CSI: CRIME scene investigation

Season 7 - Episode 14 - Meet Market

Written by Dustin Lee Abraham
Directed by Paris Barclay

When Keppler, Nick and Greg come across the charred body of ex-con Ross Neddy at a welding shop they realize that what looks like an accident at work could be the result of an inside scam. In autopsy, Dr. Robbins lets the team know that the victim has a deep gash from his pelvis to his neck and is sewn up with a ragged line of staples. Once inside the body, Dr. Robbins finds an umbrella which is used to pull the body together. He also notes that while the killer stole the victim’s bones and tissues he or she left the kidneys, heart and liver. Back at the lab, Keppler fingerprints the victim and realizes that his real name is Roger Lapinsky. Keppler confirms that someone dug up the already dead Lapinsky torched his body and stole his tissues and bones. Sofia heads out to Ross’s girlfriend Heidi’s apartment where she finds the two shacked up with a baby. Ross admits to digging up the body, dressing it to look like him and charring it. Meanwhile, Greg tells Nick that he found the logo of a popular tissue procurement company on the umbrella found in the victim’s body. Keppler and Nick realize that the tissue procurement companies have taken tissues and bones from a number of thirty-something patients. However, when Keppler realizes that Lapinsky died of Leukemia and that many others died of AIDS and hepatitis he fears that diseased body parts are being sold under false pretenses. He struggles to get to the bottom of the case.

 Across town, Brass, Warrick and Sara find the body of thirty-nine year old Margo Dorton dead in her palatial home. Her husband Bill returned home from a trip to find her dead. Sara and Warrick package a hair found on the victim’s dress as well as blood drops leading out of the room. Dr. Robbins confirms that the victim was killed by blunt force trauma to the neck. The murder weapon was a champagne bottle. Meanwhile, Sara gets a lead on a valet slip she found in the victim’s purse. The slip reads Over-Under Caberet, which is a strip club. Sara questions Cotton Candy; a stripper with a wig that matches the synthetic hair that they found at the scene. Cotton Candy confirms that she got in a fight with Margo the other night at the club for hanging around with her fiancé. Cotton Candy tells Sara that upstairs the club hosts “relationship” parties where young men entertain women who are looking for love as opposed to sex. Apparently, Margo was seeing Cotton Candy’s fiancé Jesse. When Sara goes back to the scene of the crime for more clues, she finds a photo album with blood on it. The picture in the album is of Margo holding a baby. Margo’s husband Bill says that Margo gave the child up when he was an infant and that he ran away as soon as he was old enough due to a toxic and abusive home environment. After a bit of research, Sara realizes that Jesse - the relationship-  is Margo’s estranged son. With evidence and suspicions pointing to Jesse and Cotton Candy, Sara weighs the evidence to come to a conclusion.