Too Tough to Die

CSI EPISODE
Too Tough to Die
Season	1
Number	16
Writer	Elizabeth Devine
Director	Richard J. Lewis
Original Airdate	March 1, 2001

Too Tough to Die is the sixteenth episode of season one of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Synopsis

Sara gets emotionally involved when she, Grissom, and Nick investigate the case of a woman who is abducted from a parking garage, raped, and left for dead.

Meanwhile Catherine and Warrick take over a case from one of the dayshift CSIs who has quit. The case involves a neighbor's dispute that led to murder. Not only has an important piece of evidence been lost, but the case goes to trial in four days.

Plot

A woman is carjacked and sexually assaulted; Sara goes to the hospital to collect an SAE kit and finds the woman in a coma with two bullets in her brain, and no ID. Unfortunately, the bullets can't be removed because there's a very high risk that Jane Doe might not survive the operation.

As she collects evidence from the woman’s body, Sara promises her that she will find out who did this. Grissom and Nick process the crime scene and find bullet casings and a belt loop.

Sara intently searches the missing persons database for a match to her Jane Doe and identifies her as Pamela Adler. Grissom, concerned, warns Sara against getting too close to the victim and advises her to develop a hobby outside of law enforcement.

The bullet casings match a shooting in a gang neighborhood in North Vegas. Grissom and Nick allow scent dogs to smell the belt loop and let them search; the dogs lead them to Tony Thorpe, who is wearing a pair of jeans with a missing belt loop. Sara and Nick match the belt loop to Tony’s jeans. During questioning, Tony gloats that Pamela is not dead yet, and he is a juvenile, meaning the law is on his side. However, Brass assures him that if she dies within a year, he will be charged with murder.

Catherine and Warrick inherit an open murder case from a dayshift CSI who quit the day before. Roy McCall claims that Chuckie Hastings attacked him with a screwdriver, forcing McCall to shoot in self-defense. However, Mrs. Hastings claims that McCall shot her husband in the back. Catherine and Warrick learn that the previous CSI who worked this case lost the screwdriver before it could be processed, and realizing that, he left before he could be fired, citing burnout as his reason for quitting.

The coroner’s report confirms that Hastings was shot in the back, but McCall also has a scar that proves he was attacked with a screwdriver. Catherine and Warrick find unburned gunpowder on Hastings' shirt and realize that he was shot at close range. They reenact the fight using dummies and realize that McCall did indeed shoot once in self-defense but then shot Hastings again as he lay on the ground.

Catherine learns that Eddie took out a second mortgage on the house they own together. He visits the lab to see her and they get into a physical altercation, which Grissom breaks up. This convinces Catherine that she needs to finalize her divorce.

Sara visits Pamela in the hospital to tell her that they caught Tony, and meets Tom, Pamela’s husband. He tells her that Pamela is going to live, and that she will be moved to a facility; Sara promises to visit her and hastily leaves, holding back tears. She returns to the lab and during a talk with Grissom, cries over a system that rewards suspects when the victim is too tough to die, stating that Pamela Adler is going to be in a vegetative state for the rest of her life which her husband isn't even aware of and that her attacker, Thorpe is likely to get out in jail in four years.

"I wish I were like you", she tells Grissom. "I wish I didn't feel anything".

Main Cast

(Credit order)

• William Petersen as Gil Grissom
• Marg Helgenberger as Catherine Willows
• Gary Dourdan as Warrick Brown
• George Eads as Nick Stokes
• Jorja Fox as Sara Sidle
• Paul Guilfoyle as Jim Brass

Recurring Roles

• Timothy Carhart as Eddie Willows
• Geoffrey Rivas as Detective Sam Vega
• Robert David Hall as Dr. Al Robbins
• Gerald McCullouch as Bobby Dawson
• Mark Collver as Detective B. Evans
• Palmer Davis as Attorney Margaret Finn
• Madison McReynolds as Lindsey Willows
• Eric Szmanda as Greg Sanders (uncredited)

Guest Star

• Katy Boyer as Laurianne Hastings
• Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine as Tom Adler (credited as Ntare Mwine)
• Aldis Hodge as Tony Thorpe
• Andy Taylor as Sam Gentry
• Michelle Anne Johnson as Pamela Adler
• Gary Bristow as Chuck Hastings
• Geoff Meed as Roy McCall
• Netfa Perry as Shandra Thorpe
• Larry Bagby as Hank Dudek (credited as Larry Bagby III)
• Edi Patterson as Rosalyn Dudek
• William Wantland as Extra (uncredited)

Major Events

• Detective Sam Vega is introduced for the first time.

Goofs

• In the opening scene, the character Pamela Adler, uses a remote access for her car but still uses her key to unlock her car door.
• While examining a victim in a coma, Sara breathes on a piece of medical equipment to warm it up before using it. Doing this would transfer her own DNA onto the equipment, which would contaminate the test.

See Also

• List of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episodes
• CSI:Crime Scene Investigation Season 1
• Category:Images from Too Tough to Die