSIs as the "nerd squad" ("The Pilot").
- Detective Cyrus Lockwood portrayed by Jeffrey D. Sams (seasons 1–3): Formerly a homicide detective during season 2 and 3 before the episode "Inside the Box" where he inadvertently walked in on an armed bank robbery. Lockwood removed his gun so as to save a mother and child who were also caught up in the robbery but he was then shot in the back. CSIs later determined he was shot by a sniper from across the street.
- Detective Chris Cavaliere portrayed by Jose Zuniga (seasons 4–6 and 9-10): A rough detective who once went so far as to scare a child into confession for the murder of his brother. He sometimes takes pictures of bizarrely murdered people for a scrap book such as a deceased clown left undressed in a tire ("Getting Off"). In "Say Uncle", Cavaliere was injured after lifting a picture rigged to an explosive device.
- Detective Gabriel Williams Portrayed by Gabriel Casseus (season 9): A new homicide detective brought in after the shooting of Warrick Brown.
Murderers
- Paul Millander portrayed by Matt O'Toole: a serial murderer who posed as a judge. Millander is one of only eight murderers to be featured in multiple episodes, the other seven being Tammy Felton, "The Blue Paint Killer", "The Miniature Killer", The West siblings, "Dr Jekyll" and Nate Haskell. In the pilot episode, Millander's finger prints turn up on the tape-recorder used for the suicide note of Royce Harmon, the first victim. Gil Grissom meets and questions him, and learns that Millander has a company that makes Halloween costumes called Halloweird. He made a mold of his own hand for a particular costume that has a bloody arm with it, and Grissom concludes that that may be how Millander's print got into the crime scene. Someone may have bought the hand and used it as a red herring. In the episode "Anonymous" another suicide is staged and again Millander's prints show up. Grissom still thinks that it is a red herring but toward the end of the episode a homeless man who is used by the killer to deliver a cryptic message to the CSI team describes Millander as the man who approached him. Grissom then realizes that he has been tricked and that it was Millander all along. Grissom travels to Millander's workplace and finds it empty apart from a stool and an envelope addressed to Grissom. There is nothing written inside the envelope, telling Grissom that he has nothing. The episode ends with Paul Millander going into the CSI headquarters and asking for Grissom. Millander is told that Grissom is not there and as he turns to leave he looks at the surveillance camera and waves. Millander is not seen again until Season 2 where yet another suicide is staged in exactly the same way as the previous two. The team realise that Millander targets middle-aged father figures who share a birthday with the anniversary of his father's death. His father was murdered in a staged suicide when he was a child but the authorities ruled it as a suicide because he was unable to give evidence effectively in court, even though he had witnessed the murder. Moreover, the CSI team find out that Millander was born female—named Pauline Millander—which added to his ineffectiveness as a witness of his father's murder. He underwent sexual reassignment in his youth and as a result his relationship with his mother was a complicated one. The CSI team also find out that he was leading a double life, one as Paul Millander and the other as the Honorable Judge Douglas Mason. As Douglas Mason he has a respectable job, a wife and an adopted son. When Grissom goes to visit him, he claims to not know any Paul Millander and suggests the doppelgänger theory as an explanation as to why they look exactly the same. Grissom takes a sample of Mason's fingerprints after he touches the bars in the prison but later discovers that they are the fingerprints on file for Judge Douglas Mason. It is later discovered that the finger prints belonged to Paul's father. By the end of "Identity Crisis", Grissom finally has enough evidence to arrest Judge Mason/Paul Millander but Millander escapes custody yet again and returns to his home where his mother lives. He kills her and finally ends his own life in the same way he staged the other suicides and in the way his father's suicide was staged, leaving behind a tape with a suicide message on it. Grissom finds him dead in his bath during the very last scene of this episode. It is then found that Millander and Grissom share the same birthday. In the tenth season, aired 2009, his adopted son, Craig Mason, was suspected of being a killer and was ultimately cleared.
