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Death & The Maiden
Maiden
Season 10
Number 6
Writer Jacqueline Hoyt
Director Brad Tanenbaum
Original Airdate November 5, 2009
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Previous Episode: Bloodsport
Next Episode: The Lost Girls

Death & The Maiden is the sixth episode in Season Ten of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Synopsis[]

CSI tackles a case involving a young man who was brutally raped and beaten, and a case involving the shooting death of an electronics store owner. They soon discover that the two cases are directly related.

Plot[]

Victim: Tommy Baker (alive)

On the case: Catherine Willows, Nick Stokes, Jim Brass

AND

Victim: Wayne Smith (deceased)

On the case: Greg Sanders, Raymond Langston, Louis Vartann

At night, a man runs down an alleyway with someone in pursuit. He tries to jump a fence, but fails, allowing the pursuer to catch up to him. The assailant brutally beats the man up and finishes the job in an area unseen by the viewer. The man, who is amazingly still alive, is identified as Tommy Baker. He was spotted by a hooker, who explains that the blood on her clothing is from her trying to be a good Samaritan.

Nick goes to visit Tommy in the hospital to process him and meets Tommy's older brother, Mark. After Mark departs, Nick enters the room to ask some questions and photograph Tommy's injuries. When asked who did this to him, Tommy snaps and yells at Nick, asking him to leave him alone.

Nick heads back to the crime scene to assist Catherine. She tells Nick that there are five different instances of bloodletting, including blood spatter, blood spray, and drag marks. There are also bloody handprints on the wall, and semen was found on the ground nearby. Wet and dry blood pools indicate that there were several incidents spaced out over time. Nick finds a St. Christopher medal with blood on it; Catherine notes that St. Christopher is the patron saint of travel.

Elsewhere, Greg and Langston are called out to an electronics store that was on fire; sprinklers have eradicated some of the evidence. There's a dead body in the middle of the store. Greg notes that the victim is only lightly burned; combined with the sprinklers not having been disabled, they could be looking at an amateur arsonist. Langston spots a security camera and follows its cord to the console; however, the tape is missing. The victim, who has been shot twice in the chest, is identified as Wayne Smith, the store's owner. The CSIs theorize that Wayne came in to open the store for the day and caught a burglary in progress.

Nick heads to Tommy's house in an effort to get his statement and process him. There, he meets Tommy's alcoholic mother, who is unaware that her son was assaulted the night before and checked himself out of the hospital. Mark arrives and escorts his unwelcome mother out of the house. He tells Nick that Tommy is asleep, but when Nick goes looking for him, he finds his room empty. Mark admits that Tommy did come home, showered, and left without talking to anyone; he's also not answering his cell phone. A perturbed Nick tells Mark that he's got other cases that need his attention if Tommy is going to continue to be uncooperative.

Back at the electronics store, Greg finds a .22 caliber gun in the otherwise empty cash register. Two shots have been fired from it, which lines up with the two shots fired into Wayne's chest. With Langston out of an earshot, Greg theorizes to himself that the gun was left behind because the killer didn't want to risk being pulled over by the police with a gun in their car. He also finds a white fragment in the register and a serial number on the bottom of it, which he says (again, to himself) is from a $20 bill used by store owners as bait money; if they're robbed, the police can track the serial number. In the back room, Langston finds a possible point of entry through a window. Greg assists and finds a tote bag with blood spatter on it nearby. Inside the bag, they find a box containing a lot of stolen jewelry. The CSIs hypothesize that this wasn't a random robbery and that the killer either knew Wayne or knew of his operation. However, Greg asks why the killer would take all of the money from the cash register but leave the expensive jewelry behind.

Det. Vartann talks to Wayne's younger sister, Jess. She tells him that she also works in the store and that Wayne opens up during the week when she's in school. When asked about the money, Jess says that Wayne only goes to the bank once a week to deposit it, leaving the register full on the other days. Det. Vartann takes Jess' prints to eliminate her as a suspect.

Catherine theorizes that based on Tommy's spotty juvie record, he picked up the hooker and spent time with her in the alleyway. When he went to leave without paying, her pimp assaulted him. Wendy enters and tells Catherine and Nick that the blood from the alleyway was all from one unknown male (likely Tommy); however, the semen found nearby was from an unknown second male. Furthermore, the semen was actually a mixture of semen and blood. Catherine lays out the facts: Tommy refused medical treatment, went home, showered, and refused to talk about what happened. She asks Nick what his thoughts would be if the victim was a female, and Nick replies that his conclusion would be that the victim was raped.

