World's End | |
Season | 10 |
Number | 19 |
Writer | Evan Dunsky |
Director | Alec Smight |
Original Airdate | April 22, 2010 |
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Previous Episode: Field Mice | |
Next Episode: Take My Life, Please! |
World's End is the nineteenth episode in Season Ten of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Synopsis[]
Catherine investigates a student's murder at her daughter's high school and discovers the victim, who was found dead in a storm drain, was known for being a racist. During the investigation, the team unexpectedly stumbles on a fugitive Rwandan war criminal.
Plot[]
Victim: Sean Becker (deceased)
On the case: entire team
While Lindsey Willows rehearses for her school play, Cabaret, a torrential rain falls outside. Below the street, a teenage boy is caught in the rising waters inside a storm drain. He struggles to keep his head above water and is unable to find anything to grab on to. His body is later found tangled up in the drain's gate.
Heavy rain continues to fall as Nick arrives on the scene. There's no ID on the victim, but Nick spots a distinctive tattoo on his hand. Catherine soon arrives unexpectedly; she's in the area to pick up her daughter following her rehearsal. She finds Lindsey in the crowd of onlookers and is told that the victim's name is Sean Becker—and that nobody is going to miss him.
The following morning, the rain has stopped and Sean's body is removed from the sewer. Nick notes that the only way to get something as big as a body into the drain system is through an access point on the line. He and Greg find the nearest one and head down into the sewer, There, they find what appears to be a hangout spot and wonder if Sean got high, passed out, and fell into the raging waters. A symbol matching Sean's tattoo has been spray painted on a wall, and Greg finds racist propaganda nearby.
In autopsy, Langston notes that Sean's body has numerous perimortem abrasions and small puncture wounds. He also spots a white supremacist tattoo on Sean's chest. Thickened and discolored knuckles indicate that Sean used his fists often. Inside Sean's wallet, David Phillips finds an unmarked photo of two young black girls—something odd for a racist to be carrying. They wonder if the girls were Sean's victims or potential targets.
At the school, Principal Phil Carpenter fills Catherine in about Sean's troubled past, including his hatred towards all creeds and religions. His two friends, Daryl Johnson and Carl Hart, will be hard to find, as they were suspended from school at the same time Sean was expelled. Principal Carpenter mentions that he organized a Tolerance Week after a gay student was killed in a car accident, and Sean and his friends always seemed to be stirring up trouble. Catherine shows him a photo of the two black girls in Sean's photo, but the principal doesn't recognize them as students.
Sara and Brass visit Sean's grandmother, who is also his legal guardian. They give her the bad news about Sean; however, due to her Alzheimer's Disease, she's unable to comprehend that Sean isn't coming back. Sara searches Sean's room and is surprised to find that he seemed to be rather intelligent. She notes to Brass that some artwork in the room is similar to the drawings found down in the sewer.
Back in autopsy, Langston looks at Sean's x-rays and finds evidence of fractured bones that never reset. Sean's tox panel also came back clean for drugs. Doc Robbins informs Langston that Sean didn't drown, as the telltale drowning signs are absent. Instead, one of the puncture wounds to Sean's body extended into the lung, causing him to lose two liters of blood; Doc Robbins labels this as Sean's cause of death. The puncture wound has an small X shape, which both men guess came from a Phillips-head screwdriver.
Greg and Nick continue to check the storm drain's access points and come across a red and white fiber consistent with Sean's jacket. They figure that this particular spot is where Sean's body was dumped. Nick climbs down and finds a Phillips-head screwdriver tangled up in some netting. He figures that the killer dumped the screwdriver when he dumped the body, hoping that both would wash away. Prints and DNA may be tough to come by since the screwdriver was sitting in rushing storm water.
Langston lays out both photos and x-rays of Sean's body to get a better look at all of the injuries he sustained. He tells Sara that, based on bruise coloration, Sean sustained injuries to his knee, torso, and face three days before the night of his death. Disciplinary files sent by the school indicate that Sean got into a fight three days earlier with another student, Ian Wentworth. The CSIs wonder if the fight eventually led to Sean's death.
