CSI: CRIME scene investigation

Season 3 - Episode 21 - Forever

Written by Sarah Goldfinger
Directed by David Grossman

The CSI team is summoned to investigate the death of a horse trainer, who had hitched a ride with her charge, a thoroughbred named High Folly, and then winds up dead in the cargo hold of a private 747. When the society owner and her social-climbing passengers offer little by way of concrete information, the CSIs soon realize that it may be up to the horse to provide the answer to who killed Lori Hutchins.

At first glance, it appears that the horse, agitated during the turbulence in flight, may have trampled the woman. Although the team finds evidence that Hutchins may have tried to tranquilize the horse to calm it, they soon learn that no trainer would resort to shooting an animal under those circumstances. An autopsy on the trainer shows she, in fact, is the one who was shot full of a lethal dose of tranquilizer, and additional evidence suggests that the horse may have been framed by a human with something to hide.

Unfortunately, High Folly, their only witness in the case, soon dies of an acute uterine infection, but the mare’s death leads the CSIs closer to the truth. Grissom, present at the horse’s post-mortem, realizes that the horse was, in fact, a mule -- someone had packed High Folly’s uterus with smuggled diamonds, leaving one of five packets inside the horse. It soon becomes clear that Lori Hutchins may have been involved, along with the horse’s vet, but now it is up to Grissom, Catherine and Nick to figure out which of the passengers on board the plane had a stake in the action, and what went so wrong that Lori had to die.

Meanwhile, Sara and Warrick travel to Death Valley, the scene of what looks like a suicide. A young high school boy named Toby Wellstone seems to have had it all planned – he is laid out, peacefully, and the CSIs suspect a deliberate drug overdose. The puzzling part – they are 85 miles from Vegas, more than a mile from the nearest road, so if Toby’s death was an unassisted suicide, how did he get there?

The case becomes even more complicated when Toby’s girlfriend’s body is discovered shortly thereafter, nearby, in the same desert location. It seems that she also killed herself, in much the same fashion. The evidence clearly indicates that there had to be a witness to the double suicide, and that witness may also be a murderer. The final shock comes when a white substance found near the bodies is tested to reveal that the pair had a child together…leaving Sara and Warrick to wonder if they will soon be working a triple homicide.