CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

From IMDB:

A guy runs down an alley at night. He is caught up with and beaten.

Later the CSI's - Nick and Catherine- and Brass show up and a hooker says she found him, a kid named Tommy Baker, and called 911. He's not dead, just wrecked. Nick goes to the hospital with him and runs into his brother Mark who's all hyped up and Nick sends him off to get a snack. Nick goes to talk to Tommy, saying he has to process him and get a statement. Tommy freaks and breaks his camera and kicks him out. Nick heads back to the scene. He and Catherine survey the massive splatter. The beating apparently took awhile. Catherine also found a semen stain. Nick notices a St. Christopher's medal with blood on it.

Ray and Greg go to an electronics store where the owner, Wayne Smith, had been shot and the someone started a fire to cover their tracks. They notice a surveillance camera but the tape is missing. Also all the money in the register is gone. There is a gun, the murder weapon, in the drawer though as well as a small white fragment that Greg collects. He also notices the serial number of a $20 bill on the drawer, the bait money number. In the back Langston has discovered an open window, they hypothesize it was a burglary gone wrong. Greg then notices a bag with blood on it. They open it and it's full of stolen jewelry.

Nick goes to visit the Baker house and runs into their mom, a falling down drunk in the morning. Tommy checked out against medical advice. His brother shows up and pushes their mom out and says that Tommy left around 6 a.m.

At the station Wayne's younger sister, Jess, explains that she and Wayne have been running the store since their parents death.

Wendy inspects the crime scene evidence with a microscope, which reveals sperm.

Catherine comes in and runs down Tommys rap sheet. They theorize he picked up a hooker and then got beat by her pimp. Stokes says Tommy seems embarrassed about what happened. Wendy comes in saying all the blood came from one unknown male but the semen came from another unknown male. They figure out that a man raped Tommy.

Catherine goes to recover Tommy's blood sample from the hospital.

Nick goes to visit April Martin, a victim services officer. She assists rape victims and gives him advice about male ones: to let him know that you want to help him and that it's not just a job. She criticizes Nick for the jokes she's heard CSI's make over dead bodies, calling them cold hearted. He counters equally annoyed that she can feel compassion for dead people but not a live investigator trying to help. She smiles and gives him a card to give to Tommy and one for himself.

Wendy is upset and tells Hodges that Ecklie is turning down her request to "pull a Sanders" and go from lab rat to field mouse and Hodges says he'll talk to him. Wendy wonders why Hodges wants to help since she thought he was against her moving to the field. He sweetly tells her he just wants her to be happy.

Robbins is going over the Wayne Smiths death with Ray. The victim was shot twice but was still alive when the fire started. Interestingly, after Robbins claps off the lights, they can see a slap mark on his face that was not that old. It could be unrelated or the killer. Robbins also swabbed his penis and found out that Smith had sex shortly before he was murdered.

Greg checks on serial numbers on the stolen jewelry. A lot of them come back reported stolen from a strip club. He goes there with a detective and is informed that one of the strippers, Angela, dated Wayne. She says there was no way he was a thief and then remembers she had a sapphire necklace go missing. She turns on him and calls him a dirt bag and says she's willing to press charges. When the CSI's tell her he's dead she seems surprised and upset.

Wendy is telling Catherine, Nick, Ray, and Greg that she's worried that she cross-contaminated the samples since she found that the semen was Wayne Smith's and the blood was Tommy's. They realize that Wayne was the one who beat and raped Tommy. They theorize that Tommy had motive to kill Waybe. Nick says he'd kill Wayne too if he were Tommy.

Wendy and Ray look over some matches that he thinks were probably the fire starter. She's also found a crispy surveillance tape. Ray shows off some DNA knowledge he's learned in class noting that she can get DNA off the burned matches.

Greg goes to Hodges to see if he ran the trace on the cash drawer. He doesn't know what the white fragment is yet. In pig Latin he tries to tell Greg about Wendy's desire to go into the field. Greg doesn't care.

Greg and Nick look at the security tape. Tommy's on it, grabbing the bag and the St.Christopher medal. They figure that it's Tommy and theorize that Wayne did what he did because it was Tommy who burgled the store. Nick still doesn't quite get why Wayne would rape Tommy just for burglary, even though he understands it's about humiliation. Ray says for some men violence is their sex.

They show Jess a picture of Tommy and she says she's never seen him before. They say they think he killed Wayne. She says he didn't and confesses to the crime herself. As she explains to Brass about how evil,strict, and abusive Wayne was, Catherine goes to search her room. She finds a packed bag, opens it, and finds a camera inside. On it are pictures of Jess and Tommy making out. Jess talks about trying to run away and shows him a bruise on her face she was covering up. She sends a photo to Brass on his phone. He quickly shows it to Jess. Brass calls her on her story saying it was simply that Wayne beat Tommy for robbing the store and Tommy killed him. She says that's not true. She and Tommy were going to get married and run away, but they needed money so she had a plan to rob the store. She swears she shot her brother not Tommy.

In short order Tommy swears he did it and that it was all his idea. We see a version where Tommy overpowers Wayne and kills him. Mark Baker shows up and swears he did it. He figured out what Wayne did to Tommy, was horrified by it, knew that Tommt would never live it down, and went and shot Wayne. We see this version as well. He claims he shot Wayne with a Colt 45. (We know Wayne was shot by a 22).

So the group reconvenes to try and untangle the three confessions. Mark definitely set the fire thanks to DNA on the matches. They figure that when he got there Wayne was already shot and Mark set the fire to cover for Tommy. There's no physical evidence putting Tommy at the store. They figure Tommy may be covering for Jess. They do realize that whoever killed Wayne would have the money. There was no money at Tommy and Marks house or in Jess' room.

Stokes is paged, it's April Martin. She's come down to tell him that after reading the report and talking to Tommy, she knows Tommy would have been too terrified of Wayne to face him, let alone kill him. Nick says he'll keep it under consideration and thanks her. She smiles as he walks away.

Hodges tells Greg he's figured out that the white fragment was a French tip. Greg remembers that Wayne's girlfriend Angela had those and go back to the strip club with a search warrant. They take her bag, go through the cash and discover the bait money. We see what happened. She and Wayne were in the store making out she needed to leave and demanded her cut of the money for stealing stuff from the strip club for him to fence. They fought, and she shot him.

Back at the station Catherine asks Jess how Wayne knew Tommy would be at the store. She says Wayne didn't know. He was supposed to be with her at home. Wayne was obsessed with her being a virgin and he didn't know she and Tommy were doing it. That night we see that she and Tommy were goofing around and he accidentally ripped her shirt. She didn't think anything of it until Wayne came home and noticed the shirt. He thought that Tommy raped her. He took his revenge by assaulting and raping Tommy.

Nick goes to talk to Tommy and tells him he knows he's been traumatized so if he needs anything to call Nick. Tommy tells nick about what Wayne had said to him in the alley. Tommy laments that he should have fought back and how he can't even think about Jess without seeing Wayne's face. Nick tells him it wasn't his fault for not fighting back or for what happened. He tells him that Jess doesn't know about the rape and that he won't tell her and that if they really love each other, than maybe she and Tommy can make it work out. Nick walks Tommy out and Jess goes to him and hugs him. He takes her arms off of him and walks away. Nick sadly shakes his head.