BRASS: So, the Gang Unit says our d.b. is a 16-year-old Tyson Plummer. How many holes in the victim? I count four. 11 shell casings. Shooter emptied the gun-- so he was moving and shooting. Only hit the vic four times. She talks to herself. Hey, it works for me. Bullets that missed hit the outside building wall.
Bang, bang, bang, bang. Man, Andre didn't cap him like that. Did too. How you gonna tell me? I saw him... Hey, guys, can I talk to you for a sec? I just want to ask you a few questions.
Grissom... Go ahead, Greg. We got a very young male d.b. by the Dumpster. I'll be right there.
Get your damn hands off me! BRASS: Whoa, whoa. I can't let you touch him. What's your name?
I'm Plummer. Leo. That's my brother right there. They didn't have to do him like that, dawg. I know you know who did this, Leo. Ain't your problem, man.
Whoever did this is gonna get got. Oh, no, don't say stuff like that. Because only two things can happen: you in shackles or you on a slab. So, let's break the odds this time. What do you say? You done with me, bacon? 'Cause I got family to go bury.
( yelling ) ( gunshots) ( screaming )
You okay? Hell no, I'm not okay. Who the hell's shooting at us? I don't know, but I think our single just turned into a triple. Captioning sponsored by CBS, C.S.I. PRODUCTIONS
♪ 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 ♪ ♪ Oh, you! ♪
( indistinct police radio transmissions ) ( camera shutter clicking )
Somebody tried to just throw him out with the trash. If the Dumpster wasn't full he would've ended up at the landfill.
He hasn't been dead long. He's just coming out of rigor, so I'd say less than 24 hours. He wasn't in the box long enough to mummify, but the kid looks like an ad for hunger relief. Okay, let's, um, transport him in situ. Be very careful moving the body. You okay?
Yeah. Fine. MAN: Let me go, dawg! Let me go, man! Get off me, man! That's Rodney King, dawg! Let me... Get off! Get off me! Get off! Get off me! ( car door slams shut ) So, uh... you think these concerned citizens are taping the capture of a vicious killer? GRISSOM: If they're taping now, maybe they caught that second shooting on video. Maybe you could collect the cameras. ( chuckles ) I love this guy.
It says "forensics" on our jacket. I'm aware of that. We had plenty of cops chasing the suspect. I wasn't chasing the suspect. I was chasing the evidence. I knew the idiot was likely to dump the gun. All we have to do is ballistics-match the weapon to both victims.
Case closed.
( door buzzes ) Hey. Hey, man. What's up?
Suspects wait in Central Holding to be processed and transferred to jail. They assaulted the officers with feces and then the cops went in. Great. To bust some heads. STOKES: Hoo... So, you've got a Samuel Mendez with a cracked skull listed as death imminent, right? Yeah. It's why they kicked it up to Homicide. You think the cops used excessive force here? Well, if they did it's mitigating circumstances. Yeah.
Yeah, well, if they'd've thrown a bunch of feces at me, I would have cracked some skulls too.
This is the last place I thought I'd see a gun. It was found under the victim.
Arresting officer must have done a lousy search.
STOKES: Wow... this is a lot of crap. What, did they squat on cue? BROWN: Overflowing toilet. There's enough ammunition right there. So, the cops bust in to get the prisoners under control when they start throwing raw sewage? ( yelling ) Well, there must have been some real bad asses in here. Look like it got pretty heated.
You want to tell me what happened here? Cops iced the kid. What else you want to know? Could tell he was a fish from the jump, though. A fish? New to the game.
( hawking ) What?
You see what happened? The po-po gutted the fish. I saw the whole thing. Same thing they did to me. Two beatings in one day. Rodney King, yo. ( camera shutter clicking )
I'm sorry, uh, who are you? I'm Catherine Willows. I'm with the crime lab. Oh. I'm Dr. Franks, attending. Have you located his family yet? No. I need to find someone to sign a release, take him off the ventilator. He's brain dead? Oh, yeah. I'm hoping the family will donate his organs. Tell me about his injuries. He's got blunt-force trauma to the frontal and sphenoid bones.
It fragmented his skull, damaged his temporal arteries and imbedded in his brain.
Well, those are shoe prints on his face, which suggests that he was attacked while he was down.
Well, he came from County lock-up. Must have been a hell of a fight.
♪ ♪ ( coughing )
♪ ♪
The victim's about five years old. He was just losing his baby teeth. X rays show metaphyseal fractures to the right humerus and acromion. They're called corner or bucket-handle fractures. Shake the baby? It's more like snatch and shake. Violent shaking creates shearing forces causing fragment fractures at the end of the growth plate. It's highly specific for abuse.