- Ex-Under-sheriff Jeffrey McKeen portrayed by Conor O'Farrell (seasons 5–9): Undersheriff McKeen was a politically-motivated bureaucrat. McKeen approved an elaborate "reverse forensics" deception in season 7 (episode 13, "Redrum") where the CSIs would stage a crime scene to draw out a suspect from hiding, although he neglected to consult the district attorney beforehand and almost ruined the case. He held Greg Sanders responsible for the death of Demetrius James, a suspect Greg hit with his car during an attack, despite the fact that Greg Sanders was ruled "Excusable". Later, McKeen turns out to have links to organized crime. When a corrupt police officer, Daniel Prichard, frames Warrick Brown for the murder of mob boss Lou Gedda, McKeen attempts to have Warrick put away but Warrick is found innocent. Shortly after, McKeen stops Warrick in his car where Warrick tells him he won't give up until the mole is caught. McKeen shoots Warrick twice in the neck to prevent himself from being tied to the crimes, then calls for assistance, framing Daniel Prichard. Grissom is first on the scene and Warrick dies in Grissom's arms. In the season 9 premiere "For Warrick," McKeen is eventually found out, but plans to flee to Mexico with Prichard. Prichard attempts to steal McKeen's weapon and in the altercation, their car crashes off a cliff, killing Prichard. McKeen manages to crawl away where he is hunted down by Nick Stokes. McKeen taunts Nick to kill him, but instead Nick fires "a miss". McKeen is eventually arrested by Jim Brass.
- Dr. Jekyll is the name given to a murderer who appears throughout the tenth season of CSI. As of the 17th episode of season 10 he is presumed to have murdered three times, as well as to have caused three further deaths through a neurosurgery which caused a victim to have uncontrollable rage. His first crime was an operation on a corpse in episode "Family Affair". He is revealed to be Charlie DiMasa, the son of a restaurant owner. His dreams of becoming a doctor were thwarted by his father (whom he also attempts to kill). His victims were close customers or associates of his father (Charlie called them his "heroes"). In the final episode of Season 10, Dr. Jekyll is discovered to have planted a valve in the artery of his father. While investigating with Dr. Langston and a LVPD officer, Dr. Jekyll shoots and kills the officer while wounding Nick Stokes in the shoulder. After Langston distracts Dr. Jekyll, Nick shoots and kills him while "faking" dead.
- Sqweegel is the name given to an elusive serial killer under the alias " Ian Moone", (I am no one), who wears a skin-tight latex suit. He is a skilled contortionist and acrobat which allows him to fit through the tightest spaces and stay out of sight. His modus operandi is to sneak into his victim's house and sleep under their bed, live in their attic and read their mail. After a few weeks of this he will come out of hiding and attack his victim with a straight razor, asking them to admit their dark secrets. He will then disappear for a few weeks and return to murder his victims if they have not confessed to their crimes. He kills two of his victims, Ryan Fink and Carrie Jones, and attacks a third, Margot Wilder. He escapes into the night before the CSIs can apprehend him. It was rumored he would return later in season 11 and Anthony Zuiker posted on his Twitter page that it was possible, but by the time season 11 ended, Sqweegel had not yet made any other appearances on the show. Sqweegel is also the villain in the novel Level 26: Dark Origins, the first novel by Anthony Zuiker. Carrie Jones' daughter gave Sqweegel his name, as she traumatically associated him with the sound of the scrubbers in the car wash ("sqweegel sqweegel") where her mother was killed.
- Nate Haskell Nathan "Nate" Haskell (born Warner Thorpe), aka "The Dick and Jane Killer" (sometimes acronymed "DJK"), is a serial killer who has appeared in seasons 9, 10 and 11 of CSI, portrayed by Bill Irwin. During Langston's lecture in 19 Down, Haskell claims to have been physically abused by his alcoholic father, Arvin Thorpe, every day when he was a child. He only has vague memories of his mother, who was killed by Arvin when Nate was eight years old. It was revealed in Targets of Obsession that Nate carries the MAO-A gene, a gene which, according to some studies, causes a predisposition towards violence. Exactly how long he has known about it is currently unknown to everyone except himself. His first animal kill was a cat, which he killed when he was nine years old. His first human kill was a travelling salesman named Douglas Nathan Haskell, whose identity he partially adopted as his own. He killed him the same way he later tortured his female victims in his room. In the mid-1990s, he became a serial killer. He became known as "The Dick & Jane Killer" because he targeted couples. None of the female victims were ever found and Haskell later refused to discuss them. He killed a total of at least 14 people in Nevada, Arizona and California (the first couple, the Steiners, were never found). Even though he never held down a single job or filed a tax return during this time (likely because he was living under an assumed name), he could still afford the occasional restaurant visit, earning money by donating blood and semen or taking part in psychological studies. During a restaurant visit, he had a chance encounter with future serial killer Charlie DiMasa. In Reno, he stopped at a sobreity checkpoint. That stroke of luck allowed the authorities to charge him; inside the car, they found blood belonging to a victim, under his fingernails they found DNA from another, a potential murder weapon was found and a witness was able to place him with another one of the victims. When the case went to trial, Haskell initially denied any guilt, but changed his mind and confessed. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and incarcerated in Ely, Nevada. While there, he appears to have gained a kind of cult following (he claims to have "students" everywhere) and was even proposed to a couple of times.
