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Forget Me Not
Forgetmenot8
Season 13
Number 15
Writer Andrew Dettmann
Director Karen Gaviola
Original Airdate February 20, 2013
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Previous Episode: Exile
Next Episode: Last Woman Standing

Forget Me Not is the fifteenth episode in Season Thirteen of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Synopsis[]

Sara is a lead suspect in an investigation after a brief encounter with another man in which she was the last person to see him alive. Also, her separation from Grissom begins to take a toll.

Plot[]

Victim: Taylor Wynard (deceased)

On the case: D.B. Russell, Greg Sanders, Julie Finlay, Morgan Brody, Nick Stokes, Kevin Crawford

On her birthday, Sara sits in a fancy restaurant by herself. She's soon met by a man who has correctly guessed that it's her birthday. The two share a bottle of wine and later head back to his hotel room.

The following morning, Sara is surprised to run into Greg, who is at the hotel on his way to a crime scene. Sara rides up the elevator with him and follows him to the victim's room. The victim is the same man she met the night before; he's been stabbed several times in the chest. Sara pulls Russell aside, telling him she knew the victim and was in the room for about an hour. Russell orders her to sit down with a detective and give her statement, omitting no details.

The victim is identified as Taylor Wynard, and David Phillips counts seven stab wounds on the body. Curiously, there are no defensive wounds. It's possible the first stab hit a vital organ, which rendered Taylor defenseless; if so, the other stab wounds were overkill. A steak knife is missing from the room service cart, leading the CSIs to guess that it was a weapon of opportunity. Greg is surprised to find that a fingerprint on a wine glass comes back to Sara, and Russell fills he and Nick in on the situation.

At the station, Sara sits with Det. Crawford and goes through the night's events. She and Taylor went back to his room, where they shared three bottles of wine. When she got a happy birthday text from Grissom at 11:15 PM, Sara left the room and went back to hers. Phone records show that she made a phone call to the victim at 12:04 AM that lasted for eight minutes, something she denies doing. She admits to taking a sleeping pill on top of all the alcohol, and is surprised when told that she used her key card to reenter her room at 2:49 AM. Sara claims she was asleep at the time, but her whereabouts between midnight and 3:00 AM can't be confirmed.

In the hotel room, Nick finds one of Sara's necklaces on the floor behind the bed. Greg finds damp towels in the bathroom and a long, dark hair in the drain that looks like it could belong to Sara. When he goes to process the bed, Greg sees that the sheets are missing. In the lab, Morgan draws Sara's blood and tells her that she wouldn't judge her for sleeping with someone besides Grissom since he's never around. Sara reiterates that nothing happened between her and Taylor.

In autopsy, Finn shows Doc Robbins a picture of the knife from the hotel's room service supply. Despite not physically having the weapon, he confirms that it's likely the murder weapon, as the blade length and handle seem consistent with the victim's wounds. Meanwhile, Sara goes to talk to Hodges; he responds by barring her from his lab (to prevent cross-contamination of evidence) and plucking one of her hairs to use as a comparison sample. Afterwards, Finn tells Sara to go home and distance herself from everything going on. When she gets home, she discovers that her dishwasher is running a cycle—and that there's a single steak knife inside.

Greg and Nick are called to the house; they find no sign of forced entry anywhere. Sara insists that someone else was in the house and that the same person likely killed Taylor. She adds that the only people who know her alarm code are her coworkers and friends. Things get even more complicated when Greg finds an envelope in the bedroom that contains pictures of Sara kissing Taylor during a previous meeting.

Russell sits down with Sara, who admits to "omitting" the fact that she knew Taylor previously. She explains that they first met each other two weeks ago, and that his showing up to her table was unplanned. Sara's tox report shows that, ten hours after drinking, her blood alcohol level was still .03. Furthermore, her sleeping pills registered .9 milligrams per liter. Russell is concerned about Sara and her recent behavior, but she insists that she took only one five milligram pill. When pressed. she reveals that she and Grissom are no longer married and that she's been struggling with that fact.