At the school, Catherine speaks with Ian, who tells her that he caught Sean snooping around during one of the rehearsals. He admits that he confronted Sean in the hallway and put him on notice, even accusing him of killing the gay student Principal Carpenter mentioned earlier. The two got into a fight, which left Sean bloodied. Ian tells Catherine that he was defending himself and that Sean threw the first punch. He adds that he's glad Sean is dead, but says that he was in rehearsal when he was killed—something Lindsey can attest to.
Nick shows Langston a photo of the screwdriver they recovered; it's a common screwdriver with a cracked wooden handle. Unfortunately, no blood or fingerprints were able to be recovered from it. Langston continues to look over photos and x-rays of Sean's body and notes that the bruises to Sean's torso and face look they're more than three days old. Furthermore, a bruise on his wrist appears to be at least a week old. Nick sees an x-ray of Sean's fractured ulna and figures he would've went to the hospital to have it looked at; however, there's nothing in Sean's medical records or school files to indicate this.
Principal Carpenter visits Catherine in her office and tells her that someone roughed up the school janitor last week. The janitor, Laurent Senyabou, refused to name his attacker or press charges. Brass goes to the school to talk to Laurent, whose right hand is wrapped in a bandage. The janitor is hesitant to speak to the police based on his experiences in his home country, but Brass convinces him that he's there to help. Laurent says that Sean isn't the one who attacked him and that he's actually saddened by his death, something Brass is surprised by.
Laurent decides to tell Brass about his assault, claiming that Daryl and Carl attacked him until Sean himself intervened. Brass finds this hard to believe based on Sean's history, but Laurent says that he and Sean had become friends. They would meet in secret and Laurent would tell Sean about his past—he survived the genocide in Rwanda, but lost his family in the process. Brass shows Laurent the photo that was in Sean's pocket, and Laurent identifies them as his sisters. The janitor doesn't know if Daryl and Carl knew about their friendship, but believes that if they found out, Sean would be in trouble.
Daryl and Carl are bought to the station after being caught huffing spray paint in the park. Also with them is fellow student Molly Sinclair, who was present for the assault on Laurent and the discovery of Sean's body. Neither Daryl or Carl are of much help, with Daryl telling Nick that he tried to stop Laurent from being assaulted, something Nick knows is a lie. Meanwhile, Catherine speaks with Molly. She believes that she's responsible for Sean's death, as she caught him and Laurent meeting in private and told Daryl and Carl. The two decided to stage a fight with Laurent to test Sean's loyalty; when Sean came to Laurent's defense, Daryl started attacking him. Molly claims that Daryl said he was going to kill Sean for being a "race traitor."
The team meets up to go through the evidence. Molly eventually confessed that she didn't actually witness Sean's murder, and both Daryl and Carl have lawyered up. The screwdriver came back negative for epithelials, as well. Langston looks through Sean's injuries and x-rays again, concluding that Laurent was telling the truth. The bruising on Sean's face and his fractured ulna are consistent with his altercation with Daryl.
Sara catches Lindsey in her mother's office going through confidential files pertaining to the case. Lindsey recalls that Sean talked to her at school and curiously asked her how one goes about accessing fingerprint databases. Sara goes back to Sean's grandmother's house and searches his room again. In one of the drawers, she finds a jar of graphite and a brush—classic fingerprint-revealing tools. She also finds a book about genocide along with a fingerprint Sean lifted in one of the pages.
In the lab, Langston and Sara run the print, but get no matches. However, when they run the search to include Interpol, they discover that Laurent is actually Matthew Babajide, who is wanted for crimes against humanity pertaining to the Rwandan genocide. According to a testimony, he was one of the chief architects of a small town massacre, something he told Sean he was a lucky survivor of. He's been a fugitive since 1995 and his current whereabouts are unknown—until now.