In the hospital, Catherine speaks with the nurse who admitted Tommy the night before. He says that Tommy only said he was jumped after leaving a bar, and he hands Catherine a vial of blood that was drawn from Tommy. Meanwhile, Nick visits April Martin, who works for Victim Services. She tells Nick that male rape victims almost never report it and, based on the case file, Tommy probably didn't have a strong connection to his attacker. Despite being somewhat hostile at first, April eventually hands Nick her business card and tells him that Tommy may be more comfortable speaking to a woman.

In autopsy, Doc Robbins informs Langston that Wayne's cause of death is a gunshot wound to the lung and heart. Soot in the larynx indicates that Wayne was still alive when the fire in the store started. Under a UV light, Doc Robbins identifies a bruise on Wayne's cheek that appears to be from a hand. There are also indications that Wayne had sex shortly before he died, and Langston wonders if the bruise is from Wayne getting slapped by the woman in question.

Greg works on tracking down the owners of the jewelry that Wayne was fencing. A diamond ring is found to belong to Pam Harris, a dancer at Grrlz Club. At the club, she tells Greg and Det. Vartann that the ring is her engagement ring and recognizes Wayne from his photo. As it turns out, Wayne was dating another dancer at the club, Angela Paulson. Angela is unaware that Wayne was fencing stolen items, but notes that her sapphire necklace went missing the week before. She's shocked to hear that Wayne is dead.

Wendy gathers the team in the layout room. Her fear is that she's cross-contaminated the samples from the cases, as the fluid from the alley came back as a mixture of Tommy's blood and Wayne's semen. Furthermore, the blood from the bag found in the electronics store came back to Tommy. Cross-contamination is ruled out since there was no mixture of profiles from the blood on the bag. This means that the cases are connected, and that Wayne is the one who assaulted Tommy. Nick believes that this gives Tommy motive to kill Wayne, noting that he would do the same thing if he were in Tommy's position.

Langston and Wendy go through the debris from the electronics store. Wendy comes across the missing surveillance tape, while Langston finds a pair of matches he believes could've been used to start the fire. The matches appear to be wet, meaning that it won't be possible to get any DNA from them. However, Langston finds the rest of the matchbook, which happens to be dry. Meanwhile, Hodges tells Greg that the trace from the cash register came back as dust bunnies, and he hasn't been able to identify the white fragment that Greg found.

Langston and Nick watch the partially-melted surveillance tape from the store. They find someone who looks like Tommy in the store the night of his assault. He has the previously-found bag with him; however, it's not covered in blood yet. Langston tells Nick that he and Greg were under the impression that Wayne's murder was one event—a botched robbery, followed by a shooting and arson. However, the video proves that there two separate events—the robbery occurred the previous night, while Wayne was shot the next day. Based on the time stamp, they figure that Wayne assaulted Tommy shortly after Tommy robbed the store. When they zoom in on the video, they see Tommy taking the St. Christopher medal that Nick found earlier at the crime scene. Nick questions why Wayne, who had a stripper girlfriend, would rape Tommy just for robbing the store.

Jess is shown a picture of Tommy, but doesn't recognize him. She's told that Tommy may be the one who killed her brother; however, she denies this and admits to killing her brother, instead. Under interrogation, she tells Brass that Wayne abused her and wouldn't let her live her own life. Meanwhile, Catherine searches the Smith house and finds semen stains on Jess' bed. She also finds a camera that shows that Jess not only knows Tommy, but that they're a couple. Catherine sends the photo to Brass, and he starts to piece together what happened. He theorizes that Tommy was caught robbing the store and was assaulted because of it. Tommy then came back the next day and shot Wayne. Jess replies that she and Tommy were going to get married, but that they needed money to do so. She came up with the plan to rob the store, but forgot to take the St. Christopher medal that belonged to her mother. This is how Tommy ended up on the surveillance video.

