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Primum Non Nocere
Nocere
Season 2
Number 16
Writer Danny Cannon
Director Andrew Lipsitz
Original Airdate February 28, 2002
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Previous Episode: Burden of Proof
Next Episode: Felonious Monk

Primum Non Nocere is the sixteenth episode in Season Two of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Synopsis[]

Catherine, Grissom and Sara investigate an ice hockey player who dies in the middle of the game. Meanwhile, Nick and Warrick look into the apparent drug-related death of a saxophone player at one of the local casinos.

Plot[]

Victim: Terry Rivers (deceased)

On the case: Catherine Willows, Gil Grissom, Sara Sidle

During a weekend league hockey game, Terry Rivers gets a cut just below his eye. Against the on-site doctor's advice, Terry gets stitched up, takes some pills, and heads back onto the ice. Later in the game, he ends up at the bottom of a pile up, barely conscious. He's responsive enough to be helped off the ice, but dies a few minutes later upon reaching the bench.

Catherine and Grissom arrive to examine the body. They note the cut on Terry's face, but are more interested in the long gash in the side of his neck. Grissom and Sara process the rink, with Grissom collecting blood samples and Sara finding wood splinters on the ice. Meanwhile, Catherine speaks with Dr. Ron Stockwell, the on-site doctor who treated Terry. He reiterates that Terry was still breathing when he was brought back to the bench; however, he soon became unresponsive and CPR was unsuccessful. Terry's teammate, Tommy Sconzo, shows Catherine a tooth he lost during the game, and Grissom later finds a fragment of it in the zamboni. Believing the other part of the tooth is in the large snow pile nearby, Grissom and Sara work on melting the pile to retrieve the evidence.

In autopsy, Doc Robbins informs Grissom that Terry's tox report only shows quinine in his system. Terry, a stockbroker by day, suffered a laundry list of 'battle scars' from his weekend activity on the ice. The doc can't quite pinpoint the cause of death, believing it could be from the blade of an ice skate slicing Terry's neck or significant trauma to the basilar artery that possibly caused syncope.

According to Brass, everyone on the opposing team hated Terry for being an instigator. Catherine speaks with one of the opposing players, Jane Gallagher. She claims not to have seen anything and advises Catherine to check out Terry's own teammates who hated him more than anyone else.

Catherine and Grissom search Terry's apartment and discover that he had slept with many different women. Back at the lab, Sara examines the players' equipment. Every jersey has blood on it, which is common for a hockey game. However, she finds blood spatter on Jane's skate, indicating that her blade is the one that sliced through Terry's neck. Her blades are also more sharpened than necessary, making it harder for her to play on them.

It's revealed that Jane used be a teammate of Terry's—and that he had the entire roster was knee-deep in the stock market. Terry ended up costing her $10,000 in the market, and anyone else who got burned could also have been seeking revenge. Grissom and Brass accuse of her of murder, as the pile up on the ice could've given her the perfect opportunity to do the deed. Jane soon becomes ill and throws up, claiming it's from the shrimp salad she had the night before. After she leaves to get it cleaned up, Grissom collects it as evidence, noting that anything with spoiled mayonnaise in it would induce vomiting in 15 minutes, not 12 hours.

In the lab, Greg identifies the vomit as morning sickness—blood present in the vomit confirms that Jane is with child. Grissom wonders if Jane was unaware of this, which would explain why she was still going out on the ice. If she was aware and knew Terry was the father, this would also give her motive for murder. The next place to search is Jane's apartment to see if Terry left anything of his behind.

Bedsheets from Jane's apartment test positive for semen, and Grissom finds a male toenail amongst the sheets. Greg informs Catherine and Sara that the toenail is a DNA match to the tooth fragment found at the bottom of the snow pile. The tooth belongs to someone living, not Terry. Whoever was in Jane's bed was on the ice the night Terry died.

That player is Tommy Sconzo, Terry's teammate. When questioned, Tommy says he hated Terry, for both the way he treated Jane and the fact that he cost him $12,000 in the stock market. Since Tommy is the captain of the team, Sara accuses him of rallying the players and having everyone take a shot at Terry so that no single person could be blamed for the murder. When told that Jane is pregnant, Tommy is elated at the fact that he's going to be a father.

Doc Robbins pages Grissom back to the lab. It turns out that Terry had a coronary anomaly called Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) Syndrome, which interferes with the heart's electrical system. A histopath shows a small defect in the atrium of the heart, meaning the hockey game had nothing to do with Terry's death. The quinine found in Terry's system is lethal for anyone who has WPW, which means someone knew about his condition.

When questioned again, Jane recalls that one night when she and Terry were having sex, he started sweating, then passed out. She was never told what happened to Terry, and she took off because she didn't want anyone to know she had been with him. Jane is surprised to know that her pregnancy has been discovered, and she tells Grissom and Sara that she was dating Tommy at the same time she was sleeping with Terry.

No quinine is found in Terry's apartment, nor did he have a prescription for it. Curiously enough, Terry also never had malaria. This rules out Jane as a suspect, as she never had access to quinine. Someone besides Terry had to have known about his condition, and Catherine comes across his medical records. Anyone with access to the same records would know how to kill him.

Grissom, Sara and Brass question Dr. Ron Stockwell. He confirms that he has no patients with malaria; however, he wrote a prescription for quinine just a month earlier. Grissom finds a photo of Dr. Stockwell on vacation in Italy with Jane—the two were a couple before the other men entered her life. Knowing that Terry was an injury waiting to happen, he waited until the right moment to give him quinine, knowing full well what the result would be.