Langston and Sara fill the rest of the team in on their findings, with Catherine noting that if everything is true, Matthew has killed more people than all the murderers the team has ever brought to justice combined. Langston believes that Matthew is also responsible for Sean's murder, figuring that Sean inadvertently found out about Matthew's past and tried to prove it by lifting one of his fingerprints. He theorizes that Sean confronted Matthew anyway and that Matthew stabbed him with the screwdriver in order to protect his secret. Using a gelatin dummy, Langston is able to generate a distinctive pattern on his hand with the broken screwdriver.
Brass arrests Matthew at his house, with his new family knowing nothing about his past. In interrogation, Langston removes Matthew's bandage to reveal the same cuts Langston replicated on the dummy, which places the screwdriver in Matthew's hand. Matthew admits that Sean confronted him, but says that stabbing Sean was an accident. Brass tells him that it doesn't matter since he threw Sean's body down the storm drain; furthermore, Sean was alive when it happened. When shown the picture of the two girls again, Matthew admits that he doesn't know who they are and used the photo to forge his new background when he came to the United States. He adds that he tried to atone for his past by saving Sean from his bleak present and future and that killing him was truly an accident. Matthew is escorted to jail as his wife tearfully looks on.
Cast[]
Main Cast[]
- Laurence Fishburne as Raymond Langston
- Marg Helgenberger as Catherine Willows
- George Eads as Nick Stokes
- Eric Szmanda as Greg Sanders
- Robert David Hall as Dr. Al Robbins
- Wallace Langham as David Hodges (credited only)
- Liz Vassey as Wendy Simms (credited only)
- David Berman as David Phillips
- Paul Guilfoyle as Jim Brass
Guest Cast[]
- Jorja Fox as Sara Sidle
- Kay Panabaker as Lindsey Willows
- Larry M. Mitchell as Officer Mitchell
- Michael K. Williams as Laurent Senyabou/Matthew Babajide
- Aimee Teegarden as Molly Sinclair
- Will Rothhaar as Sean Becker (victim)
- Andy Fisher-Price as Ian Jones
- Paul McCrane as Phil Carpenter
- Todd Robert Anderson as Mr. Wilder
- Kassandra Carrington as Laurent's daughter
- Will Harris as Daryl Johnson
- Ruth Miller as Granny Becker
- Sundra Oakley as Laurent's wife
- Will Harris as Daryl Weeks
Music[]
- Cabaret by Kay Panabaker
Quotes[]
- "I knew when I fled Rwanda to create a new future I would have to create a new past, as well. I found the photo in a pole of bones picked clean by scavengers, bleached in the sun."
- ―Laurent
Goofs[]
- The CSIs found out that the janitor's real name is Matthew Babajide and that he is responsible for genocide in Rwanda. Babajide is a Yoruban last name. Yoruba live mostly in Nigeria, while the Rwandan conflict was between Tutsi and Hutu living on the other side of Africa.
Notes[]
- Wallace Langham (Hodges) and Liz Vassey (Wendy) are credited but do not appear in the episode.
Trivia[]
- Michael K. Williams played Laurent Senyabou/Matthew Babajide in this episode. He was an accomplished actor most recognized for his role as Omar Little in the show The Wire. Williams also appeared in the episode Hollywood Brass (Season Five) playing a different character, and also appeared in the CSI: NY episode The Box.
- The Rwandan genocide was a long, violent siege against one major population in the country of Rwanda against the other in 1994. The church massacre mentioned in the episode appears to be, if not is inspired by, the Musha Church Massacre.
See Also[]
- List of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episodes
- CSI:Crime Scene Investigation Season 10
- Category:Images from World's End
CSI:Las Vegas Season 10 | ||
Family Affair • Ghost Town • Working Stiffs • Coup de Grace • Bloodsport • Death & The Maiden • The Lost Girls • Lover's Lanes • Appendicitement • Better Off Dead • Sin City Blue • Long Ball • Internal Combustion • Unshockable • Neverland • The Panty Sniffer • Irradiator • Field Mice • World's End • Take My Life, Please! • Lost & Found • Doctor Who • Meat Jekyll |