CSI: NY s05e13 Episode Script
Rush to Judgment
What are these, bitch cuffs? - Hold still.
- My hand, man! I said hold still! Cadillac Kligman.
Six Million Dollar Man.
Six pins in his leg and a bunch of screws loosin his head.
And I was hoping for a slow day.
I'll get started on the paperwork.
Better get him out of here.
Have fun.
What the hell are you doing? That's my desk! Get down now! - Get on the floor now! - Get in there! Get him down! I need an ambulance in here! Get me an ambulance! - Come on, Todd, come on! - What happened? I don't know, one minute he was fine, then he started convulsing and he fell over.
Come on, kid.
Come on! He's dead.
Don, he's dead.
proudly presents sync:ßÇÈâÈâ Episode13 Rush to Judgment I was questioning him.
He was getting agitated, then he started talking azy.
Then he started shaking.
Foam was coming out of his mouth and he hit the ground.
Don't worry.
Sid will get to the bottom of it.
Detective Flack.
- You mind answering a few questions? - No problem.
Don, don't you want to wait for a union rep? No, no, no, no.
I'd rather take care of this now.
Okay, you can start by filling out this incident report.
When did you first encounter Mr.
Fleming? Earlier today.
He was at wrestling practice over at Hillridge High School.
Detective Angell and I went by and asked him to come downtown with us.
What'd you pick him up for? Because he was a potential suspect the Vincent Nelson homicide and we wanted to ask him questions about his relationship with Mr.
Nelson.
And what was the subject's physical condition when you first saw him? Nothing unusual.
Maybe he was a little nervous.
Cops make some people nervous.
- But basically he was fine? - Yes.
- No cuts, no bruises,o scrapes? - No.
What about the abrasion on the side of his head? He walk in with that? During the interview, he grew agitated.
Started flailing around.
I had to restrain him.
When I let go, he slipped and fell off the chair.
slip and fall and then drop dead.
And they also don't require a guardian to be present during questioning.
So maybe you gave him a little push.
You know what? I changed my mind.
If you want my statement, G.
O.
15 me.
I want my union attorney.
2 days ago Flying tomato over here took a dip in the garbage while he was snowboarding.
Landed right next to the foot.
The rest of the body? We're canvassg garbage receptacles in the area.
The city only picks up trash once a week on account of the budget cuts.
This place is turning into a cesspool.
Look what I found.
It's got dried blood all over it.
Looks like the foot was wrapped in it.
Now I've heard of re-gifting, but this is pushing it.
Danny and Hawkes just found an arm in a trash bin a couple blocks away.
That looks to be male Caucasian.
Same as the foot that Mac found.
Wrapping paper's a match, too.
I'm thinking Christmas with the in-laws.
Degree of decomp puts the time of death between 6:00 and 9:00 last night.
Mercifully, the dismemberment came later.
Kill a man and then chop him up into pieces.
Maybe the killer thought little pieces would be easier to dispose of.
There is a certain logic.
Any idea what he used to cut him up? Haven't seen this particular wound pattern before.
There's lateral movement at the incision, bordered by these jagged punctures.
Maybe I can give you a hand.
Okay.
Department of Sanitation found it in a storm drain five blocks from the foot.
The top layer of skin is separating from the underlying tissue.
Yeah, it looks like it was submerged in water for a while.
If the glove fits Streams ¸èÊÖ:The Black Keys Vince was the head wrestling coach at Hillridge High for eight years.
Five championships.
Are you positive it's really him? I mean I mean, how can you be sure? Maybe there's been some kind of mix-up.
We've identified him by his fingerprints.
Every employee in the school system has them on file.
Mrs.
Nelson, when was the last time you saw your husband? Yesterday at breakfast.
He was taking a business class at NYU on Thursday nights.
He wanted to open his own wrestling school.
So he never came home last night after class? I fell asleep.
I called the police in the morning when he wasn't home.
But they said I had to wait 48 hours before he'd be officially missing.
Looks like yr husband was quite a successful coach.
Mrs.
Nelson, can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your husband? No.
Vince was a great guy.
Everyone admired him.
Did he owe anybody money? Or have a drug problem or a gambling habit? I'm sorry but if you knew him, you'd know how ridiculous your questions are.
Okay.
Thank you so much.
Please, give us a call us if you remember anything else.
There was one thing.
I don't see how it could be related, but yesterday when I came home from work, someone was lurking on our roof.
I saw their shadows through the skylights there.
Looked like two people.
I heard them talking.
Creeping around.
It was kind of scary.
What time was this? Around 4:00.
I knocked ony neighbor's door.
He said he would go up and check.
And? He said he saw something that looked like blood, but no people.
She said she saw them from the skylight.
Yeah, this would be the Nelsons' apartment right here.
Yup, here we go.
This is the blood the neighbor was talking about.
Boom.
So get this, there's no Thursday night business classes at NYU or any of its extension schools.
And there's no Vince Nelson registered with them period.
Nelson was lying to his wife.
He also withdrew 200 bucks from an ATM on the Upper West Side the night he was killed.
Maybe he had something going on the side? Confiscate his computer, bank records, credit card statements-- - I want to know what else he was hiding.
- Done.
What are you working on? The blood we found on Nelson's roof.
I thought whoever was up there could've been connected to the case, but it isn't human.
Take a look.
Cells have nuclei, it looks like some kind of animal.
It's a very large animal with claws and scales.
The blood comes from an alligator, Mac.
Mr.
Potato Head.
The live versision.
More like the bloody dead version.
I used to play Mr.
Potato head as a boy.
I would time myself.
See how long it took to assemble him.
Some would say I was obsessed.
You, obsessed? No.
I found this stuck in a patch of dried blood on Nelson's torso.
Looks like some ki of jewelry.
It's an acupressure magnet.
You put it on a meridian of the ear to quit smoking.
My mom tried everything.
Then I'm almost certain it didn't belong to the vic.
His lungs were pink as a baby's.
Alas, his spine was not in such pristine condition.
Same marks as on the flesh, but it looks like some sort of thermal burn on the bone.
Kinetic energy.
Whatever the killer used to dismember the body was starting to heat up.
So he must have dismembered the too last.
