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

Fingerprint Technician Mandy Webster (Sheeri Rappaport, seasons 1-15)

First appearing in the season one episode "Anonymous", Mandy is a fingerprint tech. 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 she still thinks it is a ton of fun. Mandy's comments about her love life are also regularly used as comic relief.

Video/Audio Technician Archie Johnson (Archie Kao, seasons 2-15)

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.

Former

CSI Level 1 Holly Gribbs (Chandra West, season 1)

Originally intended to be a series regular, Holly was not well received by test audiences; as such, she was shot in the pilot episode. Despite efforts to save her, she did not survive her shooting, and as a result, 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". Her conversation with Catherine Willows in the pilot episode was referenced in the Season 12 episode "Willows in the Wind" even though she wasn't directly mentioned by name.

CSI Level 3 Michael Keppler (Liev Schreiber, season 7)

Keppler worked with the CSI team of Las Vegas on the graveyard shift, filling in for Gil Grissom, who had gone on 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 discovered that Frank had raped and killed Amy and framed an innocent man for the crime. While confronting Frank, Keppler was shot protecting both a prostitute and Catherine Willows. He dies in an ambulance minutes later. His death left the CSI team, particularly Catherine, who had a tighter connection with him than her colleagues, devastated.

CSI Level 1 Ronnie Lake (Jessica Lucas, season 8)

Ronnie first appeared 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's transfer 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 had a compulsive personality, once telling Greg that she refused 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. In "Revenge Is Best Served Cold" (Season 3, Ep.1) he is asked to assist Gil Grissom in an experiment to investigate the purpose of a tinted contact lens worn by a female professional poker player. He is asked to identify marked aces in a reversed deck of cards and asks how many aces there are. He asked that question either because he did not know how many aces there were in a deck of cards or because he may have suspected that Grissom was trying to trick him.

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 relationship cooled off 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 Grissom and Catherine Willows to piece together a skeleton found in the desert. At the end of the episode, she goes out with Grissom on a romantic dinner date. However, Grissom is called away to a crime scene 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 to identify a missing girl. During the episode, Grissom asks Teri if they will have dinner again, but she is uninterested. 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 had first assumed it to be. In season 3, she appears again in "Snuff" to reconstruct the face of another skeleton, which turns out to be a boy with Down's syndrome. In this episode, Grissom discovers that Teri had since gotten married, ending any hope of a romantic relationship between the two of them.

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".

Ballistics Technician Bobby Dawson (Gerald McCullouch, seasons 1-10)

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. At the beginning of Season 12, it was revealed that Bobby had been transferred to the dayshift.

Judie Tremont (Victoria Prescott, seasons 3-8)

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.

Las Vegas Police Department

Current Roster

Current Sheriff

LVPD: Sheriff Conrad Ecklie (Marc Vann, seasons 1-)
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. In season 13, he accepts a promotion to Sheriff.

Current Detectives

LVPD Homicide Detective Lou Vartann (Alex Carter, seasons 4–6 & 10-)
Detective Vartann is a recurring homicide detective. He has a son and is divorced ("The Panty Sniffer"). He believes Las Vegas has no history because 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.
LVPD Homicide Detective Carlos Moreno (Enrique Murciano, seasons 10, 12-)
Moreno is former Detective Sam Vega's stepson. He has a good working relationship with the CSIs, especially Stokes. His street smarts and local knowledge often come in handy during investigations.

Uniformed Officers

LVPD Officer Metcalf (Joseph Patrick Kelly, seasons 1-)

Officer Metcalf is a uniformed officer in the LVPD.

LVPD Officer Akers (Larry Sullivan, seasons 4-)

Officer Akers is a uniformed officer in the LVPD.

LVPD Officer Mitchell (Larry Mitchell, seasons 5-)

Officer Mitchell has appeared in many episodes, occasionally being given lines of dialogue. 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." He was one of the police officers shot at by Mark Powell in "the Fallen". However, he recovered from his injuries.

Old Rosters

Former Sheriffs

LVPD Sheriff Sherry Liston (Barbara Eve Harris, season 12)
Sheriff Liston was the Sheriff of Las Vegas County in season 12. 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. At the end of Season 12, a widespread corruption scandal within the LVPD became apparent, resulting in several deaths, the near-fatal shooting of then Undersheriff Conrad Ecklie, the tentative resignation of CSI Nick Stokes, and the kidnapping of both D.B. Russell's granddaughter and CSI Julie Finlay. Ashamed by these events, Sheriff Liston resigns off screen and is succeeded by a fully recovered Conrad Ecklie in season 13.
LVPD Sheriff Rory Atwater (Xander Berkeley, seasons 4–5)
Rory was a Sheriff for 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.
LVPD Sheriff Brian Mobley (Glenn Morshower, seasons 1–2)
As a sheriff he 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.

Former Detectives

LVPD Detective Frankie Reed (Katee Sackhoff, season 11)
Detective Reed worked closely with Nick Stokes, and is was not very sensitive, which had been working on.[1]
LVPD Homicide Detective Sam Vega (Geoffrey Rivas, seasons 1-12)
Sam was a former member of the LVPD's gang unit. He had a son who owns comic book collectibles. In the Season 12 episode "Crime After Crime", Detective Vega murdered a number of people who escaped justice in cold cases (hired by a dying former detective). He was confronted by Brass and Stokes as he attempted to kill his fourth target but was foiled and instead opted for a suicide by cop.
LVPD Homicide Detective Sergeant Ray O'Riley (Skip O'Brien, seasons 1–4)
Ray was a detective who did not understand the science of forensics, referring to the CSIs as the "nerd squad" ("The Pilot").
LVPD Homicide Detective Cyrus Lockwood (Jeffrey D. Sams, seasons 2–3)
Lockwood was formerly a homicide detective during seasons 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.
LVPD Homicide Detective Chris Cavaliere (Jose Zuniga, seasons 4–6 & 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.
LVPD Homicide Detective Gabriel Williams (Gabriel Casseus, season 9)
Williams was a new homicide detective brought in after the shooting of Warrick Brown.

Murderers

Others

References

  1. "Exclusive: 'CSI' finally lands Katee Sackhoff".

See also