| Minor Character: Las Vegas | |
 | |
| Name | Lindsey Willows |
| Gender | Female |
| Family | Catherine Willows (mother) Eddie Willows (father) Lily Flynn (grandmother) Sam Braun (grandfather) Jeremy (cousin) |
| City | Las Vegas |
| Occupation | Student CSI Level 1 |
| Status | Alive |
| Portrayed By | Madison McReynolds (1-5) Kay Panabaker (6-12) Katie Stevens (finale) |
| First Appearance | Pilot |
Lindsey Willows is the daughter of CSI Catherine Willows and her deceased ex-husband Eddie Willows in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Background
Primarily, the character's function is to highlight the difficulties faced by Catherine Willows in being a single mother while holding down a demanding law-enforcement job and trying to maintain a social life.
Lindsey's appearances have typically been in episodes where she was used as a pawn by Eddie, before that character's death or afterward proving to be a rebellious (but not implausibly so) teenager.
One episode featured Lindsey getting caught fighting at school; another after she was detained for hitchhiking.
This latter incident prompted a scene where Catherine takes Lindsey to a morgue to show her the corpse of an adult female assault victim to impress upon her the risks in her behavior.
Lindsey was enrolled in a private school, the fictional Butterfield Academy. She was abducted and briefly held captive by enemies of her maternal grandfather, Sam Braun, in the seventh season episode Built to Kill, Part 2.
Season Seven
Lindsey appears in the ending of "Sweet Jane" where her mother drops her off and sees her talk with her friends.
Season Nine
In the Season 9 episode "Let It Bleed", while investigating the murder of a drug lord's daughter at a bar, Catherine spots Lindsey in the crowd, dancing with a man and threatens the man to back off. She finds a fake I.D. on her and has an officer send Lindsey home. Later, Lindsey appeared in her mother's office and apologized for going to the club and Catherine forgave her (but still had her grounded).
Season Ten
Lindsey was involved in a high school performance of Cabaret in Season 10 "World's End" where she helps identify a victim and told her mother that he wouldn't be missed. She was caught looking at the case files by Sara Sidle, but promises not to tell Catherine. Lindsey also told Sara that the victim came up to her and wanted her mother to do him a favor, but she rejected, thinking he was hitting on her. It was revealed that the janitor, a fugitive from the Rwanda conflict, killed him and the victim wanted her to run the man's fingerprints. At the end of the episode, Catherine watched as Lindsey performed.
At the time of Catherine's departure, Lindsey has gone to college.
She is due to return for the CSI TV Movie 'Immortality' alongside her mother where it was revealed that Lindsey would be a CSI trainee.
Appearances
| CSI:Crime Scene Investigation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | # | |
| Season 1 | X | - | X | - | - | X | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 5 | |
| Season 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 1 | |
| Season 3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 1 | |
| Season 5 | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | 2 |
| Season 6 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | N/A | 1 |
| Season 7 | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 2 |
| Season 9 | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 1 |
| Season 10 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | N/A | 1 | |
| Season 12 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 1 | ||
| Total | 15 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Gallery:
Behind the Scenes
Madison McReynolds played Lindsey from season one to season five; Kay Panabaker took over the role in the season six finale Way to Go, and continued to play it up until season twelve, episode Zippered, via photo, where she's uncredited.