CSI: CRIME scene investigation

Season 4 - Episode 20 - Dead Ringer

Writen by Elizabeth Devine
Directed by Ken Fink

Grissom is supposed to be driving the pace car in the annual 120-mile Law Enforcement Relay race, when he suddenly veers off course. Catherine and the rest of the CSI team are forced to drop out of the runnning, but for good cause – Grissom spied reflective stripes off to the side of the road, and the racer they belonged to – Tim Coleman, an LA County Special Enforcement Squad officer – is dead.

Since the course is closed to civilians during the race, all of their suspects are cops. In addition, Grissom and the team have the victim’s fellow SES officers looking over their shoulders, checking their every move.

 It doesn’t help matters that the solitary thread that Grissom finds near the body is matched to the red uniform of the winning LAPD SWAT team. The last runner in the toughest leg of the race admits to an altercation with the cocky Coleman, a ringer that SES brought in to the race. The punches they exchanged are enough to explain the fiber transfer. On top of that, analysis of Coleman’s bottle of drinking water shows that it’s been spiked with a high blood pressure medication he didn’t take, but was it enough to kill Coleman, and ensure a win for the SWAT team?

When Greg gets a hit on Tim Coleman’s ATM card and discovers there’s been a large withdrawal after Coleman’s death, the CSIs hope they have evidence that will lead them to a thief, or a murderer, or both.

Meanwhile, Sara and Warrick are called to a hotel room off the strip, where they find two dead bodies, a female and a male – both cops. The scene looks like a lover’s spat turned murder/suicide. The male officer’s wife is not surprised that he was found with another woman. Her husband was a serial cheater, and she put up with his behavior for the sake of her family. But a third set of prints found at the scene turns up another possible suspect – yet another female cop, Lydia Lopez. So even if it was a threesome, how and why did two of the three cops wind up dead?