CSI: CRIME scene investigation

Season 3 - Episode 19 - A Night at the Movies

Teleplay by Danny Cannon & Anthony E. Zuiker
Story by Carol Mendelsohn
Directed by Matt Earl Beesley

Grissom is in his element when he and Catherine are called to an art house movie theater to investigate the gruesome murder of one of the patrons.

The man is found in his seat, oozing blood, and the team soon discovers that the dead dentist may have gotten a screwdriver in the back of the head from a killer with a grudge.
His cell phone records point Catherine and Grissom to an ex-patient of Dr. Sugarman. Audrey Hilden, also a movie buff, firsts suggests she was dating him, and stood him up the night he died. In truth, Audrey had filed a sexual malpractice suit against Dr. Sugarman, and the doctor’s countersuit intimidated her into dropping the case.

When a theater usher recalls seeing a tall blonde matching Audrey’s description in the lobby around the time of the murder, Grissom and Catherine return to question Audrey. But instead of answers there are seeking, they find her hanged in her own house, with Dr. Sugarman’s missing gold chain – The proverbial smoking gun – at her feet. “Neat,” says Catherine, to which Grissom replies: “Too neat.”

Once he pieces together the movie theater schedule someone tried to flush down Audrey’s toilet, Grissom points to the circled feature – Hitchcock’s Strangers on Train, a classic film noir about the perfect murder.

Meanwhile, Warrick, Nick and Sara are called to a warehouse, where a 15-year-old boy has been shot to death in a hail of bullets. Left behind – beer bottles, which may provide valuable DNA evidence, and most incongruous – a 20 foot bamboo pole which Sara finds on the roof. That, 109 bullet holes, tire treads and shards of broken glass, tell a horrific story that only gets worse when one of the beer bottles provides important evidence -- the victim’s brother can be placed at the scene by DNA, which either means he witnessed the execution, or was a party to it.