That explains why we only found burns there.
I also discovered trace in the victim's chest hair.
Looks like sawdust.
Sawdust.
Between that and the thermal burning on the bone, I'm thinking some kind of chainsaw.
But what type of chainsaw leaves jagged wounds like this? To Know ¸èÊÖ:Marc Anthony Mind if I cut in? Prostitution? Come on, Ms.
Love, I got a rap sheet here says you've been arrested four times for solicitation.
I'll see you next week, George.
Mm-hmm, okay.
This isn't what you think, Detective.
This isn't what you think either, Ms.
Love.
I'm not Vice.
I'm with Homicide.
And we have your fingerprint on this acupressure disc.
I bought one of those to quit smoking.
I lost it.
Well, we found it near this guy.
You know him? That's Vince.
Vince Nelson.
Why are you looking for him? Becaushe was killed.
When was the last time you saw him? Last night.
He comes here every Thursday night for a lesson.
Exactly what do you teach? Private salsa lessons? Is that what they call it these days? No, these were legit.
Nelson wanted to surprise his wife for their fifth anniversary.
Take her out dancing.
And our Salsa instructor had a client right after Nelson who corroborated her alibi.
Mac, I found something on Coach Nelson's computer you should see.
This kid can't be more than ten years old.
It gets worse.
All right.
These photos were attached to an e-mail that Nelson sent out to seven of his wrestling students.
****** This e-mail went out at 4:00 P.
M.
Three hours later, Vince Nelson was dea You think we just found our motive? Someone may've gotten this e-mail and snapped.
But if the Coach Nelson was a pedophile, why would he incriminate himself by sending it outo members of his own team? Maybe he molested some of these boys before and knew they wouldn't tell.
The whole thing makes me sick.
No.
Pedophiles usually download photos and trade with other short eyes.
If that's the case, I'm betting there's more where these came from.
Find them.
We had one victim, but now we have two.
This boy is too young to be a student at Hillridge High.
We need to know who he is and how Vince Nelson knew him.
I'll reach out to the Bureau of Missing and Exploited Children, see if we can come up with any leads.
Pedophile coach.
Maybe he got what was coming to him.
The day he died, Nelson e-mailed the photos to seven kids on his wrestling team.
One of them could've been embarrassed, humiliated Or just flat-out enraged.
I'll track them down, see what they got to say.
Found the kind of chainsaw we're looking for.
It's new on the market.
Serrated shears on the bottom, chainsaw on the top.
Tool-mark pattern's a match to the body parts we found.
Call the manufacturer.
Get a list of credit card purchasers, cross reference them against the last names on the e-mails.
Did it, done.
Nothing.
Okay.
What about the sawdust? The sawdust.
Still working on it.
The problem is the DNA from the tree contains endogenous chemicals which inhibit analysis.
That means it's gonna be really difficult to narrow it down to a specific species.
Well, that tree could point us in the direction of our killer.
Go with conventional methods instead.
- Extract organic compounds, run 'em through the GCMS.
- All right.
Hey, I think I just connected the alligator blood that we found on Nelson's roof.
According to the principal at Hillridge High, they had a science fair three days ago.
And the winning project was about the immunological properties of alligator blood.
The creator of this project, Todd Fleming, is also on the wrestling team.
I worked with Coach Nelson every day for three years.
We went to meets together, had a few beers after work, then I find out he's into something like this.
Any of the guys on the team talked about the e-mail or the murder? No, not in front of me, anyway.
We got state championship coming up tomorrow.
That what they're focusing on.
Life goes on, right? Not for everybody.
Is Todd Fleming around? We want to ask him a few questions.
Fleming! Front and center.
Come on! Keep it going! Look, I don't know anything about what happened, okay? None of us do.
If that's why you guys came down here We found alligator blood on Coach Nelson's roof.
We think it was a part of your science project.
What were you doing up there, Todd? I wasn't up there.
I Look, even if I was, up there, what does it matter? 'Cause it's a murder investigation, smart guy.
Everything matters.
I didn't kill him.
We'll talk about this downtown.
- I'm in the middle of practice.
- Practice can wait.
Am I under arrest or something? Look, Todd, do you have any street clothes you can change into? We just want to talk to you.
- Yeah, in, in the locker room.
- Let's go.
What are these, bitch cuffs? My hand, man! No! - Better get him out of here.
- Have fun.
What the hell are you doing? I want to talk to you about the e-mail Coach Nelson sent you.
What? The day he was murdered.
Hey, Todd, wake up.
I know you got Nelson's e-mail and I know you were on his roof.
It's crazy.
This is our fault.
Was there someone else involved? It wasn't supposed You talking about Vince Nelson's murder? - Can I go or what? - Todd! Your coach was murdered! Now tell me what do I gotta do to get your attention here! Get down on the floor now! I need an ambulance in here! Get me an ambulance! Preliminary cause of death is hypoxia which presented in cardiac arrest.
Did he have a history of brain seizures? Medical records are on the way.
He was a wrestler.
He might've had a previous head injury.
There were also several bruises on his arm, fractured ribs.
Well, that could've happened while Flack was performing CPR.
What about this abrasion? Based on the lack of subdermal bruising, it occurred moments before death.
You saying Flack hit him? Mac, I'll know more when I open him up, complete my examination.
I did a preliminary tox screen for heroin, cocaine, PCP, methamphetamine, marijuana and alcohol.
All were negative.
Don Flack did not kill this boy.
Find out what did.
Now when you and Detective Flack first approached Todd Fleming, he was at wrestling practice, correct? That's correct.
And what was his demeanor? He was fine.
So the kid's calm, perfectly healthy.
He agrees to take a ride with you down to the station house.
He's calm when you walk him through the precinct, he's calm when you bring him in the interrogation room.
And then in less than five minutes, he suddenly becomes agitated, has to be subdued, and now he's dead.
That's exactly whatappened.
And if I knew why, I wouldn't be sitting here with you.
Did you notice any injuries when you picked Fleming up? - Bruises? - No.
Was Detective Flack ever alone with him? In the car, maybe? I drove.
Detective Flack sat in the back with Mr.
Fleming.
We were together the entire time.
