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Doctor Who
Doctor
Season 10
Number 22
Writer Tom Mularz
Director Jeffrey Hunt
Original Airdate May 13, 2010
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Previous Episode: Lost & Found
Next Episode: Meat Jekyll

Doctor Who is the twenty-second episode in Season Ten of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Synopsis[]

With the elusive Dr. Jekyll still on the loose, Langston has begun obsessing over the case. When a murder victim turns out to be carrying photos of Jekyll's victims, Langston comes under suspicion, as he met her just before she was killed.

Plot[]

Victim: Heidi Custer (deceased)

On the case: entire team

Langston is seen on the campus of WLVU's medical school eyeballing the students to see if any one of them could be Dr. Jekyll. A montage shows Langston mapping out all of Dr. Jekyll's past kills trying to find a connection or predict the good doctor's next move.

Elsewhere, a female body is found outside the Strip. David Phillips puts her time of death at 24 to 48 hours prior, and Greg finds strangulation marks on the woman's throat. A thin abrasion around the neck suggests the killer stole the woman's necklace and may have used it to strangle her. There's a v-shaped wound the forehead and Greg pulls some yellow-colored trace from it. Sara notices that the blood flow down the victim's face defies gravity, which means this could be a body dump. She also comes across the victim's wallet, which identifies her as Heidi Custer from New York. Curiously, she has multiple copies of photos of Dr. Jekyll's victims.

At the lab, Langston informs Catherine that he knew Heidi; she was a reporter who covered the Angel of Death murders at the hospital where he used to work. However, he claims that he hasn't talked to Heidi in a few years. Heidi's husband confirmed that she was working on a story about Dr. Jekyll, and Langston believes that Heidi wouldn't have come to Vegas without a solid lead. Catherine suggests that Langston join Nick and search Heidi's hotel room.

There's no sign of a struggle in the hotel room, and Heidi's camera and laptop are missing. Her rented car is also MIA. Langston searches around and notes that there's no sign of Heidi's work, such as notes and research. They wonder if the work and the missing items could be in the missing rental car—or in the hands of her killer. In Heidi's jeans pocket, Langston comes across a player's club card from the Blue Aces Casino. He tells Nick that Jack Herson accumulated some debt at the casino and that it's near Joey Bigelow's panhandling route. They figure that if Heidi used the card at the casino, then she should be on the surveillance tapes.

In autopsy, Doc Robbins labels Heidi's cause of death as asphyxiation by manual strangulation. Her head wound was superficial, opening up and bleeding around the time of her death. The doc tells Greg that he performed a through examination of Heidi's body and found no evidence that she's a victim of Dr. Jekyll. Greg wonders if Heidi was an inadvertent kill by Dr. Jekyll, much like Lily Xiaoping was.

Archie goes through surveillance video from the Blue Aces casino and finds out that Langston went to the casino's bar at the same time Heidi did. The two also left at around the same time. This contradicts what Langston told Catherine earlier—that he hadn't seen Heidi since she was reporting on the Angel of Death.

In the morgue, Heidi's husband, Aaron, looks at his wife's body while talking to Brass. He says that the missing necklace was an amber pendant given to her during one of her assignments. Brass comments that a coworker told him that Heidi was a fantastic reporter. When he reveals that the coworker is Langston, Aaron looks at him in shock and calls Langston a murderer. Aaron later tells Catherine and Brass privately that Langston was a pathologist at the hospital where Dr. Michael Webb carried out the Angel of Death murders. Despite residual evidence that should've been left behind by the injection of ethylene glycol, Langston claims to have found nothing suspicious in all 27 murders. Aaron believes that Langston was helping Dr. Webb at the time and that he's now helping Dr. Jekyll. Heidi's article about the murders never got published, but Aaron believes it was 100% truthful. When told that Dr. Jekyll actually attacked Langston, Aaron claims that Langston gave himself the injury, especially since there were no witnesses to the act.

