CSI: Crime Scene Investigation s11e06 Episode Script

Cold Blooded

Animal predation.
Coyotes.
Plenty of them out here, but I didn't see any when I spotted the body from the road.
There's no vital response in the wounds, so the feast was postmortem.
And they had plenty of time to chow down.
Body temp places TOD four to eight hours ago.
Hey, did you know that coyotes won't eat the flesh of crystal meth users? Really? It's true.
It's true.
I read it.
They can sense that the stuff is poison.
Well, that places them at a higher evolutionary mark than a good deal of human beings.
What you got, Ray? Looks like a nylon bag with some bits of Styrofoam.
I'll get it to Hodges.
There's no wallet, there's no I.
D.
Just his keys.
Anything printed on the keychain? If found eaten by animals, please call David.
Sorry.
Ink's worn off.
Can you help me roll him? Sure.
Multiple puncture wounds to the abdomen.
Bullet wounds? Look at the spacing of the wounds.
What do you notice? Well, they're uniform.
That's right.
They're uniform.
So what are you thinking? The regular spacing, the curvilinear pattern of the punctures This is what you would expect from a bite mark.
A bite mark.
From what? Godzilla.
Who are you? Who, who, who, who? Who are you? Who, who, who, who? I really wanna know Who are you? Oh-oh-oh Who Come on, tell me who are you, you, you Are you! Whatever monster is loose in Vegas, this so-called bite wasn't what killed your Desert Doe.
COD was diffuse axonal injury of the brain, typically caused by the sudden deceleration associated with a car crash, or a significant fall.
Body stops, brain has momentum, bad things happen.
As for the, uh, puncturing implements, they perforated the skin, subcutaneous fat, abdominal muscle, and the peritoneum.
And they were each at least three inches long.
And approximately an inch wide, based on the abrasion rings around the wounds.
Anything with teeth and jaws that size has been extinct for True.
Uh, that is, for the past However, not this week.
The cloth bag that you found with the little white balls? The bag is made of custom spandex, the balls are expanded polystyrene foam.
Both, I discovered, are components used by an Australian-based to construct simulated muscle.
Simulated muscle for what? For possibly the coolest thing I've ever heard of, which has been residing at the Las Vegas Arena for the past week, and please, can we just go now? Please.
Go now.
Go now! Go now.
Stokes? Sanders? Detective Reed.
Gardener spotted him through the window.
Meet Phil Kohler.
His card says "Investment Strategist," the hole in his head says "exit strategy.
" Body temp indicates TOD was sometime last night.
We didn't find a note, so no telling what torments of finance or fairway drove this country clubber to cash out.
His daughter was murdered.
Excuse me? Oh, that's right.
Whitney Kohler.
Five years ago.
She and her best friend, Rachel Beck, they were 15.
Went to the mall together one day, never came back.
Couple of days later, we found Whitney's blood in a suspect's van.
He's now serving life, but the bodies were never found.
Yeah, I met Phil a couple of times.
He and his wife.
Sharon.
Divorce papers.
No stellate tearing around the wound.
Random powder particles dispersed all over his face.
So the gun had to have been held at least a foot or two away from his head.
It's unusual for suicide.
Looks like he had some brunette company.
I don't see his wife in any of these photos, but I think she was a brunette.
We've got possible signs of a struggle.
Phil has the same gold watch on in every picture.
Well, he's not wearing it now.
Okay.
I'm going to have a look around the house, see what else was taken from this guy.
I bought that watch for Phil 20 years ago.
Waddled into the jewelry store nine months pregnant, maxing out the credit card.
Phil was going to be a father.
What does the watch have to do with what happened to Phil? We didn't find it in his house.
And it's listed among the disputed possessions in your divorce paperwork.
I have no idea what happened to Phil, or his watch.
I haven't spoken to him in months.
Ms.
Kohler, you listed adultery as the grounds when you filed for divorce.
Do you have names of any other women in Phil's life? Just one.
Carly Beck.
You mean the mother of the other missing girl? Rachel's mom? Yeah.
I walked in on them six months ago.
Shared grief, Phil called it.
Who knew grief could push two people together? I'd only seen it tear everything apart.
Using the Glock that killed Phil Kohler, I fired a distance determination pattern.