What about at the school? Fleming was in his street clothes at the time of his death.
I'm assuming he changed somewhere? In the locker room.
Who accompanied him there? Detective Flack.
Detective Flack.
Doesn't look good.
Until you hear different, I'm placing you, on Modified Assignment.
As soon as we're done here, you can surrender your gun and your shield to the Lieutenant downstairs.
What ever happened to giving a guy the benefit of the doubt? Take a look in my personnel folder.
Not one civilian complaint.
Not one allegation of excessive force.
Nothing.
Now come on.
That's gotta account for something! The only thing that counts for something is what happened inside this room.
Look, Detective Flack did everything by the book.
The guy's a total professional.
Unlike your relationship with him, which I understand is less than professional? Not only is that none of your business, but it has nothing to do with Todd Fleming's death.
Say hello to the newest member of the rubber gun squad.
I've been officially removed from active duty.
How do they know we're seeing each other, Don? - Who? - Internal Affairs.
But I thought we were trying to keep this thing quiet? I didn't say anything to anyone.
That only leaves you.
People talk.
They make assumptions.
Because of those assumptions now, my word doesn't mean squat with IA.
- I mean, who could've told them? - Look, Jess, I'm sorry.
But I got bigger things to worry about right now than squad room gossip.
Right.
Detective Angell's working this case until IA's finished with their inquiry.
Inquiry? Is that what they're calling it? They can't possibly think that Flack's responsible for Todd Fleming's death.
I mean, he is so by the book.
He doesn't even swear.
None of us are happy about this.
In the meantime, IA's got a job to do and so do we.
All right, well, Fleming's been ruled out as a suspect in Coach Nelson's death.
According to his mother, he was taking an SAT prep class at the time of Vince Nelson's murder.
The police confirmed that.
Still working on the sawdust, but based on extracted hydrocarbons, I've narrowed it down to three families.
Good.
Stay with it.
Yeah, well, I wasn't so lucky with the Christmas wrapping paper.
It's manufactured in China and mass-marketed to department stores all over the U.
S.
Taylor.
I'll be right there.
They just found a head.
He's coming together.
COD was hypoxia due to crushed cricoid cartilage which obstructed airflow to the lungs.
Lateral bruising on his throat.
He was hit with something hard, a club or a pipe.
Look at this.
Cauliflower ear.
From his wrestling days.
Same chainsaw tool marks as the other body parts.
I also found this fleck of blood adhering to the skin at the contusion site on the vic's throat.
And unlike the blood around the wound, this particle was deposited when it was already dry.
Which means it could've come from our killer.
Stell, results on the blood fleck that Sid collected from the vic's neck.
Not a match to our vic.
Johnny Holt.
Ex-con.
He was in for sex crimes.
Just got released two weeks ago.
Thanks.
Hello.
How are you holding up? Fantastic.
What's a five-letter word for a cooking utensil? A whisk? That would be it.
We're all rooting for you.
I want you to know that.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
You here to see Johnny Holt? Yes, I am.
We found his blood on Vince Nelson's throat.
Holt's a bad dude.
If he gives you any problems, let me know.
I'll get in there and beat him up for you.
Whisk.
I knew that.
Never seen him before.
There's traces of your blood on him.
My blood's all over this city.
Been shot nine times, knifed five.
We believe the victim was involved in child pornography.
Do you recognize this boy? You implying I'm into kids? Because I sure as hell don't fly that way.
Right.
Right, you prefer to rape grown women.
forgot.
They said it was rape.
Not me.
Where were you on Thursday? - On a date.
- With who? I didn't catch her name.
But she wasn't as hot as you.
Holt's blood is on the victim, he's got priors and his alibi is just as worthless as he is.
In other words, Mr.
Holt just became our prime suspect.
Now all we have to do is shore up motive.
I've been working on that.
So far, I haven't been able to find a single connection between him and Nelson.
And I doubt u will.
Ribosomal analysis shows that the sample of Johnny Holt's blood that we found on our vic is at least three months old.
While he was still in Sing Sing.
Sid found the dried blood on Nelson's throat.
Said he must've been hit there with a pipe or club.
The blood must've been on the murder weapon.
Transferred onto Nelson when he was killed.
I think we just found our connection.
No.
I've never seen him.
Are you sure? He might've been an acquaintance of your husband's? Absolutely not.
What about this boy? I don't recognize this child at all.
And to save you a question, I have no idea what these pictures are doing on Vince's computer.
Ever since this e-mail thing came out the phone's been ringing nonstop.
Someone put a pile of dog feces on my doormat this morning.
Mrs.
Nelson, did your husband teach anywhe else where he might've been in contact with younger boys? After school program? The local Y? Look, I'm just going to say this once.
Vince was a normal guy.
Okay? A normal, boring, regular guy.
He watched football in his underwear.
He never took out the garbage unless I told him to.
He forgot our anniversary year after year and tried to make up for it two days later with a, with a bouquet of white roses.
But I didn't care, because he loved me.
Mrs.
Nelson, was there anybody on the wrestling team that your husband seemed especially close to? Anyone he saw outside of practice or talked about more than any of the others? No.
Did he seem to have a problem with any of the boys on the team? Look, just because he worked with boys doesn't mean that I don't know why I don't just unplug it.
I guess I keep hoping one of these times it'll be someone with something comforting to say! I-I'm so sorry.
We're almost done here.
I know what you're thinking.
"Oh, poor woman.
How could she possibly deny the fact" "that her husband was a pedophile? We have these pictures.
" This e-mail.
" Well, Vince wasn't a pedophile.
He was a loving, innocent man who was murdered.
Why don't you put your energy into finding his killer? The photos of the boy were downloaded from an international child porn site.
Which makes it unlikely that Nelson actually molested him.
I checked the browser and search histories on his computer, there were no additional pornography downloads or searches, not one.
Maybe he covered his tracks? Surfed anonymously? No.
The hard drive's clean.
The strange thing is when I checked the firewall log, I did find a breach on the same day the photos were downloaded.
I'm thinking someone could've pirated his signal.
Todd Fleming.
The alligator blood Stella found puts him on Nelson's roof.
Maybe that's what he was doing up there.
