CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

The episode opens with a flashback of a middle-aged woman being murdered in her home. Fast-forward to Catherine testifying at the trial of the suspected killer, the victim's son.
From Cath's testimony we learn that: 1) there are four sources of blood on the knife (on the blade is the blood of victim Addie Finch and two unknown females who are related to each other;
and under the handle is the blood of Jay Finch, the defendant, who we learn turned the knife in to the police himself – five days after the crime occurred), and 2) that the actual cause of death was believed to be a gunshot wound to the head, after the stabbing occurred. Jay Finch, sitting at the defense table, appears to be writing a single sentence again and again in his notebook (but I can't make out what it says). Jay's defense attorney, Novak, gives Catherine a pretty hard time on the stand, arguing that the forensic evidence could have been created in other, more innocent ways, and in the end, the jury returns a not-guilty verdict. Catherine walks out with the Novak, telling him he has set a murderer free. Roll opening credits.

Catherine and Nick are watching a taped police interview in which Jay Finch claims he got a head injury playing football and now he gets terrible headaches, which cause him to get in his car and just drive for days. He goes on to say that he and his mom took care of each other; he loved her; etc. etc. Catherine tells Nick that Jay's CT scan does show frontal-lobe damage, which can lead to altered behavior. She wants to find out who the other two victims are. Since those crimes were never prosecuted and there's no double-jeopardy there, they can nail Jay for them. Nick points out Jay had been driving for 5 days; finding the two unknown female victims is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Catherine says yeah, but that's our job.

Hodges is up to his usual Grissom-suck-up routine, giving him a Williams College sweatshirt as a going-away present, since Griss is going on sabbatical to teach at Williams. Cath comes in to talk about Jay Finch, telling him how they narrowed the search radius and found one unsolved case that fits their criteria. Grissom drops the sabbatical bomb. Catherine, clearly annoyed that he didn't feel this was worth mentioning further in advance, says she's going to investigate her case, and she'll be back before he leaves tomorrow night.

On her way out, Novak the Finch defense attorney meets Catherine in the parking lot (amazing coincidence that he finds her on the day she sets out to investigate his old client's other presumed crimes). He's climbing the 12 steps and wants to make amends. Okay, whatever.

Nick and Catherine arrive in the small Nevada town where the case of Laura Montoya and her daughter occurred. The sheriff, Beth Maguire, seems personable, friendly, and smart, and she was good friends with Laura Montoya. She tells them Laura and her daughter were sitting at an outdoor table at a diner, and were last seen by a diner employee locking up. At 10 p.m., some skateboarders reported blood on the scene – no bodies. Sheriff Beth doesn't know if they were kidnapped or killed or what. At the time, the lab found that the blood matches Laura's. Now, Nick finds a bullet lodged in the table.

Back at the lab, Warrick comes in to say goodbye to Grissom. Grissom is carefully putting away all his miniatures, making a comment about Ernie Dell's crimes having been artfully done.

Nick retrieves the bullet from the diner's table, but it's a .25, which is a bummer because a .38 was used in the Finch murder. Sheriff Beth reveals that there was a double murder the day after Laura Montoya went missing: Mary Acheson and her daughter, Heather Curtis. Turns out Mary and Heather were killed by a Robert Guffey, who's doing life in NV State. She couldn't link him to the Montoya case, however. There was no evidence to implicate him; he would only confess to the Mary/Heather case; and he had an alibi. Guffey, who has a history of violence, was Mary Acheson's plumber. We also learn Heather had a husband who was at work during the attack, and a young son, who survived the attack by hiding undetected in a kitchen cupboard. Guffey used a .38. It's sounding more and more like the Finch case – even the Acheson house looks remarkably similar to the Finch house. Doing a run-through of the crime, they figure the mom was killed first, then the daughter. They figure Guffey sees the toys in the backyard, and goes out to shoot up the rabbit pen, assuming the boy was hiding in there. So (after a CSI bullet-finding montage), they have more bullets for testing. Catherine sends Nick back to the lab. She goes to prison to talk with Guffey.

Grissom next talks with Greg about his civil case, advising him to get his own lawyer and coaching him on his testimony. Everything's gonna be fine, says he.

Doc Robbins calls Cath to tell her the 3 victims (Addie Finch, Mary Acheson, and Heather Curtis) were all stabbed and then killed by a single gunshot to the head. She sits down at prison to talk to Guffey, a leering creep. He doesn't want to cooperate until she tells him she'll undo one button on her blouse for each question he answers. Guffey tells her his confession was coerced; he didn't kill anyone. He says his prints were all over the house because he went in on other business and found the bodies. He made an anonymous 911 call to report the murders, but panicked and left, because of his criminal history (smacking his old lady around).

Nick is saying an emotional goodbye to Grissom, believing he won't be coming back. Grissom: "I'll be back in four weeks. Stop hugging me."

Nick does a bullet-testing montage, and compares the rabbit bullet with the Guffey gun bullet. No match. It does, however, match the bullet that killed Addie Finch. He calls Catherine. They discuss Guffey's probable innocence and Jay Finch's probable guilt for both crimes. If only they could find Jay's missing .38. Nick also says to tell Sheriff Beth he ran the Montoya bullet through IBIS and didn't get any hits. Sorry.

Sheriff Beth is a little defensive to Catherine about her interrogation of Guffey, but admits she could have been wrong about him. She was on edge at the time because her friend had just disappeared. Maybe she did coerce Guffey's confession.

Novak is at the lab, accusing them of harassing his client, Jay Finch. Novak threatens to file some harassment charges, blah blah blah.

Sheriff Beth is breaking the news to the Curtises (Heather's husband Shawn, and the son who'd been hiding throughout the attack) that she may have put the wrong man in prison for their murders. She wants permission to question the son; he may have seen something. Little Danny is up for the challenge. In flashback, we see Danny taking a cookie from a cow-shaped cookie jar that moos when opened. His mom hears him and tells him to put it back, but he hides under the sink to eat it, which is when the bad guy comes into the house. Danny sees the guy kill his mom and grandma (but we can't see the killer's face from Danny's under-sink perspective), then hears him eat a cookie, go out the back door, fire a couple of shots. Danny thought he was gone, but then he came back in the front door and called the police. Catherine opens the cookie jar (moooo) and finds a bloody fingerprint. Well that is the kind of helpful evidence they need!

Now Catherine does a lab montage, determining whose fingerprint that is and whose blood it is. It's Mary and Heather's blood mixed together, and it's Jay Finch's fingerprint. It's also Mary and Heather's blood on Jay Finch's knife from the original Addie Finch case. They finally got him. High-five.

The SWAT team arrives at the Finch house to find Jay cutting the crusts off a sandwich. Jay is clearly not mentally well; he is agitated, but continues to make and eat his sandwich while SWAT arrests him. Catherine and Nick examine the house and find a one of those school composition notebooks hidden in the closet. He has written pages and pages of "There's no place like home." In flashback, we figure out that Jay had been driving for days; he was tired and hungry and came upon a house that looked like his house. When Mary and Heather wouldn't let him in, he killed them. And ate a cookie.

Novak comes by the lab and tells Catherine he won't be defending Finch this time. He doesn't take on cases he can't win. Cath says if he really wants to defend the innocent, he should look up Robert Guffey.

Grissom's last goodbye is to Sarah. She acts like it's no big deal, and then he says quietly, "I'll miss you." Awwww.

The last scene is a delivery dude leaving a package on Grissom's desk over eerie music. It's another miniature. Wait, isn't Ernie Dell out of the picture? Too bad Grissom's already gone and won't open the package till he's back from sabbatical.