Sweet Jane (CSI) - Summary

Summary

Brass calls Catherine to a crime scene: a nude teenage girl lies dead in a part of town known for prostitution and drug dealing. As Catherine processes the scene, a man approaches her; Catherine quickly establishes that he is Mike Keppler, a CSI from Baltimore who was recently hired to staff the day shift, but is temporarily working the night shift until Grissom returns. Keppler brushes hair away from the victim's face using his bare hands, earning himself a reprimand from Catherine. As they process the scene together, they notice that the victim's body has been cleaned with alcohol and that the killer swept his footprints away with a broom, indicating that the killer is very thorough.

When they return to the lab, Keppler finds a pile of messages about missed calls from someone named Frank on his desk. Some of these messages are marked "Very Urgent". Keppler appears concerned about these messages.

Catherine and Keppler run the victim's fingerprints through a missing persons database and learn that she is Veronica Sorensen, a 17-year-old runaway who has been missing for two months. Sofia breaks the news of Veronica's death to her parents, who are devastated by the news. They refuse consent for an autopsy on their daughter, but Sofia informs them that due to the criminal nature of Veronica's death, an autopsy must be performed.

During the autopsy, Doc Robbins discovers a silvery substance on one of the victim's teeth and subcutaneous bruises on her neck. He declares cause of death to be asphyxiation by strangulation, noting that the bruises indicate that the killer choked and released Veronica at least three times before she died, consistent with sexual asphyxiation. A tox screen reveals ecstasy in the victim's blood.

Catherine and Keppler speculate that the killer has killed before, so they search the LVPD Unsolved Homicides database for cases involving victims similar to Veronica. They discover three such cases, from 1999, 1989, and 1975. In all three cases, the victims were found posed in a position similar to the position Veronica was found in and they were never identified, rendering all the victims Jane Does.

Catherine, Keppler, Sara, and Nick begin to investigate the three Jane Doe cases. They realize that the killer's method has evolved over the years - Jane Doe '99 was found nude and washed (but not with alcohol, like Veronica), and Jane Doe '89 was found nude but unwashed. No suspects were ever named in either case. Jane Doe '75 was found fully clothed, and the coroner's report lists her COD as heroin overdose (unlike the other two, who died of asphyxiation by strangulation), causing Nick and Sara to speculate that the case is unrelated to the others. Keppler insists that Jane Doe '75 was killed by the same person who killed the other three and offers a possible profile of the killer. However, Catherine reminds him that a CSI's job is to follow the evidence, and asks all three to follow up on the Jane Doe investigations.

Sara investigates Jane Doe '99 and learns that her body had traces of chloral hydrate, a hypnotic sedative, in it. Keppler works on a geographic profile of the killer, reasoning that as the killer becomes more comfortable with killing, the locations of the bodies should spiral outward from one central point. Nick tracks down the original investigator of the Jane Doe '89 case and learns that he collected a hair from the scene which could belong to the killer. DNA analysis was unavailable in 1989, but the investigator preserved the hair, which should be in evidence storage.

Nick goes to evidence storage to retrieve the physical evidence from the 1989 case but discovers a rat nest in the box. In an effort to salvage whatever evidence he can, he searches the box and finds the now ruined hair. He also finds a strip of negatives, apparently of photos from the original crime scene.

The body of Jane Doe '75 is exhumed and Robbins discovers that an autopsy was never performed on this victim. Upon examination, the victim is found to have been strangled and a silver amalgam filling is found on one of her teeth. Robbins remembers a similar filling in Veronica's mouth, and Catherine recalls the chloral hydrate in Jane Doe '99, noting that it was once used by dentists to sedate patients. Jane Doe '89 is also exhumed, and a silver filling is found in her mouth. They speculate that the killer is a dentist and search a database for dentists in the area who have been in business since at least 1975.

They find one dental clinic that fits the geographic profile Keppler worked on earlier. Upon visiting the clinic, Catherine and Keppler learn that Veronica's dentist was a Dr. David Lowry and they question him. They show him pictures of the three Jane Does and their teeth, but Dr. Dave denies any recollection of these women.

Meanwhile, Nick has been working to enhance the pictures on the film strip he found. He enhances a picture of a bruise and finds a clear image of a bite mark. Catherine and Keppler return to the clinic with a court order for an impression of Dr. Dave's bite. As he prepares the mold for the impression, Dr. Dave questions the validity of forensic dentistry, noting that teeth migrate throughout a person's life. Later, Catherine and Keppler compare Dr. Dave's bite impression to the bite mark from the photograph and discover that they do not match.

Dr. Dave is called in to the police station for questioning. Keppler and Brass confront him with medical records that prove he had cosmetic surgery to correct his teeth. Comparisons of his pre-surgery X-rays with the bite mark in the photograph show a perfect match. Keppler and Brass then ask Dr. Dave to volunteer the names of the three Jane Does, suggesting that he can avoid the death penalty by doing so. However, Dr. Dave claims that by revealing the names, his memories of the killings will be tarnished, and his memories are all that he has left. He expresses no remorse over his deeds, only disappointment at having been caught.

At the end of the episode, Keppler calls Frank. Catherine drops Lindsey off at school and watches her thoughtfully.