( thunder crashing ) Hey, Len. Thanks.
( beeping ) ( door bolt clanks ) ( beeping ) ( door bolt clanks )
( announcements over P.A. )
Some night, huh? It's ugly out there.
( thunder rumbling )
( man grunting )
( device beeping ) We have two types of patients here: the criminally insane and sexually violent predators, all with multiple convictions.
We get all the inmates the prisons can't handle.
Keep your kits closed and locked when not in use. Um, Ms. Sidle, best if you remove the vest. New uniforms upset them.
We're mostly concerned with maintaining psychiatric remission. We want to stabilize symptoms and reduce an individual's risk of violence to himself and to others. Oh, uh, could actually stop here and put your backs against the wall, please. It's standard safety procedure.
( exhaling heavily ) MAN: Put your tongue in your mouth, Jake. We're moving them all to the Day Room.
This is Captain Brass. Dr. Grissom and Ms. Sidle are from the Crime Lab. Lt. Reed Owens, Desert State Hospital Police. We have our own internal police team and Lieutenant Owens was the first officer on the scene after the call came in. The victim was found by Nurse Faber at approximately 12:10 a.m. Joanne was coming off shift, I was coming on. Doing bed checks, I found Robbie on the floor. Kenny was in the corner covered in blood. Are the patients locked in their rooms at night? No. The doors are left unlocked. BRASS: So they're free to roam around? Locked rooms usually lead to patients trying to harm themselves. BRASS: Where's Kenny now? He's been taken to seclusion. ( screaming ) Shh-shh-shh. Leon, let's get a couple more milligrams of Lorazepam into him.
How did he get those wounds? Oh, Kenny's a self-mutilator. He suffers from Renfield's Syndrome; gets off on blood. Shh... Couple of weeks ago I caught him gouging himself with a carpet staple.
He was wearing these clothes when you found him? Yes.
There was blood spatter all over the victim's room. Blood but no spatter on Kenny's clothes. I'm not sure this is our guy.
Locked unit. Finite number of suspects.
Crazy or not... here we come. 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! ♪
( thunder rumbling )
Who's this guy knitting an imaginary sweater? How's he know when it's finished? His brain tells him that what he's doing is real. He has no reason to doubt it. Or any desire to. GRISSOM: They asked John Nash how he could believe that extraterrestrials were sending him messages. He said that the messages came to him in the same way that his mathematical ideas did. So he had to take them seriously. Hey. Valerie Dino. I'm the on-call doctor. Did you pronounce? Yeah. The administration asked me to set up some rooms for your interviews, but, uh, personally, I don't see what you hope to accomplish. These patients are criminals with severe mental disorders. They're not going to give you a straight answer. No one ever does.
( thunder rumbling )
I definitely heard something. He said, "I'll get in!" No, no, it was, "I'm coming in." I heard him say it. And it's not like he isn't serious.
Who isn't serious? The, uh, perpetrator.
Can you tell me anything else about him? Oh, no, I couldn't. Why not? ( whispers ): He's here.
In this room?
Is his name Ronald? No. My name is Ronald. What's his name? He doesn't have a name. He's a cricket. Here. A cricket? Yes. Trying to burrow a hole in my head.
I don't sleep.
Never?
So what do you do at night? Day, night, it don't make no difference. I think.
About what?
Bitches.
What's so amusing? So let's say you find out who did it, and maybe it's me.
What are you going to do? Are you going to convict me of murder and put me in a bad place? Is it you? Check the files, sir. I'm a rapist, not a murderer. ( thunder crashing ) Robert Garson?
Hmm?
GRISSOM: Do you know what happened to Robert Garson?
Female pig relation hanged, it sped even, well, too. What?
No. I ground it... blindly. Wet and dirty. Cut the blood oven. It spoke justly, repeatedly, calmly. Some thin rod dared your wash. They foretold this into some ready child, which fell crossly. They hag-rode me... again.
Why are you looking at me? You got Leon, he's a spic. Earl, the brother. And the crazy frickin' jewboy with the bug in his head.
You know, most of the doctors here are Jewish. They're the ones with the access.