How old do you think these fractures are? Well, this kind of fracture doesn't usually heal with callus you can easily see. My guess, less than six months.
He is emaciated. He looks drawn. The only thing missing is a swollen belly. It's called cachexia. The soft tissue is diminished and drawn around the skull. The eyes are sunken, and there's prominent tenting where the skin should retract. SIDLE: His ribs are poking through his skin. He starved to death, didn't he? C.O.D. is renal failure due to starvation. His intestinal tract was virtually empty, except for these brown flecks I found. Hepatic steatosis, the liver goes yellow and greasy. Ketoacidosis, fat stores are used for energy, and then rhabdomyolysis-- when muscle is broken down for fuel. Think of the body as digesting itself.
This took weeks. I have to admit, this seems especially cruel and unusual. When kids are involved, it usually is.
It's a 10-by-18-foot cell built for 25 people. We've got 35 mutts and no place to put the extras. Between the yo's, the cholos and the rednecks, it was bound to happen. 35 guys, that's a lot of men to fit in one room. Cops round them up, we process them. It usually doesn't take long, but today we got jammed. What was the problem? Computer went down, plumbing backed up. You name it, we had it. Any rival bangers in the same cell? No. I rechecked the roster. We don't want the yo's killing each other in custody. Why we bother, I'll never know. You ever think an overcrowded cell mixed with bad plumbing was the reason they threw the contents? They don't need a reason. Bad monkeys at the zoo.
So, uh, how did the gun get past security? Arresting officer did a bad search. Don't you search them again when they get to the holding cell? What? Don't you search them again when they get here? Is there something you want to get off your chest? ( wry chuckle ) A gun in a cell is sloppy police work, man.
I don't like what you're implying about me or my men. Then maybe you need to dial down your attitude. A man is brain dead here! I don't care what he was like when he was alive, and neither should you, don't you think? All I know, there's one less bastard I gotta watch my back for. There's five of us, so the odds are in their favor. You're a crime scene tech. I'm law enforcement, which means you don't get to tell me what to do in my jail. If I find out you used excessive force on an unarmed prisoner, you won't have a jail. I think we're done here. I don't think so. Not quite. I'm going to need your armor, your shields, your boots and your batons. Right now!
I, uh... ran John Doe minor's DNA against the Missing Persons database. I'm sorry, no hits. Yeah, I'm not surprised. They didn't care enough to feed him, why would they report him missing?
What's going on in here? The victim had a prior abuse fracture. And you're hoping Child Protective Services investigated? Well, based on the age of the victim, the age of the fracture and the break pattern, I found ten possible matches. Well, it's going to take you forever to go through these alone.
I'll get it done. It took me a long time to get where I was, Sara. Now I feel like I'm starting from scratch. I miss sleeping at night. I miss my colleagues. I miss... What? Being trusted.
What's on the menu today, Warrick? A gun... face shields, vests... batons... Please run the batons first. Why? You thinking bad cop? Well, the batons were the only weapons inside of the cell. Everything else was fixed... ( cell phone ringing ) ...to the floor, to the walls. ( ringing continues ) You gonna get that?
No. Player. Oh, now I'm a player. You make up your mind pretty quick. I'll, uh, page you when I get the results. Yeah?
He was a rough one last night, so I called to check on him. But since I'm here, I can do it in person. Anything else you want to say to me? Have a nice day. Is that it? That's it. ( chuckling ) Am I interrupting? No. No.
Good day.
He's pretty hot. Yeah, well, I think he knows it. Anything on the hairs from the plastic coffin? Ah, yeah, I actually did find one hair with a root tag still attached, and it's a priority run for me as soon as I get something to compare it to. Sara also collected a bunch synthetic hairs. I'm thinking doll, wig, maybe fake fur. I sent them over to Trace. ( clicking ) I went through child abuse cases, looking for a match to the victim's age and fracture. I pulled the X rays of our most likely candidates. Sinus identification is as reliable as fingerprints. Sinuses are unique; they have distinct, scalloped edges.
No match. It's harder to identify children this way because they, uh, develop so quickly.
This is it. Bingo. Yep. Frontal and ethmoid sinuses line up perfectly.
