CSI: CRIME scene investigation

Season 4 - Episode 8 - After the Show

Written by Andrew Lipsitz & Elizabeth Devine & Carol Mendelsohn
Directed by Ken Fink

The disappearance of showgirl and aspiring model Julie Waters (Jamie Ray Newman) strikes a chord in Vegas, a town that knows something about fame and flash, and the ensuing media frenzy leads her suspected murderer, Howard Delhomme (guest star Martin Donovan) to make a 911 call, turning himself in. When the CSIs show up at the suspect’s house, he only has one thing to say: “I didn’t mean to hurt her.” To which Catherine adds: “Six days missing? He didn’t just hurt her.”

The team is convinced they have the right guy, a photographer who clearly has been unraveling, but he is only willing to talk to one person – Catherine – who believes that Julie may be just one Delhomme’s victims. While Sara and Nick object to suspects picking their own criminalists, especially in what could be a career case, Grissom disagrees if the plan will help them find Julie. But a search of the Red Rock desert does not lead them to a body, and reveals only one thing for sure – Delhomme’s growing obsession with dancer Catherine. “He wanted me,” Catherine says firmly, “he’s got me.”

While the Sheriff (Xander Berkeley) is pressuring the CSIs for a quick resolution, Grissom and the team still only have Catherine’s gut instinct that Delhomme is the murderer. With Nick and Sara fuming, Catherine turns to Greg for help to piece together Julie’s final hours. But it’s Nick and Sara who find Delhomme’s name on another missing girl’s day planner, and that, combined with a receipt Greg finds for a shovel, Julie’s DNA in Delhomme’s rented car, and the mileage on his odometer, lead them to where Julie’s well-preserved body –“Sleeping beauty,” Catherine calls her -- has been buried in a shallow grave.

 Confronted, Delhomme claims Julie’s death was an accident – that he inadvertently ran her over when he was taking new head shots. But the autopsy shows no evidence of such injuries; rather, signs of positional asphyxia, sexual assault and intoxication, which leads Catherine to believe that Delhomme got her drunk, raped her with a foreign object and then killed her. “She never said stop,” Delhomme claims, and when Catherine asks why this did not come up before, he replies” “I was afraid of what you’d think of me.” But Catherine thinks only one thing – that the only way she will get Delhomme is if the evidence contradicts every one of his lies – and that’s what she intends to prove.