Found that the muzzle had to be between 36 to 48 inches from Kohler's forehead when fired.
His arm is only 30 inches long.
That's murder.
The gun's unregistered.
Henry any luck on the mystery brunette? Well, mystery no longer.
The hair was a maternal match to a known DNA profile.
And it wasn't the wife.
The hair's Carly Beck's.
Carly Beck, LVPD! Open the door! Hey, so back at the vic's house-- my big mouth.
I didn't realize that you'd known the family.
Ah, it's okay.
Don't worry about it.
'Cause I've been working on my sensitivity.
Missing daughter's room goes untouched for five years, but it's pretty obvious there's been a few items removed here recently.
Can you tell what? There's a new package of photo paper there.
But I don't see a computer or printer anywhere.
Is that Carly's daughter? I thought you said the body was never found.
We never found either one of the girls.
But Carly's daughter was wearing a gray sweatshirt when she went missing.
Whitney Kohler was the one wearing purple.
Welcome to Walking with Dinosaurs.
touring the world in a show that spans 180 million years in history in 90 minutes.
I'm the tour manager, Kyle Adams.
Ray Langston.
And this is David Hodges.
Now I heard you gentlemen are with the crime lab? Yes.
How can I help you? One of them ate a guy.
I'm sorry? We found a victim who exhibited some, um, unique puncture wounds.
We think the injury may have occurred here.
Do you recognize this young man? No.
We'd like to examine some of the creatures' mouths.
We're also going to need to see a couple of them fight each other.
No, we're not.
Come on.
Please? Maybe just a little.
The blood from the T rex's mouth is definitely human, and its bottom teeth match the wounds on our victim.
That doesn't make sense.
It takes three people to operate the T rex.
A chassis driver, a remote operator to control major movements, and a second auxiliary operator.
And the T rex operators know everyone wants a chance to manipulate the big beast, so they lock their control rigs up after the show.
Nobody was in the arena after hours? The entire crew went out for dinner, then back to our hotel.
Overnight security? The place was supposed to be locked up, but I guess we were wrong.
Excuse me.
This is Langston.
It's Henry.
I got an I.
D.
on your Dino Doe.
A Video Spec allowed me to recreate the text on the vic's keychain.
It's a logo of the WLVU paleontology program.
A professor I.
D.
'd the vic as Brian Lister, a student specializing in herbivorous dinosaurs.
Not a big fan of the predators.
I wonder why.
Anyway, his fiancée is another student in the program.
We're bringing her in.
Oh, if you need anything, let me know.
Hodges had to go home sick.
Sick? We have a broadcast out on Carly Beck's vehicle.
No known employer.
What do we have from the photo? Fingerprints on it belong to both Carly Beck and Phil Kohler.
The photo was printed on the same paper stock that Nick found in Carly's house.
Yeah, but there was no computer, printer or camera over there.
Could have been the items removed from her daughter's room.
Somehow she printed it; she brings it to Phil Kohler.
For some reason they struggle, Phil gets shot, Carly flees.
So if you bring a man a photo of his dead daughter, what are you trying to do, confront him? Or extort him.
Stolen watch.
She may have been after money.
We don't know that.
So the bigger question is: if Carly Beck knows where Whitney's body is, does that mean she was involved in her death? Eli Holt killed both of those girls.
Whitney's blood was in his van.
Mall surveillance has him circling the lot, approaching other girls.
But clearly, Carly has some information that we don't.
And she didn't share it with us.
You're right.
What about Carly's daughter Rachel? If Carly knows where Whitney's buried, has she known this whole time where Rachel is? No.
No, I dealt with Carly back then, when her daughter went missing.
Everybody is talking about the other girl.
Those girls are best friends.
They went to the mall together.
That man took them both! Ms.
Beck Why isn't anybody looking for my daughter?! Because we're not the ones with money?! Because we're not the ones who know people?! No.
Now, I go 110% on every case, but all I can work with is the evidence, and there's only evidence of Whitney in that man's van.
Listen, I'm doing everything I can, I promise That isn't enough! I've analyzed the photo of Whitney Kohler.
The victim exhibits skeletonization and mummified tissue.
It's consistent with our hot, dry climate.
