CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–2015): Season 10, Episode 10 - Better Off Dead - full transcript

Mom, get down!

I got you covered!

You son of a bitch!

Looks like he took a John Wayne shot.

John Wayne shot?

the Duke would
take one to the shoulder

in all his movies,
then he'd just shake it off

like it was a mosquito bite.

Well, this was more like
a spaghetti Western.

Involving Italians, lots of blood.

By the way, the guy
they wheeled out of here?



That's Hank Rinaldi.

He and his mother run the place.

A lot of cops like to hang out here.

Camera's up there. We'll get tape.

And this must be where Hank went down?

That's where we found him,
curled around his Glock.

Guessing this is Mom?

that's Dolores Rinaldi.

One tough mother.

Go ahead.

Multiple gun shot wounds.

.45 still gripped.

She went down fighting.

Shooting at him, I'm assuming.



Three gunshot wounds to the torso,
one to the head.

Edward Smith, 40.

Local address.

He's got a fat wad of hundreds in here.

Must be at least five grand.

Drawer's stocked with cash.

There's lots of antiques here.

Lugers, Tokarevs, Old Colts.

Some good stuff here.

Doesn't look like robbery.

Maybe he was a customer,
in here to make a big purchase.

I might've found part
of his shopping list.

"101 SW." Smith & Wesson?

What about these rogue footprints?

With the blood here?

There must have been someone else here.

Look like a small men's size.

Nine? Sneakers.

If he walked through the blood pool,

he had to have been standing right here.

Guy stands in the middle
of a three-way shootout

and strolls out alive?

Was he just lucky?

Or bulletproof?

Thanks.

You're welcome.

Body's over here.

A couple of teenagers were
cutting through the park

and spotted her.

Thought she was sleeping.

Snug as a bug in a rug.

Well, there's a path
of displaced gravel

coming down the embankment.

High-speed body dump?

Well, if it is, then this
quilt is awfully clean.

So, how'd it get here?

Covered up after the fact?

There's road rash

under the blanket.

Suspect made
no attempt to hide her.

Yet he made an
effort to tuck her in.

It's oddly tender, huh?

For a body dump.

Act of remorse?

Maybe our killer has a conscience.

I was in the back room.

I heard them arguing,

Ma and this guy.

It's the guy in the baseball cap,
right?

No, no. Not him.

The other one.

The one in the red shirt.

I didn't get a good look at him.

I just started shooting.

No! Had to defend my mother.

Not that she's ever been a sissy.

And this customer,

he starts unloading at
the crazy guy, too.

So, this "guy in a red shirt"

he takes out you,

your mother and a customer?

One against three?

Sir, there were a lot of bullets flying.

I don't know who hit who.

Here go the lights.

The red lasers are customer Ed's shots.

These are Delores's shots.

And these are Hank's shots.

And according to Hank,

the man in the red shirt
was everyone's target.

Which is consistent with
everyone's trajectories,

assuming he was a moving target.

But where are Red Shirt's bullets?

Well, all of these shots are misses.

Maybe he fired and didn't miss.

Langston's out of Autopsy.

Ed's ammo killed Dolores.

A combination of Dolores'
and Hank's ammo killed Ed.

And the surgeon pulled one
of Ed's nine mils

out of Hank's shoulder.

Well, that answers that question.

The man in the red shirt never fired.

So, all three shooters missed him

and only hit each other?

Warrick and I worked a case once

where two guys were shooting
at each other in an elevator.

Zero out of 25 were hits.

But the math is off.

Customer Ed put four of his
nine mils into Dolores,

one into Hank,

and ten into the back wall here.

That's 15 shots.

And we collected 16 nine mil cases.

So, we're missing a bullet.

All of Ed's shots missed
in this direction.

And unless it's in Red Shirt,

it's got to be in this back wall.

Got it. Straight through the wall

and into the stock room.

Ed's nine mil.

All projectiles now accounted for,

which means Red Shirt wasn't hit.

It's hard to believe.

Doesn't sound like gun oil.

This can top's been doctored.

At least ten grand here.

It's probably the Rinaldis' 401AK.

Full-auto sears.

You insert these
into the lower receiver

of a semi-auto rifle,

and you've got yourself a
fully automatic machine gun.

Which is why they're illegal,

and fetch a mint on the black market.

Two excellent reasons for hiding them.

Ran her prints.

Still a Jane Doe.