Okay, so Fleming downloads the photos of the boy, and makes it looks like Coach Nelson sent them.
I mean, it's possible, but why? Clearly, Fleming wanted to discredit Nelson.
Making a coach look like a pedophile, that'll do it.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nelson's apartment.
Stell and Lindsay found the alligator blood over here.
Okay, maybe something.
I'm getting a list of networks, but nothing strong enough to connect to.
It means we're in the vicinity.
Okay, I've got several network choices now.
Signal looks like it's strongest in this direction.
Got one Wi-Fi network that's fully unprotected, no password, nothing-- genius.
Look what it's called.
Vince N.
Wireless Network.
So all Fleming had to do from here was to release a prewritten script to Nelson's computer, turning it into a zombie.
Giving him complete control.
The e-mail connects to the murder, I just can't figure out how.
Yeah, well, we know Fleming didn't kill Nelson.
He had an alibi.
Right, but Coach Nelson's wife said she saw two people up here.
He might've had some help.
There's sawdust over here.
Sid found sawdust on the victim.
But Stella and Lindsay would've found the sawdust when they were here.
Not necessarily.
I got good news and I got good news.
Which one you want first? Whatever's faster.
All right, the sample of sawdust from the roof is identical to the sample we found in Coach Nelson's chest hairs.
And I finally determined the species it came from.
Fagus Sylvatica.
Beech Willow Tree.
Which is indigenous to Flushing, Queens.
Could be where our killer lives.
Or just where he set up his chop shop.
See if anyone who got that e-mail hails from Flushing.
Got ya.
Kyle Sheridan? Three count, buddy.
You lose.
High school wrestling team? Four oer brothers.
Come on.
Whoa, Coach Nelson.
What happened to his neck? It was separated from his body.
And the rest of him was stuffed in garbage cans all over the city.
Whoa, wait, you think I had something to do with this? We found sawdust on his torso.
Sawdust from a tree indigenous to Flushing, Queens.
So? You're the only kid on the wrtling team who is from Flushing, Queens.
We found that same sawdust on Coach Nelson's roof.
You were up there, weren't you with Todd Fleming? No.
You leeched off his Wi-Fi signal, sent out the incriminating photos of the young boy.
Right, when the coach found out about it, he came to you, and what'd you do? I-I didn't kill Coach Nelson.
Todd Fleming had an alibi for the night Nelson was killed, which leaves you.
Okay! Okay Yes, we sent the e-mail, okay? I'll admit that.
Yeah.
Nice.
See, my-my dad, he doesn't make a lot of money.
So the only way I'm going to college is if I get a wrestling scholarship.
Coach Nelson, he moved me up a weight class.
That totally wrecked my chance at State Championship.
So we thought if we sent these pictures around, maybe it'll get him fired.
So you e-mailed them to yourselves to throw off suspicion? Yeah, but that's all we did, okay? We had nothing to do the murder.
Ah, you know what, actually, you kind of did.
'Cause we're thinking it's those pictures that got your coach killed.
Where were you Thursday night? I was at, uh, school.
I was at a basketball game.
Got somebody who can vouch for that? yeah, yeah.
My, my-my, my Dad.
He picked me up around 10:00.
What's his name? Alex Sheridan.
He works at the Manhattan Superior Court.
He's a court officer.
He was struck by something hard, a club or a pipe.
It wasn't the son, it was the father.
Court officers have metal batons.
I'm thinking that's what made the bruise on Vince Nelson's throat.
So the father was snooping on the son's computer, saw an e-mail from Coach Nelson - Assumed Nelson sent it.
- And confronted him.
The problem is, in order for Johnny Holt's blood to get on Sheridan' baton, they would have to have contact at some point.
Right, and that blood is more than three months old, and Holt was still in prison.
Let's check it.
Prison transfer log from Sing Sing.
Here we go, three months ago Holt was taken from Sing Sing to Manhattan Superior Court.
For one day to testify as a witness in a trial.
There must've been some sort of altercation in that courthouse.
That would explain how Holt's blood got on Sheridan's baton.
All right, let's go.
Move it, scumbag.
Time to get a warrant to search Alex Sheridan's house.
Kyle's whole life was wrestling.
He was 14 when he made the team.
That was the happiest day of his life.
Gave him confidence, discipline, a sense of belonging I wanted to pin a medal on Coach Nelson.
But when I saw that e-mail, those disgusting photos That knocked the breath right out of me.
I picked up the phone and told him I was going to notify the school the very next morning.
So Nelson came to your house to try to settle things in person.
Yeah, except all he did was deny it; said he'd never seen the photos, had no idea where they came from.
See, no one is guilty these days.
Everyone's an innocent victim.
I was not about to let my son become a victim.
I fought back.
So what was I going to do? Get 25 to life for killing that son of a bitch? I see these perverts every day.
They waltz into my court.
They get a slap on the wrist, and then they go off and re-offend.
The only treatment for them is death.
You dismembered him to make it easier to dispose of the body.
I've worked in a courtroom for 16 years.
Tough to get a conviction without a body.
There's only one problem.
Vince Nelson didn't send those photos.
I don't understand.
I saw them.
They were there with his name on my son's computer.
Your son, Kyle sent them.
To himself and six other boys on the wrestling team.
He blamed the coach for ruining his chances at the state championship.
Sending the photos from Nelson's e-mail address was his way of getting revenge.
He wanted to get the coach fired.
This whole thing was just a tragic misunderstanding.
Wrestle! You got him! Of White ¸èÊÖ:Missy Higgins You going somewhere, Don? Yep, there is no point in me hanging around pushing papers.
It's not my style, Mac.
You've been cleared.
I just heard.
- I want you to know, I never doubted you.
- Thanks.
You know, for a long minute there, it felt like everybody else did.
Todd Fleming's medical records show that he was prescribed an anti-depressant eight months ago.
When Sid did a screen for that particular drug, he found more than ten times the recommended dosage in his system.
Enough to cause the seizure? Found an empty prescription bottle in his locker at school.
I stood by the door while he got changed.
That's the only time he was alone.
God, what a waste.
Seems to be a lot of that in this case.
Don.
You know, the Rangers are playing tonight.
We could catch thehird period at that new sports bar on Lafayette.