If she was killed five years ago, it's possible Whitney Kohler's been in this state of decomposition the past four and a half years.
The photo could have been taken any time in that span.
The entire time Holt's been in prison.
Holt could have told anyone where that body's buried.
A visitor, another inmate.
We got to go talk to him.
Well, Eli Holt's in a coma.
Attempted suicide ten days ago.
Why now? What set him off? I don't know.
The prison guards certainly didn't have any idea.
But the prison sent over his communication record.
It turns out that Carly Beck was writing him a lot of letters.
But there's no indication that Holt ever responded.
"Dear Mr.
Holt, "I'd do anything for you if you'd just tell me where my Rachel's body is"? Yeah, there's a lot of that.
Okay, help me figure this out.
Holt attempts suicide.
Ten days later, the father of one of his victims gets killed, after being shown a picture of his dead daughter by the other victim's mother.
Right.
What are we missing? There was more to the picture of Whitney Kohler.
I enhanced a billboard in the distant background.
A rep for the advertising company told me that this real estate agent recently placed five of the same signs around Vegas.
Any in a rural location like the photo? Just one.
On Highway 16, near mile marker 20.
I was thinking Nick and I can head out there, visually recreate the distance from and vantage of the billboard in the photo.
We might find something.
Based on her broken hyoid, C.
O.
D.
was strangulation.
Mm-hmm.
But that wasn't all her killer did to her.
He severed two of her fingers, partially severed a third.
An abandoned attempt to obscure her identity.
Or she was tortured.
Well, whatever the twisted impetus, I can tell you the twisted implement.
Width of the kerf mark on the bone was approximately That correlates to a hacksaw or a band saw.
But the consistency and directionality of the cut has me leaning toward band saw.
Band saw's a heavy piece of equipment.
Fixed in one place.
Where could Holt have had access to a saw like that? So no one was looking for a band saw five years ago, but I reinterviewed Eli Holt's cousins, and they told me about this place.
Belonged to Eli's Uncle Bill.
He died four years ago.
Went into probate, no takers.
Yeah, yeah, I interviewed the uncle during the investigation.
He was practically on his death bed.
Said he hadn't seen Eli in like ten years.
Family falling out.
But Eli used to come here as a kid, work with his uncle in the wood shop.
With his uncle sick, five years ago maybe Eli came back with some projects of his own.
And we've got a primary.
You think Uncle Bill had any idea what Eli was doing out here? Just left all this evidence behind? No, I doubt it.
He was probably sneaking his victims in at night.
Meant to come back and clean all this stuff up, but got caught before he could get around to it.
Yeah.
Nobody's been out here since.
I remember when the girls first went missing.
It was one of my first weeks out in the field.
It wasn't even my case, but I felt like I should have been doing something more to help.
Yeah, well, some cases it never feels like you're doing enough.
These tools are ancient, except for this shovel.
It's got a fiberglass handle.
Holt could have purchased it to bury Whitney.
And Rachel, too.
Brian was so excited to take me to Walking with Dinosaurs last night.
And the show was amazing.
Just to see our beloved Brachiosaurus come to life.
With its long and graceful neck and its gentle energy.
What happened after the show? Brian took me back to my dorm.
And that's the last I saw of him.
But we were going to build a life together.
We were going to travel the world, learning the lessons of the great leaf-eaters.
Jane, um, the crew from Walking with Dinosaurs sent over some video of last night's show.
I was able to find you and Brian in the crowd.
Now you didn't mention this part of the evening.
Ladies and gentlemen, Tyrannosaurus rex! I didn't think it was relevant.
Ladies and gentlemen, Tyrannosaurus rex! I'm gonna go forage for some vegan concessions.
I couldn't take my eyes off that hideous beast.
Its obscene jawline.
Its throbbing musculature.
You know, the T rex was so active, so relentlessly physical, that it may have been one of the few dinos whose blood pumped warm.
Who is this guy? I don't know.
And it doesn't matter.
I was swallowed up by the carnivorous moment.
But it was just a moment.
Because Brian and the other long-necked herbivores-- those are my true loves.
Yeah bite force.
Same as the animatronic T rex's jaws.
So did you get this at the toy store or, uh? Actually, it's on loan from an old colleague at WLVU.
All right, let's see.