A flashback shows Terry in the hospital having his heart condition tended to. In a vulnerable state, Jane told Dr. Stockwell that she needed him and wanted to make their relationship work. However, when she came to him a few days ago, Dr. Stockwell found out she was pregnant. Killing Terry would get the father out of the way and bring Jane back into his arms. However, there's one problem: Terry wasn't the father. The doctor is told that Tommy is actually the father and that he killed the wrong man.

Victim: Stan Grevey (deceased)

On the case: Nick Stokes, Warrick Brown, Cyrus Lockwood

Nick and Warrick are called to a casino, where the body of Stan Grevey, a backup saxophone player, has been found in a backroom of a lounge. White powder around the victim's mouth and track marks on his arm indicate a drug overdose; however, there's no drug paraphernalia anywhere in the room. Nick finds cowhide wedged between the victim's teeth, while Warrick collects a sample of the white powder to bring back to the lab. The theory that Stan was partying with the waitress who found him is quickly debunked; she was just coming on shift and has already been cleared. Nick observes that there are two coasters on the table, but only one glass. Warrick finds a contact lens on the table, as well; the killer may have left it behind. They're soon interrupted by singer Lillie Ivers, who's distraught to learn that Stan is dead.

In the lab, Greg determines that the contact lens was worn by a near-sighted person. He informs Nick and Warrick that the white powder that Stan had been taking is 91% pure heroin, which is too pure to be of much value. The only reason it would be given to anyone is for the purpose of killing them.

Since Stan was from Los Angeles, Warrick believes Lillie is in the clear, as she likely never met him before her performance. Nick and Warrick go dumpster diving, and Nick finds a coaster and drug paraphernalia wrapped in a black silk scarf. Lillie later confirms that the scarf is hers, but claims that anyone could've taken it from her dressing room. She allows the CSIs to fingerprint her, saying that she has nothing to hide.

Nick and Warrick talk to Bill Baker, a bandmate of Stan's. Fingerprints confirm that Bill was the one who disposed of the drug paraphernalia, and he says that he did so to hide the truth from Stan's eight-year-old son. He grabbed Lillie's scarf because it was the first thing he could find in the room. A former junkie, Bill proves that he's no longer using and also says that he doesn't wear contact lenses.

Lillie finds Warrick playing the piano, a piece he composed himself. The two are obviously attracted to each other, and they meet each other later at the bar. She's impressed with Warrick's talent and offers him a job to tour with her instead of "chasing ghosts with his partner." After Lillie leaves to start her performance, Warrick watches the bartender take something out of his pocket and slip it between two coasters. He then puts the two coasters under a drink and serves it.

Back at the lab, Warrick discovers that the coaster tests positive for heroin, proving that the bartender was dealing drugs from behind the bar. They found two coasters in the backroom, but both belonged to Stan, not to another person. Nick recalls that when they spoke to Lillie earlier, she also had a drink with two coasters. Warrick refuses to believe that she's involved, but Nick advises him to walk away from her, as she may be bad news.

When confronted, the bartender pulls a contact lens out of his eye. The assumption is that the contact lens from the backroom will match his. He claims to have not known the victim, saying that he never meant to harm anyone. His misinformed guess is that he got a bad batch, and Nick advises him to stay out of things he can't comprehend.

Warrick meets up with Lillie and finds track marks on her arm. He tells her that life is too short and bids her farewell. Afterwards, he goes to the casino and begins to play blackjack. Nick sits down beside him; when asked what he's doing, Nick replies "I'm playing cards...with my friend."

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

  • Eric Szmanda as Greg Sanders
  • Robert David Hall as Dr. Al Robbins
  • Jeffrey D. Sams as Cyrus Lockwood
  • Nicole Ari Parker as Lillie Ivers
  • Jeremy Ratchford as Tommy Sconzo
  • Abby Brammell as Jane Gallagher
  • Peter Mackenzie as Dr. Ron Stockwell
  • David Andriole as Terry Rivers
  • Anthony DiMaria as Bartender
  • Dig Wayne as Bill Baker
  • Joe Sperandeo as Hockey Player (uncredited)

Episode Title[]

  • Primum Non Nocere is Latin for, "First, do no harm," which is in the Hippocratic Oath, an ethical oath historically taken by physicians. It refers to the unethical behavior of Dr. Ron Stockwell, the team physician who killed hockey player Terry Rivers, who is investigated in this episode.   

Goofs[]

  • When Grissom and Sara talk with Jane in the basketball arena about the night she had sex with Terry, an image error occurs with the camera filming Sara: a more or less straight scratch line in constant motion runs through Grissom's jacket on the left side, most likely due to bad film processing or poorly loaded film.

Notes[]

  • Grissom tells Sara that he became interested in beauty when he met her. 
  • Warrick can play the piano and also composes music.

Trivia[]

  • William Petersen ad-libbed Grissom's line, "Since I met you," in response to Sara's question about being interested in beauty.[1] 
  • Warrick's piano composition was actually an original composition by Gary Dourdan.[2]

References[]

  1. Flaherty, M. & Marrinan, C. (2004). CSI: Crime scene investigation companion. New York, NY: Pocket Books.
  2. Flaherty, M. & Marrinan, C. (2004). CSI: Crime scene investigation companion. New York, NY: Pocket Books.

See Also[]

CSI:Las Vegas Season 2
BurkedChaos TheoryOverloadBully for YouScuba Doobie-DooAlter BoysCagedSlaves of Las VegasAnd Then There Were NoneEllieOrgan GrinderYou've Got MaleIdentity CrisisThe FingerBurden of ProofPrimum Non NocereFelonious MonkChasing The BusStalkerCats in the CradleAnatomy of a LyeCross JurisdictionsThe Hunger Artist
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