I didn't know you liked hockey.
I don't.
- My hand, man! I said hold still! Cadillac Kligman.
Six Million Dollar Man.
Six pins in his leg and a bunch of screws loosin his head.
And I was hoping for a slow day.
I'll get started on the paperwork.
Better get him out of here.
Have fun.
What the hell are you doing? That's my desk! Get down now! - Get on the floor now! - Get in there! Get him down! I need an ambulance in here! Get me an ambulance! - Come on, Todd, come on! - What happened? I don't know, one minute he was fine, then he started convulsing and he fell over.
Come on, kid.
Come on! He's dead.
Don, he's dead.
proudly presents sync:ßÇÈâÈâ Episode13 Rush to Judgment I was questioning him.
He was getting agitated, then he started talking azy.
Then he started shaking.
Foam was coming out of his mouth and he hit the ground.
Don't worry.
Sid will get to the bottom of it.
Detective Flack.
- You mind answering a few questions? - No problem.
Don, don't you want to wait for a union rep? No, no, no, no.
I'd rather take care of this now.
Okay, you can start by filling out this incident report.
When did you first encounter Mr.
Fleming? Earlier today.
He was at wrestling practice over at Hillridge High School.
Detective Angell and I went by and asked him to come downtown with us.
What'd you pick him up for? Because he was a potential suspect the Vincent Nelson homicide and we wanted to ask him questions about his relationship with Mr.
Nelson.
And what was the subject's physical condition when you first saw him? Nothing unusual.
Maybe he was a little nervous.
Cops make some people nervous.
- But basically he was fine? - Yes.
- No cuts, no bruises,o scrapes? - No.
What about the abrasion on the side of his head? He walk in with that? During the interview, he grew agitated.
Started flailing around.
I had to restrain him.
When I let go, he slipped and fell off the chair.
slip and fall and then drop dead.
And they also don't require a guardian to be present during questioning.
So maybe you gave him a little push.
You know what? I changed my mind.
If you want my statement, G.
O.
15 me.
I want my union attorney.
2 days ago Flying tomato over here took a dip in the garbage while he was snowboarding.
Landed right next to the foot.
The rest of the body? We're canvassg garbage receptacles in the area.
The city only picks up trash once a week on account of the budget cuts.
This place is turning into a cesspool.
Look what I found.
It's got dried blood all over it.
Looks like the foot was wrapped in it.
Now I've heard of re-gifting, but this is pushing it.
Danny and Hawkes just found an arm in a trash bin a couple blocks away.
That looks to be male Caucasian.
Same as the foot that Mac found.
Wrapping paper's a match, too.
I'm thinking Christmas with the in-laws.
Degree of decomp puts the time of death between 6:00 and 9:00 last night.
Mercifully, the dismemberment came later.
Kill a man and then chop him up into pieces.
Maybe the killer thought little pieces would be easier to dispose of.
There is a certain logic.
Any idea what he used to cut him up? Haven't seen this particular wound pattern before.
There's lateral movement at the incision, bordered by these jagged punctures.
Maybe I can give you a hand.
Okay.
Department of Sanitation found it in a storm drain five blocks from the foot.
The top layer of skin is separating from the underlying tissue.
Yeah, it looks like it was submerged in water for a while.
If the glove fits Streams ¸èÊÖ:The Black Keys Vince was the head wrestling coach at Hillridge High for eight years.
Five championships.
Are you positive it's really him? I mean I mean, how can you be sure? Maybe there's been some kind of mix-up.
We've identified him by his fingerprints.
Every employee in the school system has them on file.
Mrs.
Nelson, when was the last time you saw your husband? Yesterday at breakfast.
He was taking a business class at NYU on Thursday nights.
He wanted to open his own wrestling school.
So he never came home last night after class? I fell asleep.
I called the police in the morning when he wasn't home.
But they said I had to wait 48 hours before he'd be officially missing.
Looks like yr husband was quite a successful coach.
Mrs.
Nelson, can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your husband? No.
Vince was a great guy.
Everyone admired him.
Did he owe anybody money? Or have a drug problem or a gambling habit? I'm sorry but if you knew him, you'd know how ridiculous your questions are.
Okay.
Thank you so much.
Please, give us a call us if you remember anything else.
There was one thing.
I don't see how it could be related, but yesterday when I came home from work, someone was lurking on our roof.
I saw their shadows through the skylights there.
Looked like two people.
I heard them talking.
Creeping around.
It was kind of scary.
What time was this? Around 4:00.
I knocked ony neighbor's door.
He said he would go up and check.
And? He said he saw something that looked like blood, but no people.
She said she saw them from the skylight.
Yeah, this would be the Nelsons' apartment right here.
Yup, here we go.
This is the blood the neighbor was talking about.
Boom.
So get this, there's no Thursday night business classes at NYU or any of its extension schools.
And there's no Vince Nelson registered with them period.
Nelson was lying to his wife.
He also withdrew 200 bucks from an ATM on the Upper West Side the night he was killed.
Maybe he had something going on the side? Confiscate his computer, bank records, credit card statements-- - I want to know what else he was hiding.
- Done.
What are you working on? The blood we found on Nelson's roof.
I thought whoever was up there could've been connected to the case, but it isn't human.
Take a look.
Cells have nuclei, it looks like some kind of animal.
It's a very large animal with claws and scales.
The blood comes from an alligator, Mac.
Mr.
Potato Head.
The live versision.
More like the bloody dead version.
I used to play Mr.
Potato head as a boy.
I would time myself.
See how long it took to assemble him.
Some would say I was obsessed.
You, obsessed? No.
I found this stuck in a patch of dried blood on Nelson's torso.
Looks like some ki of jewelry.
It's an acupressure magnet.
You put it on a meridian of the ear to quit smoking.
My mom tried everything.
Then I'm almost certain it didn't belong to the vic.
His lungs were pink as a baby's.
Alas, his spine was not in such pristine condition.
Same marks as on the flesh, but it looks like some sort of thermal burn on the bone.
Kinetic energy.
Whatever the killer used to dismember the body was starting to heat up.
So he must have dismembered the too last.
That explains why we only found burns there.
I also discovered trace in the victim's chest hair.