Barely wounded.
That means a bite from the T rex couldn't have caused Brian Lister's wounds.
But Brian's blood was in the mouth of the T rex, and the bottom teeth are a perfect match to his wounds.
All right, so if the creature couldn't have bitten Brian with sufficient force, then It was staged or additional force would have had to have come from somewhere else.
Let's say that Brian supplied the additional force.
He brought the momentum to the monster.
Correct.
Doc Robbins said his brain injuries were consistent with a fall.
And since his back was scavenged, we don't actually know if he had any injuries on his back from the upper teeth.
He may have simply fallen onto the lower teeth.
Well, if that's the case, then he would've fallen from some great height.
These are the parked positions of the dinosaurs in which they stand overnight.
Got some fibers in her lip.
It's the same blue and yellow from our victim's shirt.
How could he have gotten up there? Same way I did.
If Brian snuck in, and the crane was here, fall from this height certainly would've gotten the job done.
Question is: what made him fall? Phil Kohler's watch.
Got a hit on the pawnshop registry.
Shop owner said he bought it off a lady around noon, confirmed that it was Carly Beck off of a photo.
How much money did he give her? He also said she came in a week ago.
Sold him five G's worth of stuff.
A truck and all this junk.
This has got to be from Rachel's bedroom.
Scavenging through her dead daughter's room, blowing through five grand in a week and coming back for more? What is Carly Beck into? She brought something else in today.
Camera.
Pawnbroker said that she was begging him to buy an old computer, printer and her car, too, but he passed.
Car? You should I've already got calls going out to used car dealers in the area, seeing if she's trying to unload it.
She ditched the memory card.
Everything must go.
Catherine, I got the DNA results from the wood shop.
The blood contributions were from both girls, on the saw and on the floor.
Okay.
Well, we just got a hit on Carly Beck's vehicle.
She sold it 15 minutes ago to a used car lot for cash and then just walked away from the lot.
Well, she couldn't have gotten that far on foot.
Patrol's canvassing the area.
Police! It's my last chance! It's my last chance! It's okay, ma'am.
It's all right, ma'am.
It's my last chance! I didn't kill Phil Kohler.
Come on, you were with him.
You ripped off his watch.
Come on.
That's not what I-I didn't kill him.
You know me.
I do.
Tell us about the letter, Carly.
I'd been writing to Eli Holt, begging him to tell me where my daughter was.
And for the first time ever, he wrote back.
He said he remembered where the girls were buried, but he didn't remember which girl was in which grave.
He'd sell me the maps.
$5,000 for one map.
$10,000 for both.
If I told the cops, the deal was off.
I'd never find her.
You pawned everything you could to get enough for one map.
But it was the wrong one, wasn't it? When my Rachel went missing, she was wearing a gray sweatshirt.
Whitney was the one wearing purple.
You snapped photos of her body.
You left her out there in the desert.
What, you just didn't think to tell anybody? I told Phil.
I don't know what you're doing here.
I can't see you anymore.
It's about the girls! It always is.
But you and I need to move on with our lives, and that's not gonna happen.
I know where Whitney's buried.
I-I just need $5,000, and then I can find Rachel, too.
I just, I thought you could lend me the money, and then we'd both have our girls! Carly, Carly! Whoever's telling you that is lying to you.
You know how many false leads we've gotten.
They're just preying on you.
No, it's No, it's real, Phil! I just need the money.
It's just another scam.
I'm calling the police.
No! No, no.
Don't call the police! You're just going to get your heart broken again.
Get what you can for it.
Because I can't do this anymore.
And all this happened the night before Phil was killed? After Phil's, I went home.
The phone rang.
I'm a friend of Eli's.
Want to know how the map worked out.
It wasn't my daughter.
I want to know where my daughter is.
Eli told you the deal.
It's five K.
Same locker at the park.
Sunset Friday or the deal's killed.
I can't get another $5,000.
I-I went to Whitney's dad.
He-He didn't believe me; he thinks it's a scam.
But I know it's not.
Hello? Hello? Honey, Whitney's here.
You going to the mall? Please, just get that monster to tell me where my daughter is.
When'd you get the first map? Holt sent it to me three days ago.
Eli Holt has been in a coma for ten days.