The bed sheets from the hotel room are still missing, and there's no blood or tissue found on the knife from Sara's dishwasher. Hodges processes the hair from the shower drain and confirms that it belongs to Sara. He points out that based on the amount of zolpidem in Sara's system, she might have been sleepwalking and may not remember showering. Hodges wonders if she also "sleep-murdered," something dismissed by Finn and Greg.

Nick consoles Sara about her separation from Grissom. As the two walk down the hall, she sees her necklace on a monitor. Nick confirms that the necklace was found in the hotel room, but Sara says she didn't wear it the night she went out. Someone broke into her house, stole it from her bedroom, and planted it at the scene.

Sara comes to a realization—Ronald Basderic is the man invading her private life. A flashback shows Ronald stalking waitress Edie Graham, which indirectly led to her getting murdered at the diner where she worked. Sara berated him in the police station, telling him that Edie was dead because of him. In the parking garage of Ronald's workplace, Sara confronts the stalker. She accuses him of stalking her and murdering Taylor, and reveals that the necklace found in the hotel room was a gift from Edie. In his own way, Ronald wanted Sara to know that he's the one responsible. He denies the accusations at first, but soon implicitly confirms his involvement, telling Sara that he didn't force her to go up to Taylor's room or force her infidelity. When Ronald pulls out his cell phone and threatens to call Grissom (whose number he just happens to have on speed dial), Sara slaps the phone out of his hand and pushes him to the ground. She promises him that he's not going to walk away this time.

Det. Crawford speaks privately with Russell, concerned that the CSI team is purposefully omitting evidence to protect one of their own. Russell claims that the evidence only says that Sara was in Taylor's room, not that she committed murder. However, Det. Crawford points out that Sara was having an illicit affair under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs. He adds that if this was anyone else, an arrest would've been made by now.

Later, at home, Sara is busy doing a background check on Ronald in the hopes that she can access his phone records. She's soon alerted to a knock at her front door. Officer Akers tells her to gather her belongings and go with him to the police station. There, she sees Ronald giving a statement saying that Sara stalked him and attacked him; his face is bruised and bloodied.

Finn processes Sara, collecting her clothes as evidence and giving her something station-issued to wear. Greg and Nick are upset that Sara was processed, but Det. Crawford tells them that she was caught on camera this time. When Greg shows her the surveillance video from the garage, Sara notes that Ronald crawled out of view of the camera—he knew exactly where to stand and where to lure Sara. She insists that the only physical contact she made with Ronald is what's seen in the video. Greg informs her that the district attorney has enough evidence to charge her, as she was clearly the aggressor here.

Ronald tells Nick that Sara is unstable and shouldn't be allowed to carry a gun. He says that she accused him of murder, seeming disoriented and confused while she did so. According to Ronald, he asked Sara to leave him alone, but she persisted. Feeling threatened, he called 911, which is when Sara knocked the phone out of his hand.

Finn examines Sara's clothes and finds no hint of trace or transfer evidence, something that would seem impossible based on the beating Ronald took. Nick guesses that Ronald beat himself up, while Sara's belief is that he committed the hotel murder in an elaborate setup aimed at her. The team pieces together what steps Ronald would've had to take in order to pull off such a plan—he would have to know Sara was going to be at the hotel, he'd have to be able to get in and out of her house and hotel room, and he would have to arrange for the victim to be at the hotel, as well. If he's the one responsible, he likely hacked into Sara's e-mail and found her hotel reservation. Furthermore, with the assumption that Ronald is behind this, he's probably the one who took the photos of Sara and Taylor together.