Yeah? Dr. Dino. Hi. Paperwork. This is a state-run facility. What can I help you with? Question about the victim. I have heard that in some cases of deviant sexual predisposition, you slow the sex drive... If you're talking about chemical castration, the answer is, yes, Robbie was. So he didn't masturbate. Masturbate, yes. Ejaculate, no. So the semen that I found on his bed is someone else's? Likely. Thanks. Sure. Hey, guys, I found semen in the victim's room and it's probably not his. He was chemically castrated. So you're thinking the donor could be the killer? Sex is the foreplay. Violence is the climax. Well... happy swabbing.
They've been prepped. You're all set. Thank you, Lieutenant. Here you go, padre. Wash your worries away. Thank you.
Well, you take that side.
I'll take Jiminy Cricket. Excellent.
( indistinct P.A. announcement) Say ah. Ah.
Thank you. ( thunder rumbling ) Say ah.
You, too, Leon. I work here. Exactly.
Open your mouth, please.
Would you open your mouth, sir?
( muttering ) Grissom... you take this one. ( muttering ) ( car horn blares ) Let's start with the stomach contents. They're fascinating. It reminded me of that scene in Jaws where Dreyfuss cuts open the shark's belly and all kinds of weird things come out.
You find a license plate? Not quite. Highlights include Band-Aids, wood chips, hair and half a snapshot. Pica? Boo?
Pica is a compulsion to eat non-nutritive food items. It's from the Latin word for magpie, a bird with a large and indiscriminate appetite. Trichotillomania would explain the pulling out and eating of hair. Another OCD disorder. I sent hair and blood samples to Tox. Stellate lacerations. Linear skull fracture extending into the calvarium. And contre-coup contusions to the frontal and temporal lobes. So C.O.D. was blunt force trauma? No. Asphyxiation. During the struggle? No. Coagulation of the blood tells me that the head trauma was post-mortem, at least two hours after he was suffocated. So evidently dead wasn't dead enough. I also found ligature marks on the wrists and ankles. They showed up during the Y, peri-mortem. So, what, tortured? Tied up? Restrained.
Nobody mentioned restraints.
HODGES: Would you ever bleach your hair? I wouldn't. It's so Greg Sanders. Most of the hair is the vic's, but I also found that bleached sample as well. In my continuing quest to further my standing, I took it upon myself to get you the tox report. Thanks. You're welcome. Blood came back with pretty hefty levels of Olanzapine. That's a potent anti-psychotic. Good for drooling. And also there's the, uh, not so potent smattering of Ibuprofen. That's it? That's it. If I were institutionalized, I think I would hope for something better. Clonazepam, maybe. What, you, uh, think I'm crazy? Crazy is as crazy does.
His chart indicated at least four other anti-psychotics. Why wasn't he getting those meds? Do I look clairvoyant? BRASS: News flash from the loony bin. Two reported deaths in the last three years from "complications due to restraint procedures." And how many have gone unreported? The hospital just got off probation. One more death by restraint brings the Feds in. Good incentive to keep it quiet. Or make it look like someone else did it. Yeah. Somebody who's crazy. DUNBAR: We're legally required to tape all our sessions. This is Robbie in the seclusion room the day he died.
( fast-forwarding tape ) As you can see, the on-call doctor and Nurse Mckay checked in on him.
Two hours later, he was escorted out, so I resent the accusation. We've made a lot of changes. Policy, staff, surveillance have all been overhauled. Look, Robbie left the seclusion room alive. Okay, fine. Who administers medication? Uh, the nurses, psych techs. Why is this important? Well, according to his tox results, Robbie's system was short four anti-psychotics. Maybe he was cheeking them.
Why would he do that? They think they don't need 'em. They sell 'em, trade 'em or... store them up, get high later. We're gonna need to talk to his pharmacist. Who's next? Oh, come on, Earl. There you go.
Hey, you know I'm gonna bust your ass on the court, right? You better bring your 'A' game next time. Come on, Chuck, I got something for you.
Love your hair, Leon. Thanks. What do you got here? Ibuprofen, laxative, aspirin. What are you treating exactly, schizophrenia or constipation? Where are the real drugs, Leon?