Looks like sawdust.
Sawdust.
Between that and the thermal burning on the bone, I'm thinking some kind of chainsaw.
But what type of chainsaw leaves jagged wounds like this? To Know ¸èÊÖ:Marc Anthony Mind if I cut in? Prostitution? Come on, Ms.
Love, I got a rap sheet here says you've been arrested four times for solicitation.
I'll see you next week, George.
Mm-hmm, okay.
This isn't what you think, Detective.
This isn't what you think either, Ms.
Love.
I'm not Vice.
I'm with Homicide.
And we have your fingerprint on this acupressure disc.
I bought one of those to quit smoking.
I lost it.
Well, we found it near this guy.
You know him? That's Vince.
Vince Nelson.
Why are you looking for him? Becaushe was killed.
When was the last time you saw him? Last night.
He comes here every Thursday night for a lesson.
Exactly what do you teach? Private salsa lessons? Is that what they call it these days? No, these were legit.
Nelson wanted to surprise his wife for their fifth anniversary.
Take her out dancing.
And our Salsa instructor had a client right after Nelson who corroborated her alibi.
Mac, I found something on Coach Nelson's computer you should see.
This kid can't be more than ten years old.
It gets worse.
All right.
These photos were attached to an e-mail that Nelson sent out to seven of his wrestling students.
****** This e-mail went out at 4:00 P.
M.
Three hours later, Vince Nelson was dea You think we just found our motive? Someone may've gotten this e-mail and snapped.
But if the Coach Nelson was a pedophile, why would he incriminate himself by sending it outo members of his own team? Maybe he molested some of these boys before and knew they wouldn't tell.
The whole thing makes me sick.
No.
Pedophiles usually download photos and trade with other short eyes.
If that's the case, I'm betting there's more where these came from.
Find them.
We had one victim, but now we have two.
This boy is too young to be a student at Hillridge High.
We need to know who he is and how Vince Nelson knew him.
I'll reach out to the Bureau of Missing and Exploited Children, see if we can come up with any leads.
Pedophile coach.
Maybe he got what was coming to him.
The day he died, Nelson e-mailed the photos to seven kids on his wrestling team.
One of them could've been embarrassed, humiliated Or just flat-out enraged.
I'll track them down, see what they got to say.
Found the kind of chainsaw we're looking for.
It's new on the market.
Serrated shears on the bottom, chainsaw on the top.
Tool-mark pattern's a match to the body parts we found.
Call the manufacturer.
Get a list of credit card purchasers, cross reference them against the last names on the e-mails.
Did it, done.
Nothing.
Okay.
What about the sawdust? The sawdust.
Still working on it.
The problem is the DNA from the tree contains endogenous chemicals which inhibit analysis.
That means it's gonna be really difficult to narrow it down to a specific species.
Well, that tree could point us in the direction of our killer.
Go with conventional methods instead.
- Extract organic compounds, run 'em through the GCMS.
- All right.
Hey, I think I just connected the alligator blood that we found on Nelson's roof.
According to the principal at Hillridge High, they had a science fair three days ago.
And the winning project was about the immunological properties of alligator blood.
The creator of this project, Todd Fleming, is also on the wrestling team.
I worked with Coach Nelson every day for three years.
We went to meets together, had a few beers after work, then I find out he's into something like this.
Any of the guys on the team talked about the e-mail or the murder? No, not in front of me, anyway.
We got state championship coming up tomorrow.
That what they're focusing on.
Life goes on, right? Not for everybody.
Is Todd Fleming around? We want to ask him a few questions.
Fleming! Front and center.
Come on! Keep it going! Look, I don't know anything about what happened, okay? None of us do.
If that's why you guys came down here We found alligator blood on Coach Nelson's roof.
We think it was a part of your science project.
What were you doing up there, Todd? I wasn't up there.
I Look, even if I was, up there, what does it matter? 'Cause it's a murder investigation, smart guy.
Everything matters.
I didn't kill him.
We'll talk about this downtown.
- I'm in the middle of practice.
- Practice can wait.
Am I under arrest or something? Look, Todd, do you have any street clothes you can change into? We just want to talk to you.
- Yeah, in, in the locker room.
- Let's go.
What are these, bitch cuffs? My hand, man! No! - Better get him out of here.
- Have fun.
What the hell are you doing? I want to talk to you about the e-mail Coach Nelson sent you.
What? The day he was murdered.
Hey, Todd, wake up.
I know you got Nelson's e-mail and I know you were on his roof.
It's crazy.
This is our fault.
Was there someone else involved? It wasn't supposed You talking about Vince Nelson's murder? - Can I go or what? - Todd! Your coach was murdered! Now tell me what do I gotta do to get your attention here! Get down on the floor now! I need an ambulance in here! Get me an ambulance! Preliminary cause of death is hypoxia which presented in cardiac arrest.
Did he have a history of brain seizures? Medical records are on the way.
He was a wrestler.
He might've had a previous head injury.
There were also several bruises on his arm, fractured ribs.
Well, that could've happened while Flack was performing CPR.
What about this abrasion? Based on the lack of subdermal bruising, it occurred moments before death.
You saying Flack hit him? Mac, I'll know more when I open him up, complete my examination.
I did a preliminary tox screen for heroin, cocaine, PCP, methamphetamine, marijuana and alcohol.
All were negative.
Don Flack did not kill this boy.
Find out what did.
Now when you and Detective Flack first approached Todd Fleming, he was at wrestling practice, correct? That's correct.
And what was his demeanor? He was fine.
So the kid's calm, perfectly healthy.
He agrees to take a ride with you down to the station house.
He's calm when you walk him through the precinct, he's calm when you bring him in the interrogation room.
And then in less than five minutes, he suddenly becomes agitated, has to be subdued, and now he's dead.
That's exactly whatappened.
And if I knew why, I wouldn't be sitting here with you.
Did you notice any injuries when you picked Fleming up? - Bruises? - No.
Was Detective Flack ever alone with him? In the car, maybe? I drove.
Detective Flack sat in the back with Mr.
Fleming.
We were together the entire time.
What about at the school? Fleming was in his street clothes at the time of his death.
