Eric Delko - Background

Background

Eric Delko is the fingerprint, tire and drug identification expert of the Miami-Dade Crime Lab, as well as their underwater recovery expert. He was born in Havana, Cuba, on December 18, 1976. His original family name was Delektorsky; his adoptive father, Pavel, is a Russian national who had been assigned to Havana during the 1960s and married a Cuban woman named Carmen, with whom he had three daughters. When Eric's mother was pregnant with him, his father decided that he wanted a better life for his family, so he moved the clan to Miami not long afterward. He also shortened the family name to Delko in an effort at Americanization. Eric later finds out (in Season 7) that his biological father, Alexander Sharov, is head of the Russian Mob.

Delko typically acts as the team's frogman when the situation arises—his boss has even termed him his best diver. In the episode "Shattered", his job is endangered when he is busted for drug possession. It is later revealed that he had been buying the drugs for his sister Marisol, to ease the pain she suffered while undergoing treatments for leukemia.

It is revealed that Delko is Roman Catholic. He is fluent in Spanish.

On the episode "Dead Woman Walking", Eric has a nosebleed, which he thought may have been from exposure to iodine. Eric has been given a clean bill of health, and Calleigh tells him that he gets nosebleeds during high-pressure situations. His nosebleeds had not been addressed since.

It has been recently revealed that Eric was born in Cuba before his mother and adoptive father arrived in the USA, after which they received fake birth documents for him. Delko pressed his mother for the truth after revealing that he knew his American birth certificate was a forgery, and the he had acquired his real birth certificate from Cuba. He told her he had become suspicious after realizing that several key facts in the story of their arrival in the USA, changed each time she told it. She also told him that his biological father was a terrible man, and that she wanted to shield Eric from him by hiding his identity with the forged papers. Delko's biological father, in fact, orders a hit on him.

The season 8 opener, "Out of Time", reveals in a flashback that Eric had, in the past, discovered a BMW that had been dumped in the Everglades with a body in the trunk and called Detective Caine. Eric was a tow truck driver at the time and knew the area quite well. He helped Caine recover the murder weapon, which Caine used to prevent an innocent man from going to jail. In this same episode, Eric meets Calleigh and hits on her by saying: "Are you going to give me your number now or later"? Calleigh responds that she doesn't date people she's even remotely involved with at work, and Eric replies, "Ok. We'll see". Caine, impressed by Eric's eye for minute details, convinces him to go to the police academy, get his badge, and work for the new CSI team later. Eric accepts the offer.