Suffered multiple traumatic
events before she died.

C.O.D. is no surprise.

Disarticulation of the
atlantooccipital junction.

Consistent with her impact into the rock.

This, however, is the result
of a separate incident.

Superficial bullet wound.

She was shot?

Sodium rhodizonate test
was positive for lead.

The extent of the blood clotting
indicates it was antemortem.

Shot at least an hour prior to death.

So, he shoots her but doesn't kill her.

Then dumps her out of a car
an hour later,

which does kill her.

Why didn't he just shoot her again?

Well, I saw the crime scene photos.

It's only luck of the draw
that she hit that rock.

Not much logic to it.

Gun shop's camera was out of focus,

only took intermittent still shots

and was on an oscillating pattern.

It's hard to choreograph a
less useful record of events.

However, there were two helpful frames

before the camera was
knocked out by a stray shot.

This one shows Ed Smith and Red Shirt

walking into the store together.

You can't see Red Shirt's face.

But it does look like they're together.

All right. Now check this out.

Hank blasting away at Ed.

Red Shirt is in front of Mom.

Not even in Hank's line of fire.

He told Brass he
was shooting at Red Shirt.

Red Shirt is clearly not Hank's target.

Which isn't the only thing
Hank lied about.

He told Brass that Ed was just
a random, well-armed customer.

Ed was another customer all right.

His prints were all over

the cash with the full-auto sears.

Which explains the five grand
we found in his wallet.

He was there to purchase more sears.

From Hank.

Whose prints were on both
the cash and the sears.

So, Hank's about to make
another big sale.

Why shoot such a good customer?

Get too greedy for the green stuff,

you can get yourself hurt.

We know about your little
side business there, Hank,

selling the full-auto sears.

Which is a federal offense in itself.

You pile on the fact
that you lied to the cops

about killing Ed Smith...

He was robbing us!

I was... I was afraid if I told you,

you'd take a closer look at him,

find out about the sears.

Honestly, I was just defending
our store.

I come out of the back,

and Ed's got my ma at gunpoint.

And not just him.
He brought some partner with him.

So I did what my mother taught me.
Hey! (fires gun)

Guy kills your mom,

you're okay saying he
died trying to defend her?

Make him out to be a hero?

The truth wasn't going
to bring her back.

And I didn't want to go to jail.

So, you caught him, right?

Ed's wing man,
the guy in the red shirt.

You caught him, right?

That's how you learned all this?

Well, actually...

But we're getting close.

Oh, God.

What?

He's still out there?

You got to find him.

That guy, the way he was
just standing there

with those bullets flying all around?

He was not human.

He was like the Terminator.

A machine.

I've seen my share of crazies.

But this guy?

Wasn't his first time
at the death dance.

As long as he's out there,
I'm staying right here.

Car was parked in a loading
zone off Industrial.

The ticketing officer

saw the blood and towed it in.

I'm hoping it's related
to our body dump.

R.O. is a Carrie Warren

of Noelle Lane, Las Vegas.

Is that an I.D. badge?

It's our Jane Doe from the ditch.

She was dumped from her own car.

Clearly, she wasn't driving.

So, uh...

what's going on with you and Vartann?

I am a trained observer, you know.

I see it's still in its,
uh, early investigative stages.

No comment.

Same pattern as the quilt
she was wrapped in.

Key's still in the ignition.

Out of gas.

Explains why the killer
left the murder mobile

in plain sight.

Looks like we have her house keys.

LVPD!

Anybody home?

How's it look?

No sign of forced entry.

All Carrie Warren.

Looks like she lived alone.

I got a blood trail.

It's all clear.

You're not going to like
what you find in the bedroom.

I'm going to check the perimeter.

Blood spatter on the wall.

This is where she was shot.

Sheets match the quilt
she was wrapped in.

There's no photos of any humans.

But she sure had some love
for this German Shepard.

Oh, my God.

It's Roscoe.

He was shot.

Blood trail ends in the garage.

So, killer's in the bedroom.

Shoots the dog.

Shoots Carrie.

Takes Carrie and the quilt,

and takes her car.

Control, this is 802 Charlie,
Detective Vartann.

I need Animal Control to transport

a dead dog.

Carrie's tidy.

Strange that she'd leave
food trash in the bedroom.

Maybe the killer likes milk.

Stain on the bed skirt.

Milky vomit.

I'll get it to DNA.