Man... Xanax, Lanzopine, Zoloft, Suprazadone, Clozapine, Loranzapan, lithium, Valium, Wellbutrin, Haldol, Respiredone. You took everything with street value. ( chuckles ): Look, dude... I get 22K a year. That's nothing. Diddly-squat. I should get hazard pay. These people, I get... I get spit on, puked on, peed on, bitten. I get my hair yanked out, I get my ass pinched, I get... I get death threats. All for 22K. So I supplement my income. It don't hurt nobody. Are you a doctor? Look, these places, they overmedicate all the time. It controls the population. And I don't endanger the patients, okay? I-I'm all about the patients. Maybe Robbie caught you skimping on his meds, threatened to blow the whistle. There goes that supplemental income.
I see what you're doing. I'm reporting you. You're stealing. Robbie, hold on a second, will you? ( screaming ) All right, here you go, here you go, here you go. ( continues screaming )
No. All right, no way, man. That's a story. 'Kay? That's not why he went to seclusion. Why did he go to seclusion? He freaked out in group. I wasn't even there. Ask somebody who was.
Am I gonna lose my job? 'Cause these people... need me. SIDLE: According to the video logs, the victim was brought into seclusion at 5:03 p.m. and taken out of the room at 7:06 p.m. Nurse Mckay noted that he was awake and in bed at the 9:30 p.m. bed-checks.
Body was found at 12:10. So sometime between 9:30 and midnight, he was suffocated. Probably closer to 9:30. The blood would've needed time to coagulate before his head was smashed in. And not necessarily by the same person. Hey, how about some pillow talk? Robbie's pillow had saliva on it. Lots of it; all his. Could be from drooling. Or it could be from dying. Well, look at this-- I found slits at both ends. Left hand... and right hand.
Looks like we have a murder weapon.
WOMAN ( over P.A. ): All past-level-three patients, please return to your unit for a head count.
All past-level-three patients, please return to your unit... Thanks, Officer. Nurse Mckay, hi. Dr. Dino said that you supervised group therapy yesterday. Uh, yeah. I heard there was an incident involving Robbie. He had a personal item. A personal item? You can't bring anything in group except a beverage. It distracts the other patients. What did he bring? A photograph. Of what? A little boy.
What did you do? I followed protocol. Anybody else have anything they want to talk about? MAN: I wanna know why everybody's always staring at me-- especially him. He's staring at me. I'm not staring at... Hang on, hang on. Robbie?
What have you got there? Nothing. Fag candy. Well, what's the rule? There's no personal items... No! Give me the... No! No! Don't touch me! ( Robbie shouting ) Boom, boom and boom: medication, seclusion, restraint. Tough love. Call it what you want-- these aren't my children. Why didn't you mention this information last night? Because crap like that happens every day here.
I should get back to the unit. Sure. ( phone rings ) Sidle. GRISSOM: We got the DNA results back on the semen on Robbie's sheets. Patient Adam Trent-- the nail biter. Okay.
This stuff is dark. Yeah. 'Course, I wouldn't expect Winnie the Pooh.
Adam's subconscious was working overtime. SIDLE: I bet you aced your Rorschachs. When I was in fifth grade, I drew a picture of a harpooned whale. Everyone thought I was gonzo'd. But I had just read Moby Dick. Sometimes a dying whale is just a dying whale.
These are all postdated over a year ago.
It's not just his subconscious. This guy's got stuff buried everywhere.
DR. DINO: "Dearest Angel, I think of you wherever I go. "You are my prince. I miss you. Write to me. Your only love, Mother." Another one. Uh... "It rained today. "I thought of that time when you and I got caught "in the storm at the lake. "The fire... I came home and made your favorite dinner. I even set a place for you..." So on and so forth. That does not sound maternal to me. It's not. Incest? Fully consummated. Mother-son incest is rare and deeply pathological. Oedipal complex taken too far? Oedipus... implies son to mother. In this case, the mother was seeking the love and creating the codependence. We call this a Jocasta complex. Oedipus' mother. When Adam was nine his father died. His mother replaced her dead husband with her son. That's got to mess you up. Yeah. Adam is schizo-affective, suicidal, and a pathological narcissist. When he was a teenager he was unable to retaliate against his mother and incapable of actual intimacy, so... he started raping woman. GRISSOM: Always women? Yes. Which is why I don't think he killed Robbie. We found Adam's semen in Robbie's bed. You see, that surprises me. Like any good psychopath, he rarely veers from his pattern. Adam is a single-celled organism who exists wholly for himself.