Devon Malton, age five, last known residence was a foster home run by a Lorna Tenney. LORNA: So, which one of my kids is in trouble? BRASS: No, you are, Mrs. Tenney. Oh? Which one of my kids lodged a complaint? SIDLE: That happen a lot? Well, it goes with the territory. We're here about, uh, Devon Malton. Well, he hasn't lived here in six months. Since he fractured his arm? CPS investigated. They cleared me. Records show Devon resides here. Well, records are wrong. Mind if we come in and take a look around? I do. If you've got nothing to hide... Oh, save it. Those mind games don't work on me. I deal with the police often enough to know better than to talk to you without my attorney or to let you poke around my things. Look, Family Services says you have this kid. Mm-hmm. They've issued aid checks. Now, who do you expect me to believe? The checks come, I send them back. I've got the copies to prove it. Look, it's either here or at the station. So, you choose. Then let's go, because you don't set foot in my house without a warrant. ♪ ♪
Heard you had a real sphincter pucker last night. So what kind of gun are you getting? Plenty of guns at crime scenes. Cops have them, some criminalists... Yeah, cops make great targets. Plus, CSIs get shot at all the time, or didn't they tell you? If this is why you paged me, then I... I got the results on the bin contents.
Well? Are you sure you're okay? You don't look so good.
I detected mineral oil, titanium dioxide, stearic acid, isopropylpalpitate using polarized lightmicroscopy, GCMS and FTIR. Is that makeup? Burnt sienna foundation. The cheap stuff. What about the intestinal tract contents? Lead-based paint chips... last used in 1978. That whole neighborhood looks like it was built in the '70s. Could've come from any one of the apartment buildings or the houses. Which means that sooner or later, you're going to have to be going back out to the hood. Nervous? Hmm... MENDEZ: I'm sorry, Doctor. I can't donate his organs. DOCTOR: I assure you your son has no brain activity, Mr. Mendez. He's gone. No, no, you don't understand. I don't know who that is in there, but it's not my son. Mr. Mendez.
I'm Catherine Willows, with the Las Vegas Crime Lab. Are you sure? I've been waiting for this phone call a long time. My kid took a wrong turn somewhere-- maybe it's my fault, I don't know-- but somebody's boy is in that bed and he's not mine.
Either he can't accept reality or the County made a big mistake. Well, there's only one way to find out. I'll have to take his prints.
Guys.
Do your work.
Hi.
You like chemistry? No. I'm not smart enough. Sure you are. Glynnis, right?
Quantum theory. That's compelling stuff actually. Look, you can question me, fine. You don't have to pretend to be interested in me. I'm sorry, that was lame. I guess I was just trying to put you at ease. I know what it's like. What? Living with strangers. Your fate being decided by social workers, advocates, judges... You were in the system. For a while. I've been in foster care for ten years. I moved from one home to the next. Believe me, Mrs. Tenney is one of the good ones.
She's not very cooperative. She's been burned a lot. Look, I know she comes off as tough, but she really cares. Enough to tell us the truth, even if it hurts. You remember a little boy named Devon? Yeah. Cute kid. About five years old. Your foster mom said that Devon left months ago. Is that true? Yeah. Why all the questions?
Did something happen? Yeah.
( quietly ): Is he dead?
Yeah.
I don't understand. His mom came and picked him up. That never happens. You could just see how much she loved those boys. Glynnis... did Devon have brothers at the foster home? Yeah. Two older brothers, Kevin and, and Raymond.
What happened to them?
The boys' mother, Candace Malton, served 47 of a 90-day sentence for smashing a brick into her abusive boyfriend's face. Sounds like self-defense to me. Yeah, if she would've walked after the first hit. So, how many times did she actually hit him? Five. It takes battered women a while to see the light, but once they do, there's no going back. Okay, so the Malton boys were placed in foster care while Mom served her sentence. A single mother, she reinstated her parental rights as soon as she got out of jail. After what happened to her son, she didn't want to have anything to do with Child Services. Any idea where the mother is now? No. I've already checked welfare, Medicaid, HUD rolls-- she's in the wind. ( Brass sighs ) I'll put out a BOLO. No offense, but... why didn't you check in to the kids' welfare after the mom was released from jail? 8,000 child abuse/neglect investigations a year. There's only so much we can do. Look, despite her taste in men, in my opinion, Candace Malton was a good mother. One of her sons is dead, and the other two are missing.
What's good about that?
Hey, Mia. Have you finished processing the batons? Yeah, just now. I found blood, epithelials and hair on all of them. There are several DNA sources from everyone but the victim. Which means that a police baton never connected with Sam Mendez. He had to already be down when the cops entered the cell. Thanks.