In Meat Jekyll, Haskell is brought to the Las Vegas crime lab after claiming to know Dr. Jekyll's identity. After the case is concluded, he stabs Ray in the back with a shiv made out of his broken glasses. When guards hear it, Haskell is shocked by his electric restraints and beaten. After a brief stay in a hospital, he is taken back to Ely. He reappears in Targets of Obsession, when he is taken to court to be charged with attempting to kill Ray. Several of his female "fans" are present. After being convicted, he switches his inmate badge for that of a minimum security inmate and gets into a transport van in his place. On the road, it is sabotaged by two of his female fans, who kill the guards. After one of the women kills the other, she drives away with Haskell. He reappeared in Father of the Bride, when he kept sending messages to the father of one of his female fans, threatening to kill her. In Cello and Goodbye, Haskell went to Los Angeles and abducted Gloria Parkes, Ray Langston's ex-wife, and took her to his childhood home and raped and tortured her. When Ray tracked him down to the Thorpe house, where Haskell had tortured and killed his father, he had a confrontation with Haskell that resulted in the latter's death. The season ends in a cliffhanger when Ray is asked by IA whether him killing Haskell was an act of self-defense or murder.
- The Miniature Killer Natalie Davis (a.k.a. "The Miniature Serial Killer") is a fictional serial killer on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, portrayed by Jessica Collins.
The Miniature Killer was introduced in the seventh season premiere, and after being the main subject for the whole season, was identified in the finale. She made a one-time reappearance in season nine.The key signature of the Miniature Killer’s crimes were meticulous scale models built to reflect each crime scene. The models were either left at the murder site or delivered to someone involved in solving the case. Every detail was accurate, and even used the victim's real blood instead of paint. Every model also contained a hidden picture of a bloodied doll and an item somehow related to bleach. Her victims were killed in widely different manners, including bludgeoning, poisoning, and electrocution. Many of her victims had employed her services as a cleaning lady (paying under the table), and several also had connections to her foster father. All of Natalie's victims—after her sister—were killed in ways that spelled out the word BLEACH. These were: Blunt force trauma, Liquid nicotine, Electrocution, Asphyxiation, Crushing (attempted, but failed), and she had planned on Hanging herself once the murders were complete.
Others
- Kristine Mary Hopkins portrayed by Krista Allen: a prostitute who first appears in the first episode (The Pilot) where she is suspected of drugging a man and stealing his possessions. Nick Stokes investigates the case but makes a deal with Kristy that if she tells him what she used and gives the man his possessions back she can go without a charge. There have been other cases like this which is why Nick wants to know what they're using. During his short conversation with Kristy during this episode he strikes up an instant rapport with her which is to eventually get him into trouble. The next time Kristy shows up is in episode I-15 Murders where she's in trouble again with a security officer at a shop. She specifically asks for Nick to help her out, claiming the security guard spat on her. Again, the chemistry between Nick and Kristy is present and Nick decides to help her out. He takes Kristy's clothing and gets Greg Sanders to run a test on it to find if there is a certain enzyme on it that is in spit. Greg finds that there's a concentration of amylase on her top which proves the security officer spat on her. Kristy thanks Nick and his attraction to her is more than obvious, but they said goodbye at the end of the episode with a quick goodbye-kiss. Kristy re-appears in episode Boom which is still in the first season. Nick sees her on the side of a road having an argument with a man Nick assumes to be a client. He tells the man to back off and drops Kristy back to her home, but Kristy invites him in and their relationship escalates when they eventually have sex. Kristy also tells him that she plans to come off the game and go back to college. The next morning, Nick leaves but as it is his day off goes back to Kristy's house to spend time with her. When he arrives there he finds that the emergency services, and one of the CSI from the day shift, is at her house because she has been murdered. Conrad Ecklie takes the case and since Nick's fingerprints and DNA is at the crime scene considers him a suspect. This seriously endangers Nick's career as if he is arrested he is automatically not allowed to be a criminalist even if he is cleared of all charges later. When things are looking really bad for Nick, Catherine Willows, his colleague takes the case for twelve hours and finds evidence with the help of Greg processing it all quickly, that proves Nick was not the murderer, but that the man originally seen with Kristy assumed to be a client was the killer who earlier tried to frame Nick. Nick speaks to him and it is revealed that the man is actually Kristy's pimp and she was going back to college to recruit more girls, not to gain an education. It is left unsure if this is the truth, but nevertheless Nick pays for a proper burial for Kristy out of respect for her.
Jason and Alex McCann
References
- ^ "Exclusive: 'CSI' finally lands Katee Sackhoff". http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2010/09/08/csi-finally-lands-katee-sackhoff/.
See also