I'm assuming he changed somewhere? In the locker room.
Who accompanied him there? Detective Flack.
Detective Flack.
Doesn't look good.
Until you hear different, I'm placing you, on Modified Assignment.
As soon as we're done here, you can surrender your gun and your shield to the Lieutenant downstairs.
What ever happened to giving a guy the benefit of the doubt? Take a look in my personnel folder.
Not one civilian complaint.
Not one allegation of excessive force.
Nothing.
Now come on.
That's gotta account for something! The only thing that counts for something is what happened inside this room.
Look, Detective Flack did everything by the book.
The guy's a total professional.
Unlike your relationship with him, which I understand is less than professional? Not only is that none of your business, but it has nothing to do with Todd Fleming's death.
Say hello to the newest member of the rubber gun squad.
I've been officially removed from active duty.
How do they know we're seeing each other, Don? - Who? - Internal Affairs.
But I thought we were trying to keep this thing quiet? I didn't say anything to anyone.
That only leaves you.
People talk.
They make assumptions.
Because of those assumptions now, my word doesn't mean squat with IA.
- I mean, who could've told them? - Look, Jess, I'm sorry.
But I got bigger things to worry about right now than squad room gossip.
Right.
Detective Angell's working this case until IA's finished with their inquiry.
Inquiry? Is that what they're calling it? They can't possibly think that Flack's responsible for Todd Fleming's death.
I mean, he is so by the book.
He doesn't even swear.
None of us are happy about this.
In the meantime, IA's got a job to do and so do we.
All right, well, Fleming's been ruled out as a suspect in Coach Nelson's death.
According to his mother, he was taking an SAT prep class at the time of Vince Nelson's murder.
The police confirmed that.
Still working on the sawdust, but based on extracted hydrocarbons, I've narrowed it down to three families.
Good.
Stay with it.
Yeah, well, I wasn't so lucky with the Christmas wrapping paper.
It's manufactured in China and mass-marketed to department stores all over the U.
S.
Taylor.
I'll be right there.
They just found a head.
He's coming together.
COD was hypoxia due to crushed cricoid cartilage which obstructed airflow to the lungs.
Lateral bruising on his throat.
He was hit with something hard, a club or a pipe.
Look at this.
Cauliflower ear.
From his wrestling days.
Same chainsaw tool marks as the other body parts.
I also found this fleck of blood adhering to the skin at the contusion site on the vic's throat.
And unlike the blood around the wound, this particle was deposited when it was already dry.
Which means it could've come from our killer.
Stell, results on the blood fleck that Sid collected from the vic's neck.
Not a match to our vic.
Johnny Holt.
Ex-con.
He was in for sex crimes.
Just got released two weeks ago.
Thanks.
Hello.
How are you holding up? Fantastic.
What's a five-letter word for a cooking utensil? A whisk? That would be it.
We're all rooting for you.
I want you to know that.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
You here to see Johnny Holt? Yes, I am.
We found his blood on Vince Nelson's throat.
Holt's a bad dude.
If he gives you any problems, let me know.
I'll get in there and beat him up for you.
Whisk.
I knew that.
Never seen him before.
There's traces of your blood on him.
My blood's all over this city.
Been shot nine times, knifed five.
We believe the victim was involved in child pornography.
Do you recognize this boy? You implying I'm into kids? Because I sure as hell don't fly that way.
Right.
Right, you prefer to rape grown women.
forgot.
They said it was rape.
Not me.
Where were you on Thursday? - On a date.
- With who? I didn't catch her name.
But she wasn't as hot as you.
Holt's blood is on the victim, he's got priors and his alibi is just as worthless as he is.
In other words, Mr.
Holt just became our prime suspect.
Now all we have to do is shore up motive.
I've been working on that.
So far, I haven't been able to find a single connection between him and Nelson.
And I doubt u will.
Ribosomal analysis shows that the sample of Johnny Holt's blood that we found on our vic is at least three months old.
While he was still in Sing Sing.
Sid found the dried blood on Nelson's throat.
Said he must've been hit there with a pipe or club.
The blood must've been on the murder weapon.
Transferred onto Nelson when he was killed.
I think we just found our connection.
No.
I've never seen him.
Are you sure? He might've been an acquaintance of your husband's? Absolutely not.
What about this boy? I don't recognize this child at all.
And to save you a question, I have no idea what these pictures are doing on Vince's computer.
Ever since this e-mail thing came out the phone's been ringing nonstop.
Someone put a pile of dog feces on my doormat this morning.
Mrs.
Nelson, did your husband teach anywhe else where he might've been in contact with younger boys? After school program? The local Y? Look, I'm just going to say this once.
Vince was a normal guy.
Okay? A normal, boring, regular guy.
He watched football in his underwear.
He never took out the garbage unless I told him to.
He forgot our anniversary year after year and tried to make up for it two days later with a, with a bouquet of white roses.
But I didn't care, because he loved me.
Mrs.
Nelson, was there anybody on the wrestling team that your husband seemed especially close to? Anyone he saw outside of practice or talked about more than any of the others? No.
Did he seem to have a problem with any of the boys on the team? Look, just because he worked with boys doesn't mean that I don't know why I don't just unplug it.
I guess I keep hoping one of these times it'll be someone with something comforting to say! I-I'm so sorry.
We're almost done here.
I know what you're thinking.
"Oh, poor woman.
How could she possibly deny the fact" "that her husband was a pedophile? We have these pictures.
" This e-mail.
" Well, Vince wasn't a pedophile.
He was a loving, innocent man who was murdered.
Why don't you put your energy into finding his killer? The photos of the boy were downloaded from an international child porn site.
Which makes it unlikely that Nelson actually molested him.
I checked the browser and search histories on his computer, there were no additional pornography downloads or searches, not one.
Maybe he covered his tracks? Surfed anonymously? No.
The hard drive's clean.
The strange thing is when I checked the firewall log, I did find a breach on the same day the photos were downloaded.
I'm thinking someone could've pirated his signal.
Todd Fleming.
The alligator blood Stella found puts him on Nelson's roof.
Maybe that's what he was doing up there.
Okay, so Fleming downloads the photos of the boy, and makes it looks like Coach Nelson sent them.