He must've been getting something tangible in return. What? Drugs? Cigarettes? Drugs aren't his issue. And as far as I know he doesn't smoke. Um... So, uh, what can we learn from his art work? Uh... He starts with an innocuous object; a tree, a cat, an oboe-- all of which he morphs into something deadly. You can see... all of them. So what should be safe turns into something unsafe. Mother becomes lover. What about the mother? Do you have any idea where she is? She lives near Reno. Based on the postmarks, it seems like she stopped writing him. Every time a letter came a manic episode followed, then a severe depression, including one suicide attempt. So I started sending the letters back. Eventually, she stopped writing.
( thunder softly rumbles ) Did I kill him? Yes. Why? He was queer. But you had sex with him.
No. He had sex with me. He was the punk. Was it consensual? I don't know. So why did you do it? I don't know. SIDLE: Okay. So then what happened? I took his head and I smashed it into the floor.
And that's how you killed him?
What? You don't believe me? I'm just wondering if that's how you killed him. Yes. I'm saying this and this is true. And if you don't believe me, just look in the bucket in the latrine. Okay... Do you really want to know why I killed him? Yes.
It's because I'm crazy.
Not a word about suffocation. Well, his nails weren't long enough to leave those tears in the pillow. And there would have been traces of blood from his cuticles. Something is off.
Here's the blood splatter we've been looking for.
What is that on the crotch?
Lipstick.
( rain splashing ) Where is Nurse Mckay? I need to talk to her. She's on lunch duty. All right. I can either take this and the underwear back to the lab and confirm the match, which will only extend our presence here. Or... you can give me access to the nurse's station right now.
WOMAN ( over P.A. ): Dr. Walsh, please call your service. Dr. Walsh, call your service, stat. SIDLE: This must be the photo that Nurse Mckay confiscated from Robbie in group. The missing half? I found blue tape in Robbie's room. Kind of looks like Adam. Where would Robbie get a picture of Adam? Well, they were having sex.
I'm going to find someone who can open these drawers. Okay. WOMAN ( over P.A. ): Dr. Stoon, please pick up the white telephone. Dr. Stoon, call on the white telephone.
Hey.
Are you a spiritual person? Sometimes. Do you believe that everything happens for a reason? That bad things are there to teach us a karmic lesson? You know, maybe all our problems can be cured by tuning in to a higher frequency. There's this one guy I read, he believes that illness, anxiety and fear all occur when people are vibrating at 10,000 cycles a second.
( groaning )
If they could just get up to 100,000 cycles per second they'd be in the realm of sound, light and spirit, and everything would be just fine. Right? Yeah. ADAM: You know what I think? I think I'm just vibrating at the wrong frequency. SIDLE: It's okay. ADAM: Do you think I'm smart? Yeah. Yeah? Uh-huh. Do you think I'm right? SIDLE: I do. Open the door. SIDLE: I do. Open the door. I can't. I don't have my keys to open the door. Don't you move. Please open the door. You move a muscle I will grind you, bitch. You hear me? Do not look at them. Keep your eyes on the floor. Security! You! You, go away! You! You, go away! ( no audio )
Get a medic in here! Where is he? Where is he? ( Adam crying ) Help! We need help in here!
When my father died, my mother came to a place like this for awhile for evaluation.
It looked the same, it smelled the same. It smelled like lies.
You sure you're okay? Crazy people do make me feel crazy.
If you want, I can have somebody take your place. I appreciate that. I do, I really do, but... I kind of made a decision to move beyond that and... I really want to finish this case. We have rules for a reason. You people come in here disrupting things. You're unsafe. This is your fault. Really? You seem to take your job rather personally. What are you suggesting? That you had an intimate relationship with Adam Trent. That's ridiculous. Your lipstick is on his underwear. I gave Robbie my lipstick sometimes. Maybe he was wearing it when... We didn't find any on his lips. Well, that's your problem. What are you waiting for? Get him to the medical unit, stat.
Excuse me.
