CSI: CRIME scene investigation

Season 5 - Episode 23 - Iced

Written by Josh Berman
Directed by Richard J. Lewis

Sara and Greg investigate the death of two naked students at WLVU, who clearly died after a night of lovemaking. What is not clear is what turned their bodies pink, after carbon monoxide and cyanide have been ruled out as cause of death.

A student in the same dorm filed a grievance against one of the decedents, basketball star Trip Wilmont, for being noisy and annoying, but he insists he kept quiet about it when the police questioned him because ratting out a jock would cause him problems on campus. But now Sara and Greg are beginning to wonder…if the grudge were serious enough against Trip and girlfriend, could they be looking at a double murder?

The one possibility they hadn’t considered was carbon dioxide poisoning, a very rare occurrence as the gas would have to present in excessive amounts, but where did it come from? Their first clue comes from a most unlikely source -- an exploding toilet down the hall from the scene, even though it seems to be unrelated.

Meanwhile, Catherine and Warrick report to the scene where a blindfolded man has turned up dead in what looks like the middle of a crop circle. Even more perplexing – the only visible footprints belong to the paramedics who were the first to arrive. So how did the victim wind up there, since he didn’t seem to be dumped?

Coroner David Phillips is in an X-Files frame of mind, but the CSIs aren’t buying it, even though Dr. Robbins can find no obvious cause of death. Nick decides to pursue the most commonly held belief of what causes crop circles – a downwash from helicopter rotors. When the team does, in fact, trace a helicopter to the scene, and track down the chopper pilot, he is expecting them, but asks for immunity before he will talk about who he was flying for – the reality show called “Going All the Way.”

And when both shifts are left understaffed, Conrad Ecklie works the scene when a tourist from New Jersey is found dead in the Tangiers parking lot…and then, inexplicably, before he can be processed, goes missing from the morgue.