I mean, it's possible, but why? Clearly, Fleming wanted to discredit Nelson.
Making a coach look like a pedophile, that'll do it.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nelson's apartment.
Stell and Lindsay found the alligator blood over here.
Okay, maybe something.
I'm getting a list of networks, but nothing strong enough to connect to.
It means we're in the vicinity.
Okay, I've got several network choices now.
Signal looks like it's strongest in this direction.
Got one Wi-Fi network that's fully unprotected, no password, nothing-- genius.
Look what it's called.
Vince N.
Wireless Network.
So all Fleming had to do from here was to release a prewritten script to Nelson's computer, turning it into a zombie.
Giving him complete control.
The e-mail connects to the murder, I just can't figure out how.
Yeah, well, we know Fleming didn't kill Nelson.
He had an alibi.
Right, but Coach Nelson's wife said she saw two people up here.
He might've had some help.
There's sawdust over here.
Sid found sawdust on the victim.
But Stella and Lindsay would've found the sawdust when they were here.
Not necessarily.
I got good news and I got good news.
Which one you want first? Whatever's faster.
All right, the sample of sawdust from the roof is identical to the sample we found in Coach Nelson's chest hairs.
And I finally determined the species it came from.
Fagus Sylvatica.
Beech Willow Tree.
Which is indigenous to Flushing, Queens.
Could be where our killer lives.
Or just where he set up his chop shop.
See if anyone who got that e-mail hails from Flushing.
Got ya.
Kyle Sheridan? Three count, buddy.
You lose.
High school wrestling team? Four oer brothers.
Come on.
Whoa, Coach Nelson.
What happened to his neck? It was separated from his body.
And the rest of him was stuffed in garbage cans all over the city.
Whoa, wait, you think I had something to do with this? We found sawdust on his torso.
Sawdust from a tree indigenous to Flushing, Queens.
So? You're the only kid on the wrtling team who is from Flushing, Queens.
We found that same sawdust on Coach Nelson's roof.
You were up there, weren't you with Todd Fleming? No.
You leeched off his Wi-Fi signal, sent out the incriminating photos of the young boy.
Right, when the coach found out about it, he came to you, and what'd you do? I-I didn't kill Coach Nelson.
Todd Fleming had an alibi for the night Nelson was killed, which leaves you.
Okay! Okay Yes, we sent the e-mail, okay? I'll admit that.
Yeah.
Nice.
See, my-my dad, he doesn't make a lot of money.
So the only way I'm going to college is if I get a wrestling scholarship.
Coach Nelson, he moved me up a weight class.
That totally wrecked my chance at State Championship.
So we thought if we sent these pictures around, maybe it'll get him fired.
So you e-mailed them to yourselves to throw off suspicion? Yeah, but that's all we did, okay? We had nothing to do the murder.
Ah, you know what, actually, you kind of did.
'Cause we're thinking it's those pictures that got your coach killed.
Where were you Thursday night? I was at, uh, school.
I was at a basketball game.
Got somebody who can vouch for that? yeah, yeah.
My, my-my, my Dad.
He picked me up around 10:00.
What's his name? Alex Sheridan.
He works at the Manhattan Superior Court.
He's a court officer.
He was struck by something hard, a club or a pipe.
It wasn't the son, it was the father.
Court officers have metal batons.
I'm thinking that's what made the bruise on Vince Nelson's throat.
So the father was snooping on the son's computer, saw an e-mail from Coach Nelson - Assumed Nelson sent it.
- And confronted him.
The problem is, in order for Johnny Holt's blood to get on Sheridan' baton, they would have to have contact at some point.
Right, and that blood is more than three months old, and Holt was still in prison.
Let's check it.
Prison transfer log from Sing Sing.
Here we go, three months ago Holt was taken from Sing Sing to Manhattan Superior Court.
For one day to testify as a witness in a trial.
There must've been some sort of altercation in that courthouse.
That would explain how Holt's blood got on Sheridan's baton.
All right, let's go.
Move it, scumbag.
Time to get a warrant to search Alex Sheridan's house.
Kyle's whole life was wrestling.
He was 14 when he made the team.
That was the happiest day of his life.
Gave him confidence, discipline, a sense of belonging I wanted to pin a medal on Coach Nelson.
But when I saw that e-mail, those disgusting photos That knocked the breath right out of me.
I picked up the phone and told him I was going to notify the school the very next morning.
So Nelson came to your house to try to settle things in person.
Yeah, except all he did was deny it; said he'd never seen the photos, had no idea where they came from.
See, no one is guilty these days.
Everyone's an innocent victim.
I was not about to let my son become a victim.
I fought back.
So what was I going to do? Get 25 to life for killing that son of a bitch? I see these perverts every day.
They waltz into my court.
They get a slap on the wrist, and then they go off and re-offend.
The only treatment for them is death.
You dismembered him to make it easier to dispose of the body.
I've worked in a courtroom for 16 years.
Tough to get a conviction without a body.
There's only one problem.
Vince Nelson didn't send those photos.
I don't understand.
I saw them.
They were there with his name on my son's computer.
Your son, Kyle sent them.
To himself and six other boys on the wrestling team.
He blamed the coach for ruining his chances at the state championship.
Sending the photos from Nelson's e-mail address was his way of getting revenge.
He wanted to get the coach fired.
This whole thing was just a tragic misunderstanding.
Wrestle! You got him! Of White ¸èÊÖ:Missy Higgins You going somewhere, Don? Yep, there is no point in me hanging around pushing papers.
It's not my style, Mac.
You've been cleared.
I just heard.
- I want you to know, I never doubted you.
- Thanks.
You know, for a long minute there, it felt like everybody else did.
Todd Fleming's medical records show that he was prescribed an anti-depressant eight months ago.
When Sid did a screen for that particular drug, he found more than ten times the recommended dosage in his system.
Enough to cause the seizure? Found an empty prescription bottle in his locker at school.
I stood by the door while he got changed.
That's the only time he was alone.
God, what a waste.
Seems to be a lot of that in this case.
Don.
You know, the Rangers are playing tonight.
We could catch thehird period at that new sports bar on Lafayette.
I didn't know you liked hockey.
I don't.