Tommy is finally located and brought to the station for questioning. He denies being raped and says that Wayne only beat him up. When told that Wayne is dead, Tommy seems to be surprised; however, when told that Jess confessed to the murder, he confesses, as well. He says that after the robbery went south, he went back into the store the next day and shot Wayne, since he knew he wasn't going to let him see Jess again. Tommy asks Nick to keep Jess out of the investigation, but Nick tells him that her prints were found on the unlocked window, which is conspiracy to the crime, at the very least. Nick runs into Mark and tells him that his brother confessed to murder. Mark throws another curveball into the investigation and confesses to Wayne's murder and the arson, claiming he did so in retaliation for Tommy's assault.

Under interrogation, Mark confesses once again. He tells Brass that he dumped the gun in a dumpster near his house and says that he's aware that his brother was raped. Brass reminds him that he could've just called the police and had Wayne arrested, but Mark replies that by doing so, everyone would know what happened. He laments the fact that Wayne actually left his brother alive.

Catherine goes over the case with Greg and Nick, noting that they have three confessions and three suspects. It's revealed that Mark's DNA was found on the matchbook, proving that he was the one who set fire to the store. However, he lied about killing Wayne, as the gun he claims he used was not the same caliber of gun actually used. The theory is that Mark figured his brother killed Wayne; he confessed in an effort to protect him. There's no evidence that puts Tommy in the store at the time of the shooting, and the CSIs wonder if he's lying for the same reason—to protect the person he loves. Greg theorizes that whoever shot Wayne also stole the money from the cash register, but no money has been located anywhere. Nick is called to the reception area, where he finds April Martin waiting for him. She tells him that she visited Tommy in his jail cell and came to the conclusion that there's no way he's guilty of murder.

Hodges informs Greg that the white trace from the cash register is an acrylic fingernail, something Greg remembers seeing before. He and Det. Vartann head back to the Grrlz Club to question Angela. They reveal that Angela shot Wayne, and a search of her purse turns up a $20 bill that has the same serial number as the one written on the bottom of the register. A flashback shows Angela rebuffing Wayne's advances and telling him that he owed her money; she wanted a cut for the items she stole from her coworkers, including Pam's ring. When Wayne pulled out a gun, they struggled, which led to Wayne getting shot accidentally. She then picked up the gun and shot Wayne as he charged towards her. As she's arrested, Angela admits that she took the money that was owed to her and claims that the murder was in self-defense.

Catherine talks with Jess and asks her how Wayne knew Tommy was going to be at the store. Jess replies that Wayne didn't know and explains that her brother was obsessed with her remaining a virgin. However, when he found out that Jess had had sex with Tommy, he hit her, locked her in her room, took her phone, and headed to the store to get his gun. He found Tommy there and assaulted him in the alley. Jess says that she knew Tommy was at the store, but she had no way of warning him that Wayne was on his way.

Nick informs Tommy that his brother will be charged with manslaughter, as Wayne was still alive when Mark set fire to the store. He hands Tommy his card and encourages him to call him if he ever needs anything. Tommy recalls that while he was being assaulted in the alley, Wayne said something to him: "I'm going to ruin you like you ruined my sister." He admits that it worked, as he can't think of Jess now without seeing Wayne's face. Nick tells Tommy that it wasn't his fault and that Jess doesn't even know what happened; if he truly loves Jess, none of this will make a difference. However, when Tommy meets Jess in the station's hallway, he gently pushes her away as she hugs him. As Tommy walks out of Jess' life, Nick hangs his head in disappointment.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

  • Alex Carter as Louis Vartann
  • Larry M. Mitchell as Officer Mitchell
  • Cody Kasch as Tommy Baker
  • Elizabeth Rice as Jess Smith
  • Bryce Johnson as Mark Baker
  • Jeff Hephner as Wayne Smith
  • Camille Guaty as April Martin
  • Gigi Rice as Yvette Baker
  • Lina Esco as Angela Paulson
  • Emily Baldoni as Pam Harris
  • Tangie Ambrose as Miss Kitty
  • Jorge-Luis Pallo as John
  • Courtney Gains as Stan Gerber (uncredited)

See Also[]

CSI:Las Vegas Season 10
Family AffairGhost TownWorking StiffsCoup de GraceBloodsportDeath & The MaidenThe Lost GirlsLover's LanesAppendicitementBetter Off DeadSin City BlueLong BallInternal CombustionUnshockableNeverlandThe Panty SnifferIrradiatorField MiceWorld's EndTake My Life, Please!Lost & FoundDoctor WhoMeat Jekyll
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