Sara is released after Ronald decides not to press charges; however, he does file a restraining order against her. Russell gives her a pep talk and sends her on her way, but not before taking her gun. Sara is put on leave until the department figures out what the next move should be. To make things worse, she also finds out that her mother, Laura, has been admitted to the hospital after getting her hands on a bottle of alcohol. When Sara visits her, she knows about the hotel murder and believes Sara to be responsible for it—her "friend" Ronald stopped by to pass along the information. Sara rushes home, locks her door, and loads her service pistol.

The team starts to piece together the evidence to help exonerate their friend. Nick discovers that someone overrode the key card slot to Sara's hotel room, entering it just before midnight. This would explain how the killer got Sara's phone and made the eight minute call. Hodges finds that Sara would've never heard someone enter, as she was completely knocked out; her zolpidem contained more than double the prescribed dosage. Morgan compares the shower drains from Sara's room and Taylor's room, finding that the killer swapped the drains. This explains how Sara's hair was in Taylor's drain. Finally, Greg compares surveillance photos of Ronald leaving work with surveillance photos of a mystery man in the casino on the night of the murder; the clothes are a match.

Ronald can now be put in the hotel on the night of the murder. Nick wonders what Ronald's endgame is, as he could've just left the bloody knife at Sara's house; instead, he washed the blood off. Furthermore, he decided not to press charges against Sara for the assault. He doesn't want Sara behind bars, he wants her out—and Greg thinks he knows why.

Greg rushes to Russell and mentions a previous case of Ronald's where he stalked someone's wife until the guy finally came after him. Ronald drew the guy in and shot him in self-defense. Since Ronald has a restraining order against Sara and she's already on record for assaulting him, he could legally shoot her and get away with it. This is the revenge he's after.

Greg tries to call Sara, but she ignores the call while she waits outside Ronald's house. Meanwhile, Nick and Det. Crawford detain Ronald as he's leaving work. Ronald is carrying a gun, and Crawford takes it while they all have a conversation. Nick accuses Ronald of murder with the knowledge that he was at the hotel. Ronald plays the victim, but refuses to be put in police protection for his own safety. Before leaving, Nick issues a warning: hurt Sara and face the consequences. Crawford hands the gun back to Ronald, and the pair drives off.

When Ronald arrives home, he finds Sara waiting for him. She berates him for discrediting her at her job, getting her arrested, and going after her mother. Sara's been pushed to the edge and tries to shoot Ronald. However, when nothing happens, Ronald reveals that he removed the firing pin from the gun when he was in Sara's house. He admits to planning everything for months down to the smallest detail, including stabbing Taylor seven times, the same number of times Laura stabbed her husband (Sara's father). Ronald also admits paying Taylor to be at the hotel, as well as paying for the surprise birthday dessert Sara received.

Sara tearfully gives up, stretches out her arms, and tells Ronald to just finish the job. When he fires his gun, nothing happens. As Nick and Det. Crawford enter with their guns drawn, Ronald realizes his ammo was swapped out with blanks, which Crawford did earlier in the parking garage. Sara was recording the conversation and Ronald is arrested, putting an end to his reign of terror.

Sara picks her mother up from the hospital, and the two decide to change the way things are between them. Back at the lab, Russell gives Sara back her gun and credentials. In the break room, she tells Greg and Nick about her separation from Grissom and thanks them for not giving up on her.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

Major Events[]

  • During the course of the investigation, Sara reveals that she and Grissom are no longer married.

Notes[]

  • Jon Wellner (Henry) and Paul Guilfoyle (Brass) are credited but do not appear in the episode.
  • A flashback is shown of Ronald Basderic stalking waitress Edie Graham, which indirectly led to her murder. This occurred in the episode Code Blue Plate Special.

See Also[]

CSI:Las Vegas Season 13
Karma to BurnCode Blue Plate SpecialWild FlowersIt Was a Very Good YearPlay DeadPick and RollFallen AngelsCSI on FireStrip MaulRisky Business ClassDead AirDouble FaultIn Vino VeritasExileForget Me NotLast Woman StandingDead of the ClassShelteredBackfireFearlessGhosts of the PastSkin in the Game


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