Adam Trent was working on this piece? Yes. He made it on Monday. But he never got a chance to fire it. Nurse Mckay came in, they had a conversation. Actually, it was more of an argument, very heated, very loud.
And then she yanked him out of class. Was this on the wheel while they were arguing? Yeah.
Adam's work is very provocative. Yeah. It speaks to me. SIDLE: Acoustic Archeology? In the '60s, experiments were done on clay pots and painted canvas. Scientists were able to ferret out sounds that were captured during the creative process in the clay and the paint. Trippy. It's actually not that out there. In the old days, the first gramophone recordings were made by taking the vibrations of sound and cutting them into wax cylinders while they were turning.
Based on the frequency and intensity of the sound, the stylus cut into the wax, creating distinct variances of depth and width.
For playback, a mechanical transducer vibrated along a groove, generating a current which, when amplified, turned into sound. When the art therapist told me that there'd been an argument while Adam was on the wheel, I thought well, maybe we can pull some sound off his pot. SIDLE: Doppler laser. Optical transducer. We've come a long way. Baby.
( beeps ) Well, there's something there.
And it sounds like... ( beeps ) this. ( static ) It's lousy signal-to-noise. It's going to need a lot of processing.
( warbling )
( warbling ) Speech elements skew to consonants. I'll try and dig them out. ( computer beeps ) ( warbling ) Rrr-bee... Rrr-bee... Robbie? Maybe. Could you run that back a little bit? Sure. ( warbles ) What is that? ( warble repeats ) Right there.
Nnn-gl. Nnn-gl... Angle? Angel. ...my angel. My angel. My angel.
In her letters, Adam's mother called him "angel."
The hair from the brush in Adam's room was fresh enough to get a DNA profile. It came back female. We tested it against your cigarette butt. It matched. Adam liked it when I brushed his hair. I bet he did. You were lying about giving Robbie lipstick. You have seven out of 13 alleles in common with your patient, Adam Trent. Your dearest angel. Okay. Joanne Mckay, registered nurse, licensed by the Nevada Board of Nursing 1978. Married Howard Trent 1980. The board requires you to get a new certificate when you get married. I guess you never complied. I've always gone by my maiden name. I guess that makes it less embarrassing to check into the motel with your son.
Oh, I'm sorry. You checked into a psycho ward instead. My son needed me. SIDLE: For what? To destroy his ego? To fill him with guilt? To make him hate himself so much he would take his own life just to be free of you? You have no idea what goes on between us. Let's cut the umbilical cord, okay? Six months ago your letters started to come back. No more communication with little Lord Fauntleroy. So you apply to Desert State. They were desperate for nursing staff, so you got a job.
Gentlemen, this is our new nurse, Nurse Mckay. Hello. Bet it's tough to turn a folie á deux into a menage á trois. N'est-ce pas?
Even tougher that your son was cheating on you... with a man no less.
You need to stop this. Stop what? End it with Robbie. Don't tell me what to do. End it or I will.
But he didn't end it, did he? Robbie was lover's leverage. He was that thing that Adam kept in his back pocket and pull out whenever he needed to distance himself from you. So you had no choice but to get rid of Robbie. And being a good nurse, you knew his trigger.
I want you to talk about this in group today. B-But I thought that we... It's okay. You can bring it.
Hey! Robbie.
What do you got there? There's no personal items in group. B-But y-you... you told me... that I could bring this. I didn't say anything. Give me that. What is that, a picture? You remember? Give me the picture. No, do you remember? You remember? No! Give me the picture. You remember? No! Give me the picture. No, you don't tell me! You told me...! ( yelling ) Hang on! ( screaming )
( muffled screams ) You manipulated the situation and took advantage of his weakness. SIDLE: Exactly what you have been doing to Adam for the past 20 years. And being such a good mother, you made him cover it up. Again.
Why would my son do that? Because he loves you as much as he hates you.
You can't prove any of this.
Just the incest, which is a Class B felony. It carries a penalty of up to ten years.
That's ten years away from Adam. Good luck getting him to testify.
Okay.
Well, jail or no jail, I don't think she'll last six months. She'll die without her son. That would be better for both of them. Captioning sponsored by CBS, C.S.I. PRODUCTIONS Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org fe