Maybe we'll get lucky
on some epithelials.

There's no pictures of any boyfriends,

yet she's got a drawer full

of tokens of someone's affections.

She doesn't want
to look at them anymore,

but she can't bring herself
to throw them away.

Maybe Roscoe wasn't the
only man in her life.

Backed over by a car.

Fell down a well.

Attacked by coyotes.

Poisoned by a spider.

Lost in a cave.

Traded for a Mike Schmidt
rookie baseball card.

And my favorite,

given to a farm.

Allegedly.

The tragic fates of the
Phillips family dogs.

I'm sorry.

I-I extracted a bullet
from his dorsal lumbar.

Shallow penetration.

Lack of vital response
in the surrounding tissue

indicates he was shot postmortem.

Oh, accounts for the lack
of blood at the scene.

No blood pressure, no bleeding.

C.O.D.?

Undetermined at this point.

Medium caliber bullet
flattened on two sides.

Double ricochet explains
the shallow penetration.

And the fact that
we have two wounds

but just one bullet.

I bought my first Ruger
1022 from Rinaldi's.

Oh, sweet.

Colt Single Action Army. Beautiful.

Aw, this baby's a shooter,
not a collector.

Dang it.

Hey, guys. I know you're slammed.

This is the round that we pulled

from our female victim's German Shepherd.

You're looking for the
"Truth About Gats and Dogs"?

A little bit of ballistics
humor there for you.

See, 7.62 by 25 mil.

Only a few rare old makes
of gun use this ammo.

Mauser, Tokarev,

Norinco.

Hold on. We collected a
Tokarev from the gun shop.

Here it is.

The case was stuck in the chamber.

You were supposed to clear
that at the scene, Greg.

I know, but I got it out of a
shattered merchandise case.

Guns for sale are supposed
to be unloaded by law.

It's clear.

Hey, y'all, there's a
piece of somebody in here.

Must've blocked the slide
with their hand.

Now, there is no way

Rinaldi's would sell a gun

with an expended case in the chamber

and a hunk of skin in the slide.

Maybe it wasn't for sale.

Wait a sec.

If your vic was shot with
that gun earlier today,

and it wasn't for sale at Rinaldi's,

then it stands to reason that
your killer brought it there.

There were four players

in the shootout,
and only three known guns.

Maybe the Tokarev belongs
to the Man In The Red Shirt.

Who's the Man In The Red Shirt?

Some guy on a crime spree.

Bobby, can you run the serial number?

Then we need to compare
my bullet with your gun.

R.O. is a John Rakow.

Guy lives...

Right behind Carrie Warren.

And you have a Tokarev
automatic registered to you?

I brought that back from 'Nam.

That gun saved my ass more than once.

Thank you for your service, Mr. Rakow.

You're welcome.

Where is the Tokarev now?

I gave it to a friend.

What's the friend's name?

It's a neighbor. Why?

Carrie Warren?

You guys get along?

Well, I ain't particularly crazy

about that yappy mutt of hers,

but we worked that out.

Mr. Rakow, do you make it a point

to arm your entire neighborhood,

or just the pretty girls?

I had a daughter once.

She was about the age of Carrie.

She moved to New York.

Young girl all alone in the big city.

I wish somebody had looked out
after her.

So I look out after Carrie;
I protect her.

Protect her from what?

This armpit of a city.

You know, when seconds count,

you-- you cops are minutes away.

So you've got a crazy-ass boyfriend,
got some screws loose.

She's always breaking up with him,

and he's always begging to come back.

So how do you fit into all this?

I chased him off a couple times,
but I couldn't watch her for 24-7,

so I gave her the Tokarev and
taught her how to use it.

Something happen to Carrie?

She's dead.

Someone shot her and her
yappy mutt with your gun.

I'm done talking.

Okay, let's talk
about something else, then.

What about the boyfriend?

Has he got a name?

Dirtbag.

And I can't recall his last name.

The man is wearing

boots as big as all of Texas.

There's no way he
could cram those dogs

into size-nine sneakers.

Plus, I observed his hands;
there's no slide bite.

He didn't shoot Carrie.

He wasn't in the gun shop.

He's not the man in the red shirt.

I got Roscoe's tox panel.

Your German Shepherd was poisoned.

High concentrations of lorazepam
and diazepam in his blood.

Found the same anti-anxiety drugs

in the milk you collected
from the bedroom.