Langston visits with Hodges and finds out that the yellow trace from Heidi's forehead is lead paint, while the weapon used was something with a 90-degree angle. Before Langston can expound on this, Catherine ushers him into her office. There, he's put under the microscope by Catherine and Ecklie about his relationship with Heidi. Langston explains that Heidi came to him five years ago for information about the Angel of Death killings; however, she was secretly investigating him the whole time. He adds that Heidi's article was full of "junk science." When told that he lied about meeting with Heidi, Langston denies ever doing so, claiming that it's just a coincidence. After being removed from the case for a conflict of interest, Langston secretly searches Heidi's bank account records and discovers that she used her credit card at the Blue Aces casino and the WLVU Medical School at the same time he was there. He concludes that Heidi was following him. Nick catches Langston in the act and demonstratively tells him that the rest of the team will look into this. Langston believes that he unwittingly led Heidi to Dr. Jekyll and got her killed.

Across the hall, Wendy privately tells Hodges about her past dealings with Langston, including Langston refusing to submit his DNA for exclusion in a prior case, as well as his becoming defensive when reading a report about MAOA deficiency being linked to violent behavior. They wonder how serial killers have followed Langston from the hospital to his classroom to the lab.

As the team wonders if they can trust Langston, Nick discovers that Heidi used her credit card at a gas station the night she was murdered. Langston has an alibi for that time, as he was at work. However, when Catherine and Nick look through the evidence box from the burglary case Langston was working at the time, they find a disturbing lack of evidence, meaning he could've been somewhere other than the crime scene.

Heidi's abandoned car is found in a private parking lot with the keys still in the ignition; her camera and laptop are still missing. Greg notes that police rarely patrol a private parking lot, which means the killer could have some knowledge of how law enforcement operates. While Greg photographs some trace on the outside of the car, Sara finds a bloody fingerprint on the steering wheel inside. Greg also finds blood on the passenger's side door, indicating that Heidi was sitting upright in the seat and bleeding.

On his way to a scene, Langston continues to replay the Dr. Jekyll case in his mind. Upon passing a general store, he remembers a connection between it and the case. He enters the store and appears to be being watched by someone. A clerk doesn't recognize Heidi from her photo, and Langston remarks that he'll be back for a warrant for their surveillance footage. When he leaves and reaches his vehicle, an assailant approaches him from behind and tries to hit him with a tire iron. Langston subdues the suspect, Aaron Custer, who accuses Langston of killing his wife. After Aaron is hauled away, Brass admonishes Langston for continuing to play detective. Catherine takes Langston off of his current case and sends him home.

In his home, a frustrated Langston begins tearing papers off one of the walls in his study. He's interrupted by a knock at the door; Nick has stopped by to continue working the case with Langston in private. Langston shows Nick around and leads him to the study. Nick is in shock when he sees one wall completely covered in items pertaining to the Dr. Jekyll case. Langston explains that the papers he threw on the floor are leads he decided to eliminate, most of which he considers crackpot theories. Nick informs him that they found Heidi's rental car. Noting the debris on the car, he asks Langston if he came across any places of interest in the desert. He confirms that he did and says that he knows Heidi didn't follow him out there, so perhaps she discovered the leads on her own. Nick's attention turns to another wall, where Langston has laid out his family history. Langston mentions his father and says that he hopes he doesn't have the same temper his father had.

Greg and Sara also show up and vow that they're all going to work the case together as a team. Analysis from trace recovered from the tires of Heidi's car reveals that they contained bat guano from a free-tailed bat; they figure the car must've driven near a roosting spot. Greg shows them a photo of the car at the gas station at 7:05 PM. It's tires were clean at that point, and when the car was later discovered, it had half a gallon of gas consumed. Based on the gas mileage Heidi's car would normally get, she drove no more than 8 1/2 miles to and from the gas station. The only caves in the vicinity are in Lobo Flats, which Langston says he dismissed as one of his crackpot theories. He explains that a coffee server approached him at WLVU and told him that when he was in Lobo Flats looking for arrowheads, he saw someone disposing bloody medical scrubs. Langston and the server, Vince Grady, went to the location to check it out. He says that he dismissed the theory because the place was unlocked, there were rusty tools laying around, and there was no sign of blood anywhere.

