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CSI EPISODE
Crate 'n Burial
Crate
Season 1
Number 3
Writer Ann Donahue
Director Danny Cannon
Original Airdate October 20, 2000

Crate 'n Burial is the third episode of seaon 1 of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Summary

Grissom, Nick and Sara find out that all is not what it seems when the wife of a rich man is abducted and buried alive in the desert. Meanwhile Catherine and Warrick investigate a hit and run that led to the death of a little girl in which a man and his grandson are the suspects, both of them seemingly covering for each other.

Plot

Laura Garris has been kidnapped and buried alive. At the Garris' residence, Brass attempts to discourage Laura's husband, Jack, from paying the ransom, while Grissom and Nick analyze the tape-recorded message for evidence. Noticing a gap of silence and a low-frequency buzzing sound, they speculate that Laura is buried in the desert near power lines. Sara does a walk-through of the house and sees numerous signs of struggle. When Grissom joins her, he notices dirt on the bedroom carpet and a halothane-soaked handkerchief lying on the ground outside.

An analysis of the dirt from the Garris' home reveals traces of gold and cyanide, a combination commonly found at gold mines. Grissom and Sara search the desert with an infrared camera and spot the glowing image of a thrashing body underground. They frantically dig until they unearth Laura.

Unable to discourage Jack Garris from paying the ransom, Brass tails him to the drop site. When a young man retrieves the bag containing the money, the police move in.

When Grissom interviews Laura Garris at the hospital, she says she remembers being grabbed from behind in the hallway of her home and having something clamped over her mouth, but she cannot remember anything about her assailant. Grissom asks her for a DNA sample to compare to the duct tape used to silence her, and to the truck belonging to the man caught at the ransom drop-off site, Chip Rundle, Jack Garris' personal trainer. Brass tells Rundle that his fingerprints were found on Laura Garris' makeshift coffin. Rundle explains that he helped Jack move crates. Brass releases Rundle but recorded the interrogation to use as a vocal comparison to the ransom message.

The AV lab matches Rundle's voice with the voice on the ransom message. After finding strands of hair in the front passenger seat of Rundle's truck, Sara asks Grissom to help her reconstruct Laura's abduction. She notes that the fibers from the sheepskin seat covers were found on the back of Laura's sleeves, which could only have happened if Laura were sitting in an upright position like a normal passenger. A blood test confirms that Laura never ingested the halothane. The CSIs realize that Laura was an accomplice in her own "abduction".

Laura persistently denies any relationship with Rundle. Sara says they staged the kidnapping as part of a plan to run away together with a lump of Jack's fortune. Nick plays a cleaned-up version of the ransom recording for Jack; on it, Laura is heard telling Chip to "Hurry up!" As Laura is arrested, her angry husband asks Grissom why she didn't just give Rundle up. "Self-preservation," Grissom explains. "If she rats on him, she rats on herself."

Catherine and Warrick are assigned to the case of the disturbing hit-and-run of a young girl, Renda Harris. The only evidence they find, however, is a common car-paint scrape on the girl's scooter, so they return to the lab. In autopsy, Doctor Williams shows them a partial license plate number made visible on a bruise imprinted on the body of the girl.

A hit on the partial license plate number brings Catherine and Warrick to the home of Charles Moore, a courteous seventy-three-year-old. He claims his car was stolen but a search of the house reveals the car to be in the garage. Moore confesses that he was behind the wheel, that he spotted Renda in the middle of the road but accidentally stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake.

Catherine and Warrick examine Moore's car and they notice the driver's seat is pushed too close for his height and that the car stereo has been set to a hip-hop station and is on full blast. They ask Moore if anyone else drives his car, just as his grandson, James, enters. Moore admits that after hitting Renda he'd banged his head and James drove him home; neither Catherine nor Warrick believe his story.

Catherine takes a closer look at Charles Moore's car and finds a small piece of tooth lodged in the steering wheel; the tooth belongs to James. James is arrested and Charles is released. An understanding and sympathetic Warrick accompanies James and offers advice before he's taken into custody. Warrick also writes his cell number on James' hand and tells him to contact him just in case trouble arises.

Main Cast

(Credit order)

Recurring Roles

Guest Stars

  • John Beasley as Charles Moore
  • Erich Anderson as Jack Garris
  • Jolene Blalock as Laura Garris
  • Hamilton von Watts as Chip Rundle
  • Sam Jones III as James Moore (as Samuel L. Jones III)
  • John Livingston as THD Audio Tech
  • Deborah Landis as Anne Vickers

Episode Title

Crate and Burial, make reference to Laura Garris kidnapping, wich led her buried alive inside a crate or coffin.

Trivia

Did You Know, while examining Charles Moore's Cadillac during the hit-and-run investigation, Warrick and Catherine turn the key to hear what's on the radio; the speakers blare loudly with "Mathematics" by Mos Def. Later, while questioning Mr. Moore's grandson James, Warrick asks him if he likes Mos Def. Gary Dourdan, who played Warrick Brown on the show, and Mos Def share the same birthday (December 11)[1].

Quotes

Sara: Get a picture of the security pad, someone touches it before it's dusted I break their fingers.

Sara: You're standing in my crime scene.
Nick: No, you're in mine.
Sara: You got audio, I wanted that.
Nick: I out rank you.
Sara: Technicality, who'd Grissom handpick to work here?
Nick: Keep telling yourself that.

Sara: Excuse me. Is my evaluation interrupting you?
Grissom: No, I barely heard you.

Grissom: People leave us clues, Nick. They speak to us in thousands of different ways. It's our job to make sure we've tried to hear every single thing they've said.

Nick: Yeah, but I got her a chem set.
Sara: You keep that; might learn something.
Nick: Stop flirting with me.

Sara: Hey Grissom! Would you come tape me up?
Grissom: I love my work.
Catherine: It shows.ben

References

See Also

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