Then who have I been talking to? Who knows where my daughter is? Of course, it's a little more primal when you're perfect strangers.
But when you use your credit card to pay for your ticket, you don't remain a stranger to us, not for very long.
Travis Kilborn, seat 42A.
And, of course, you knew Jane Lewis long before that enchanted prehistoric evening.
You both attend the same college paleontology program with only 12 other students.
You lied to me, Jane.
So here's what we have.
We have dirt in the tires of your car.
We have blood in the backseat.
We have your prints on the Brachiosaurus controls.
So which one of you is going to tell me what happened? One of you had better speak up.
Brian just wanted a picture.
The three of us went to the show.
Had a few drinks afterwards, and thought it'd be cool to sneak back into the arena.
You guys, I need a picture with the Brachiosaurus.
Jane, bring it closer.
Closer.
Move it! This is awesome.
Closer, closer, closer.
It was an accident.
Take a picture.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer, closer, closer.
Little bit more.
He was still alive.
Pushed himself off the teeth, then fell all the way to the floor.
Brian! Brian.
Oh, God.
Here.
Here.
Put this on him.
All right.
All right, put this over him.
Put this over him! Yeah He was my friend.
Then why not call 911? Why dump the body? I panicked.
I thought we'd be in trouble.
I know it was an accident, but we were trespassing.
I'm sorry.
We found one other thing in your car.
A burger wrapper with lipstick on it.
We, uh, stopped at a place after we left the desert.
Jane was starving.
For red meat.
They were out of veggie burgers.
Jane, are you sure you accidentally knocked Brian out of the crane, or was a future with him simply not going to satisfy your appetite? I want a lawyer.
So the mail room confirmed that the Holt letter and map was stamped with their postage machine, but the postmark indicates that it was sent from outside the prison.
Well, probably avoiding the prison mail screening.
The handwriting on the documents doesn't even match Holt's.
You know, he could have told another inmate where the bodies are buried.
Maybe they're trying to cash in.
Well, the CO supervisor says that Holt wasn't a talker.
He kept to himself, mostly.
Open that up, will you? He have any visitors? No, no.
No visitors.
Apparently, the most exciting day of his week was his, uh, trip to the canteen.
Oh, yeah? What did he buy there? On his last shopping spree, he bought: couple of candy bars, bottle of soda and a notepad.
Well, here's a yellow notepad.
It looks like the top three sheets are missing.
So he buys a notepad on the morning of the day he tries to kill himself? And what kind of guy writes a three-page suicide note? You can get that done with one sheet.
Okay, so a note and two maps.
Well, according to the, uh, responding officer, Jason Richter, there was no suicide note.
Was the officer alone when he responded? That's a confirm.
We better go round him up.
Jason Richter! LVPD.
Open up.
Take the back.
Hey! Hey! Get down, or I will end you.
It's the second map! to have everything that comes out of those animals flung at me? I shouldn't have been so quick to help him.
I thought the maps might be to some buried loot.
Requesting rush medical to cell 105.
You knew those maps led to two dead children, and you still found a way to make a buck.
It was just that lady's crap luck the first map wasn't her daughter.
Hey Holt's note didn't say which map was which.
I gave her a fair shot at it.
A fair shot? You took Carly Beck for five grand.
I can't get another $5,000.
I-I-I went to Whitney's dad.
He he didn't believe me; he thinks it's a scam.
You knew she wouldn't tell.
You couldn't be so sure about Phil Kohler.
So you had to silence him.
Who the hell are you? The time you spent burning that lady's last chance to find her daughter, you should have spent burning your shirt.
We found it in your crawl space with Phil Kohler's blood on it.
That puts the gun in your hand.
I bet you're wondering how a guy with so many maps in front of him can be so damn lost.
Well, I think I can help you find your way.
Hodges analyzed the shovel you found at the primary.
Found something interesting lodged between the blade and the handle-- a clump of Bermuda grass seed, with trace of fertilizer, a tackifier and green dye.
Now, that particular formula was unique to only one hydro-seeding company that was operating five years ago.
So I went and got a list of all the projects they were working on around the time of Rachel Beck's disappearance.
One of those locations was the intersection of Briarwood Road and Lowell Road.

Previous EpisodeNext Episode