After the police sweep the building, Nick enters and talks to Langston through a headset. Nick makes his way back to the workbench Langston spotted earlier with Vince and finds a blood stain on the floor. He follows the blood trail and finds bloody fingerprints. Nearby, he also finds a yellow toolbox with a chipped corner; the color is the same as the trace found in Heidi's head wound. The toolbox has a handprint on the top of it. When Nick runs the prints outside in his SUV, he finds that the bloody fingerprints are Heidi's; however, the palm print isn't a match. Furthermore, there's no way to tell if the palm print is from the same contributor as the bloody fingerprint on the steering wheel of Heidi's car. Nick asks how Heidi found out about the place if Langston hasn't been to it since she arrived in town, and they conclude that Vince led her there.

Under interrogation, Vince tells Catherine that he's been helping Langston investigate the Dr. Jekyll case. He recognizes Heidi from her photo and admits to leading her out to the remote location after she paid him off. While searching the place, he says that the toolbox fell from a shelf and hit her in the head; he picked it up and put it back on the shelf. Catherine doesn't believe the story and posits that Vince killed her after she dismissed his lead. Vince denies this and says that Heidi drove him back into town after they searched the building.

Nick interrupts the interrogation and, in the hallway, tells Catherine that the palm print on the toolbox is Vince's, but the bloody print on the steering wheel isn't. This leads Catherine to believe that Vince may be telling the truth, as far-fetched as it may seem. Out of suspects, Nick rolls with one of Langston's theories—if Langston was right and he led Heidi to Jekyll, then Jekyll might be in one of the surveillance videos at the Blue Aces casino.

Nick and Archie go through the footage and originally find nothing out of the ordinary. However, Nick has Archie zoom in on someone playing the penny slots near where Langston and Heidi were. When the two moved to the other side of the casino, the same man was seen playing $10 slots. Nick notes that no gambler is that erratic. When the man is biometrically compared to the surveillance still of Dr. Jekyll from the hospital where he assaulted Langston, they find that they're a match. Heidi was following Langston and Jekyll was following one—or both—of them.

Brass calls Catherine and says that they have someone in custody who was trying to pawn Heidi's amber pendant, camera, and laptop. Furthermore, his fingerprint matches the bloody print in the car. The man is identified as Lou Brennan, a coworker of Vince's at the coffee stand. He admits that he saw Heidi flash a lot of cash when she bribed Vince and later decided to try to rob her. When she fought back, he hit her head against the steering wheel and then "accidentally" strangled her. Heidi's murder was a crime of opportunity and had nothing to do with the Dr. Jekyll case.

The team meets in a casino bar to recap the case. They wonder what Dr. Jekyll was doing at the Blue Aces casino if he wasn't following Heidi. Langston realizes that he was the one being followed; since Dr. Jekyll swiped his ID badge, he knows his face and could've followed him anywhere, including to his house. In fact, the good doctor could've followed them all to the casino. However, Langston believes that Dr. Jekyll has had plenty of opportunities to strike and never followed through. The conversation is interrupted when Langston gets a call on his cell phone. It's Nate Haskell calling from prison, and he has some pertinent information—he knows who Dr. Jekyll is.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

Episode Title[]

Goofs[]

  • When Archie, Wendy and Catherine are viewing the Blue Aces surveillance video that shows Langston meeting with the reporter, the video that shows the reporter entering the bar shows her going up the stairs. The video that shows her leaving is a mirrored replay of the video of her entering, as it shows her going up the stairs to leave with the exact same gestures and head movements.
  • When Archie and Nick are reviewing the surveillance videos from the Blue Aces casino, Archie boxes the image of a man playing the penny slots. The box around the image of the man cuts off the top of the man's head, but when that boxed image is enlarged, the image has been cropped well above the man's head.
  • There's a possible error with Lily's name. It's likely that her name is Lily Xiao Ping, as Chinese naming customs follows western name, surname, and given name.

Notes[]

  • Wendy tells Hodges about her past dealings with Langston, which include him refusing to submit his DNA in a case (Sin City Blue) and becoming defensive about a report regarding MAOA deficiency (Working Stiffs).

Trivia[]

  • Jeff Perry, who played Vince Grady, also appeared in the Season Three episode Last Laugh playing a different character.

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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