Catherine Willows? Yeah. Lieutenant Arthur Chan, watch commander for Central Holding. We are almost finished with our investigation, but I can tell you that the victim's prints don't match the Sam Mendez that's wanted for murder. You telling me we arrested the wrong guy? It was a routine traffic stop. The arresting officer ran the name and got an immediate warrant hit. An arrest warrant for murder and... two guys with the same name. Out of the car! What did I do? Walk back. Hands up. The arresting officer did his job; I did my job. No one's saying that you didn't. Your subordinate Warrick Brown did. With all due respect, Lieutenant, that really doesn't sound like the Warrick Brown I know. You're a civilian, but even you understand chain of command. Now, I'm giving you an opportunity to adjust his attitude. Don't make me.
Heard you found a print on the bin. Yeah, I did. Under the lip curve.
What? Well, I'm not sure of the best way to process the print. You take digital photos? Yeah. Well, hand them over. I'll load it into the computer, reconstruct the image while you finish processing. Well, what else is there left to do but run it through AFIS? You're gonna need an actual print for court. Are you saying that I have to cut it out in order to lift it? Isn't that destroying the evidence? No. You're recovering it. As long as you document it, you're fine. Oh.
♪ ♪
Well, I appreciate your help. No big deal. I don't know if I'd be quite as accommodating after just being... Well, you know. Demoted? Yeah.
No hit in AFIS. I've widened the search. I've got an FBI database hit. Your print belongs to an enlisted man. Private First Class Philip Riley. I hope you can tell me what the hell's going on. M.P.'s just dragged me off a transport to Tikrit. That makes me look bad. Not that I mind. Better here than over there, you know what I'm saying? Well, you're an American hero. And I mean that, you all are. What the hell were you doing on D Street? D Street? Explain to me why your fingerprints ended up on a plastic bin container in an alley off D Street. Oh, come on! Oh. Did I forget to mention there was a dead kid inside?
Whoa, I thought this was about paying for trim inside county lines. All I did was take out the trash. That's all I did. For who? Some chickenhead ghetto rat. Uh... I was shipping out, and-and I decided to party, you know? She was all I could afford. Where'd you meet her? Some dive. The Seven Sins. What was her name? Devine. I think. I don't remember if she told me her last name. Anyway, we had some fun, and when I was done, she told me to take out the trash. End of story. Not quite. Where does she live? North Vegas somewhere. I was drunk as hell. I want you to think real hard. I-I swear to God, I don't know. I really don't. How'd you get there? In a taxi. And I left the same damn way.
Ah, looks good on you. Thanks. Have a seat.
So, what's up? Lieutenant Chan dropped by. Really? I wonder what for. To complain about you. Wish you told me you'd had a beef with him. There was nothing to say. We had words, it got heated, then it was over. Well... ( clears throat ) I'm the supervisor of the swing shift. I'm responsible for the whole team. It's my job to make sure that we remain objective and professional. Yeah, I really don't see what the big deal is. I mean, I remember talking to Grissom... Well, I'm not Grissom. He let a lot of things slide that I won't. Okay. Is there anything else? The evidence cleared the extraction team. You owe Lieutenant Chan an apology. Written or verbal? From now on, anything that happens at a crime scene, I'm your first phone call. Sure.
♪ ♪
Fire in the hole! Shooting two!
We now know the cops were not responsible, so that leaves us with 34 suspects, all with rap sheets. Is there anything to narrow the focus? Well, I compared all 34 pairs-- I came up with one sole pattern... and one suspect-- Vincent Mendoza... booked for meth manufacture. Well, the official C.O.D. was blunt force trauma to the head, not stomping. Well, it's not unreasonable to think the same guy that caused the blunt force trauma can also stomp him. Well, that all sounds good, but why go to all that trouble? Because the gun was hot. Ran it though IBIS. It was used in an execution-style murder. The last thing the guy wanted to do was to get caught with a gun that had a body on it. WARRICK: Yeah, well, this victim looks like the perfect patsy to drop a gun on. STOKES: Yeah... little fish in a tank full of sharks.
What's on the table, gentlemen? Murder, two counts. Your client killed a man in a holding cell and tried to frame the cops for it. That's bull and you know it. Shh. Let's hear the corroborating evidence, and it'd better be good. Mr. Mendoza was hooked in a raid on a meth lab. Problem was, he was carrying a concealed weapon and had no time to ditch it. BROWN: He dropped the weapon down his pants, planned to get rid of it in central holding before the cavity search. So far, I'm not hearing anything you can actually prove. Well, I'm sure Vincent here knew a lot of people inside since he is a repeat offender. But only one man didn't fit, huh? Fear must've been rolling off him in waves so strong you could probably smell it.