So, based on his stomach contents,

Carrie's dog drank the poison milk.

What about Carrie's tox?

She was clean. Stomach was empty.

No milk. We didn't find any
prescriptions at Carrie's house.

Red Shirt had to have
brought the drugs with him.

So he dissolved them in milk
and feeds them to the dog?

The dog apparently regurgitated
some of the mixture

onto the bedskirt,
but not enough to save his life.

The killer premeditates the
dog's murder, but not Carrie's?

Not necessarily.

He poisons the dog to shut it up.

Waits for her to come home,

then shoots her with her own gun.

Well, if that's true, he knew her.
He knew her dog.

He knew where she kept the gun.

No signs of forced entry.

He had to have a key.

Obvious question--
she have a boyfriend?

And I'm betting he has a red shirt.

I mean,
is this what women really want?

It's what men think women want.

Like candy.

It's sweet and hard to resist,

but sooner or later,
we just want some meat and potatoes.

All the women
I take out just order a salad.

God, I used to have drawers
full of this crap from guys.

Now I just want a man I can count on.

"My eternal love is yours

in life and in death. Forever, Sam."

That sure sounds like a boyfriend.

Although I never wrote a love poem

to a girl that included
the word "death."

There's something under that label.

Sam gift-lifted this book
from a public library

and gave it to his beloved.

Classy.

Call the library and find out
who the last borrower was.

Las Vegas Police. Anybody home?

Go, go, go, go, go. Hold.

Who are you?

I'm Detective Jim Brass,

Las Vegas Police.

We're looking for Sam Trent.
Who are you?

I'm Paul Trent, his father.
He's not home.

What happened here, Mr. Trent?

It was an accident.

Any idea where Sam is?

My son's 27. I don't interfere
with his personal life.

Well, we do. We have a
warrant to search your house.

What's this about?

An overdue library book.

Mr. Trent, I need you to come with me.

Another accident. Mm-hmm.

Styron, Plath, Sexton.

Looks like a reading list
from Morbid 101.

Taste in cinema appears
to be much lighter.

These are all romantic comedies.

With the kind of
guy who never gives up

until he wins the heart
of his dream girl?

Of course, Sam's dream girl is dead.

A photograph

of Sam and Carrie.

Proves they were together.

Does this look like it was taken from
the top of the Stratosphere to you?

No, it's not high enough.

It's got to be the Ivory Tower Skydeck.

It's kind of a dumpy old
tourist trap with a nice view

of the methadone clinic
across the street.

I'll take you there sometime.

Gee, thanks.

I have...

at least a dozen ticket stubs

to the Skydeck.

Maybe it was Sam and
Carrie's favorite place.

Eight bucks a pop.

What do you have?

Letters.

"Sam, meeting you up there,

the city sprawling below us,
changed my life."

This is five days later.

"Sam, I'm sorry,
but I can't be with you anymore."

And then a few days after that.

"I can't stop thinking about you."

"I need you.

You're the best thing
that ever happened to me."

"Sam, I hope we can always be friends."

Light-switch romance.

On and off.

Well, this is from last week.

"You need to respect my boundaries, Sam.

It's over. Leave me alone,
or my neighbor will kick your ass."

Good neighbor John Rakow?

Diazepam.

Lorazepam.

Both scripts written last week.

Both empty.

That's what killed Carrie's dog.

Some other... letters here.

This one...

written two days ago.

From Sam to Carrie.

Looks like an early draft.

"Carrie, we have talked about this.

"I know talking is easier
than going through with it.

"But after the darkness comes the light.

"In a painless moment we
can be together forever."

That sounds like an
invitation to a suicide pact.

She's dead.

Did he change his mind?

You have the results from the
Carrie Warren scene? I do.

There was DNA on the lip
of the tainted milk bottle.

And I just matched it to
Sam Trent's toothbrush

that was sent over from his house.

Sam drank the poisoned milk? Yeah.

Which is why I then ran the vomit,

and it turns out it
wasn't actually the dog's.

The mucosal cells were a match to Sam.

Sam tried to commit suicide in
Carrie's bedroom but failed? Mm-hmm.

What about the tissue from the gun?

Just came up.

It's Carrie Warren.

You're joking.

She shot herself?

The physical evidence

now supports the suicide pact theory.

Only Sam didn't die from the poison,

and Carrie didn't die from the gunshot.

check this out.

