CSI: CRIME scene investigation

Season 5 - Episode 4 - Crow’s Feet

Written by Josh Berman
Directed by Richard Lewis

A woman is found dead in what looks like a Hazmat case, but the red splotches on her body turn out not to the Ebola virus as first suspected; rather, it seems Julie Stern may have checked into the five star hotel’s Safari suite to recover from plastic surgery, but she never checked out.

When questioned, her surgeon insists that the “supersized” procedure he performed to remove Renita’s liver spots was totally safe, and he may be telling the truth. When the toxicology tests come back on the woman, Catherine discovers that she was suffering from a chronic case of arsenic poisoning, and she had been ingesting urine.

The woman’s son admits that his mother had turned him down for a loan, and as much as Catherine would like to pin his mother’s death on him, the arsenic in the pesticides he uses at his vineyard is not a match to the kind that was poisoning his mother. The turn comes in the case when Dr. Robbins, during a routine autopsy of a beautiful young woman who keeled over at the Venetian discovers she has something in common with Julie Stem – Renita Loakes was also ingesting urine. “Two women, both fighting the toll of time, die prematurely,” Catherine notes. “Why?”

 Meanwhile, Greg and Sara work the ultimate “locked room” case – a man is found poisoned in his tented home which has been pumped full with toxic chemicals by exterminators. The termite tent was locked down, a classic no-way-in, no-way-out scenario, but Sara and Greg aren’t buying it. They think that Elliot Beckman’s neighbors, both of whom are exhibiting symptoms of fumigant poisoning, may have been the last people to see Beckman alive, before one of them killed him, bashing in his head and leaving him to drown when the fumes filled his lung with deadly fluid.