What you looking at, huh? Nothing. Nothing.
I said, what're you looking at, mark? Nothing.
911! 911, man!
Typical. Knew you guys would try to pin this on me. I wasn't anywhere near the fish. You sure about that? That's what I said, isn't it? Well, it's good to know, since your boot prints were found on the victim's head.
See, you didn't want to get caught with a gun used in another homicide. A meth dealer, your partner, was found in the desert two weeks ago. Any one of those guys could've carried a gun into the holding cell. It's not likely, unless you can explain how Vincent here got his pubic hair and feces caught in the gun's hammer.
Give us some time.
How's 25 to life sound?
♪ True respect and ghetto love ♪ ♪ Now raise it up ♪ ♪ 'Cause everything in life gonna come to an end ♪ ♪ Because it... ♪ $40 buys the lips, a hundy gets you south. Goes double for around the world. You got a car? You sure about that? Mm-hmm. 'Cause you don't look like you got a car to me. Take a hike, John. I'm her next appointment.
I didn't do nothing but sit here, Officer. On your feet. Can't believe you're gonna ruin my day for this. You don't have enough to charge me with solicitation. Hey! Watch it, bitch. It's a wig, hair is consistent. Could you open your mouth for me, please? Come on, you can do that in your sleep, honey. Open up or we'll have to stick you with a needle.
Taking your pet for a walk? I know how much you like my little fetal pig, so I'm giving him to you as an office-warming gift. That is so thoughtful.
Now tell me why you really stopped by. You checking up on me? No. What've you heard? Who talked to you? See? You've been on the job for a week and you're already paranoid.
When I was your right-hand and your left, I always knew that if it hit the fan, that you'd be the one to get dirty. Hey, that's the job. Yeah, that's the job.
Did you ever play politics? I once ran for president of the science club in junior high. Mary Hardy beat me out by one vote. I'm going to guess that you didn't vote for yourself.
I'm not any good at politics. And it's cost me. It's how I lost Nick and Warrick. Your loss was my gain. Yeah. And at least they're in good hands. We been sitting here a long-ass time. What can I say, I like your company. What'd you bring me down here for? I was only trying to make a few bucks. Yeah. ( light knocking ) DNA's a match.
Match to what? To one of your hairs that you left on the body of a little boy. I don't know what you're talking about. BRASS: No? I wonder why anyone would leave one kid with you much less three. You have seven ileals in common with the dead boy. Although that's not enough to say you're related, it's certainly enough to keep digging. You know, I ran your wants and warrants. It kicked out some aliases.
I mean, Devine's a street name. But you're also known as Darlene Lewis, married briefly to a grifter. And a.k.a. Darlene Malton. Hey, that's the same last name as the victim. SIDLE: To starve anyone is beyond me, but to do it to a child... a relative, is unforgivable.
Wasn't even like that. My half-sister Candy left me with them bad-ass kids and no money. How am I supposed to feed them? You don't look like you've missed any meals to me. Know what, skinny bitch, go to hell. I just scrape by. If you couldn't take care of them, why didn't you just turn them over to Social Services? I promised I wouldn't. Little D got hurt last time. She would've killed me. What's she going to do when she finds out her son is dead? I did the best I could. Okay, where are the boys now?
Uh-uh, you're not gonna blame this on me. I want a lawyer. You can have a lawyer after you give me the address. But let me tell you something-- if those boys die, I'm going to make it my business to see you get the death penalty.
There's no one in the house. Where are the kids? I don't know, let's check around back. So, turns out that Mom was sending money after all. I found this letter inside mailed from Seattle with 300 bucks in it for the kids' upkeep. And that skanky bitch used it to buy a new TV.
SIDLE: Paint chips. SANDERS: Smells like a toilet.
Yeah, she never let them upstairs. Kevin, Raymond... Oh, no. I'm going to call an ambulance.
He's alive! We need water and blankets. Oh, my gosh.
Hey. Are you Kevin or Raymond? It's all right. It's all right, you're safe now. It's okay.
So, Seattle P.D. has located Candace Malton. They're putting her on a plane tonight. They said she's pretty broken up. She left her kids with her hooker cousin. She should've known better.
Where are you going to take her first, the hospital or the morgue? Guess I might as well get it over with. I mean, once she sees the kids she's not going to want to leave them.
What do you think? Go with the living, Jim. The dead can wait.
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