This is Carrie's house.

This is where we found the body.

This is where you found her car.

And this is Rinaldi's Gun & Ammo.

I think that Sam took
the gun and Carrie,

got in her car, and I think
he was headed for the gun shop.

The gun was jammed.

It wasn't his gun, so maybe
he thought it ran out of ammo.

He needed more bullets,
so he could finish them both off.

so why did he dump
her on the side of the road

on the way to the gun shop?

Well, Carrie was dumped at
the apex of a hairpin turn.

And a piece of the quilt

was in the passenger door latch,

which could have prevented
the door from fully closing.

I mean, an accident would explain

why he wrapped her in a quilt.

Nothing was going according to plan.

She's dead, he's not.

He's probably feeling left behind.

and now he really needs

to get to that gun shop.

So when the car runs out of gas,

he just walks the rest of the way.

Suicidal guy enters a gun shop,

desperate for another bullet
to pop into his Tokarev.

If they're not going
to give one to him,

maybe they'll shoot one at him.

So somehow,
Sam triggered the gunfight.

Just his luck, he's the only one

that walks out of there unscathed.

the closet door's been kicked in.

I don't think Sam did this.

Does that look like a cowboy
boot to you?

Texas-sized.

Mr. Trent, if you want
to try to help us

save your son's life,

you've got to tell me what
happened in your house.

There was a knock at the door.

I barely heard it over the TV.

When I went to answer it...

Sam Trent, where is he?
Where is he?!

Sam, you son of a bitch!

When he didn't find Sam,

he trashed the place and stormed out.

A couple minutes later,
Sammy came home.

what happened?

Are you in trouble?

There was a man here.

I... I almost called the police.

No police, Dad.

Everything's gonna be fine.

Take my car.
The guy had a gun.

Go on, t-take my keys,
grab-grab my wallet.

Take what you need.

Thanks, Dad.

Sam only wanted eight
dollars from his father?

The price of an Ivory Tower
Skydeck ticket.

Hey, you-you can't park here.

I just received Carrie
Warren's medical records.

She had a history of bipolar disorder

for which she was recently was being

treated at St. Anthony's Hospital,

101 Southwest Harmony Avenue.

101 S.W.

The shopping list from the gun shop.

It was an address.

Uh-huh. We just assumed

that he was driving Carrie
to the gun shop.

This is her house...

body, car.

There's the gun shop.

And just to the west of it...

StAnthony's.

He was headed for the hospital.

Sam was trying to save her life.

Control, officers are moving
into position

at the Ivory Tower.

I need a full rescue- team response.

Detective Vartann and a police
officer are already up there.

You're free to go up.

I don't want any heroes up there.

Can you hear me, Catherine?

You son of a bitch!

You're a dead man, Sam Trent!

One would think.

Police, drop the weapon! Drop it!

John, Sam didn't shoot Carrie.

You're lying! We found her skin

in the Tokarev slide. John, you know

what that means? I know you do.

Carrie shot herself. No, you're lying.

She wouldn't do that.

John, Carrie was bipolar.

She'd attempted suicide before.

You told me that Carrie
needed protection,

but it wasn't from Sam,

it was from herself.

That's not true, John.
I killed her.

You shut up!

I put the gun to her head.

- I brushed away...
- Sam stop.

I brushed away her hair,
I looked into her eyes...

and I just...

John, after Carrie

shot herself, Sam took her
to the hospital.

No, that's not true!
I killed her, John.

We found a note

with the address to
St. Anthony's on it.

Sam, you loved Carrie.

You tried to save her.

You don't have to die today!

This is meant to be.

You don't have to die today.

The last two people who tried
to stop me ended up dead.

Just give me one bullet, okay?

Just one bullet. Whatever this takes!

Just give me one bullet! No...

This is where Carrie and I met.

And this is where
it's destined to end.

It doesn't have to end here.

We know about the pact.

We know you tried to save her.

And Carrie,

she would want us to save you.

but I have one question.

Was it me or the dog?

What do you mean?

It wasn't, I mean,
it wasn't technically a pact.

I wanted her to come
home and find me.

My whole being rendered
solemn valentine.

There was milk all over its snout.

Carrie loved that dog.

And when she came home
and found him,

was it the sight of me or the dog

that made her pull the trigger?

It was you, Sam.

I'm sure it was you.

So nice of you to say that.

Situation is Code Four.

One in custody.