The Unusual Suspect

Season 6, Episode 18, Aired
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Episode Summary

When a student is arrested and tried for the murder of a popular high-school girl, the suspect's 12-year-old sister confesses to the crime. This results in the judge giving the prosecution 72 hours to re-examine the evidence before the jury delivers its verdict.
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Fan Episode Reviews (35)

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  • No Brass, Greg or Grissom! Can you really call it an episode?

    6.3
    "Fair"
    By beer_nuts, May 16, 2011 Report Abuse
    A genius girl, a wonderful plot, crazy ending, but it wasn't that good. A prodigal kid shows up on the show. Man! I would have loved to see her interact with Grissom, but no! Its a Sarah and Nic episode. Also this entire season has been nothing but one case shows. Am i the only one whos misses the good ol' two or more cases. It gives more of the characters room to shine instead of cutting them out completly. Come on CSI you can do better!moreless

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    1 2

  • A great mystery with a twist.

    9.4
    "Superb"
    By Catwoman87531, May 16, 2011 Report Abuse
    What a wonderful episode.

    I found myself going through the same steps as the characters. First totally believing that she was lying to cover for her brother. Then wondering if she could have really done this, but believing that she would have needed help.

    Then was it the brother or maybe the victim's boyfriend?? Then to see Warrick's niece dragging that body, I was surprised that she got the body as far as she did. Then Hannah came up with the cart, wow.....

    When she went up to hug her brother after he was found not guilty, I had feeling that she would do anything for him and started to suspect that she had lied.

    In her conversation with Sara, she was explaining that she could sell the story, I never expected her to actual confess at the end that she lied....
    moreless

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  • Fantastic episode! The writers really did a good job with this episode. Throughout the entire episode, you never quite new if she did it or not. Everytime that you thought that you had it all figured out, something was revealed that made you doubt you assmoreless

    9.5
    "Superb"
    By edmorita, May 16, 2011 Report Abuse
    Aside from the great writing, the acting was superb. Juliette Goglia as Hannah West did a great job, and easily kept up with the adults. Through out the entire episode, everyone kept saying how smart she was, almost to the point where it was annoying. All right, we get the point. She's smart! But the pay off in the end showed that the twelve year old really was the smartest person in the episode. Although in all fairness, Grissom was noticeably absent from this episode.moreless

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  • A great mystery tonight.

    9.0
    "Superb"
    By Loswellias, May 16, 2011 Report Abuse
    Tonight a gifted child confesses to killing a girl that her brother has been charged with killing, while she is on the witness stand.

    The girl only 12, but she is a genius, so she is capable of thinking up the crime and c over up, but isn't physically strong enough to commit the act.

    Nick believes the girl is covering for her brother, Sarah believes the girl did it.

    The brother is acquitted and the girl confesses to Sarah that she didn't kill the girl, her brother did.
    Sarah sat there with a dumbfounded look on her face. It was great, you could tell she felt suckered.

    moreless

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  • Fine example Once again CSI decides to a real time episode much like they did with "Invisible Evidence" and so the case takes on a greater sense of urgency to the episode.moreless

    8.8
    "Great"
    By Minarvia, May 16, 2011 Report Abuse
    Once again CSI decides to a real time episode much like they did with "Invisible Evidence" and so the case takes on a greater sense of urgency to the episode.

    While yes, any murder case has a sense of urgency to it, but whenever the episode become a real time episode with a deadline over the CSI's head the urgency is greater felt in the episode. Because the audience knows for a fact that there is a real deadline that they have to face and that these people have to get their act together if they want to solve this case in the allotted them that is available to them.

    This time it centers around the fact that a younger sister of murder suspect confess in front of a full court that she was the one that did the crime and not her brother. A stunning revelation that throws entire case that was built up by the crime lab in a loop and thus throws up doubt in the minds of the CSIs, that they might of not seen it all. That somehow they gain tunnel version with this case, something that they all know that they shouldn't of get whenever they investigate a murder case. But it appears that somehow this had happen to them and now they have to take a second look at all of the evidence that they had collected to see if had missed anything important.

    In the start of the episode it appears that might be the case, but as the episode progresses it appears that there is more to all of this that what it appears to be. That this younger half-sister of the brother, who in fact is a genius, had a hand in this murder case and with all of the background information that she brought up to what this teenager had did to her in the past, a good source of her motive of why she did the prank that resulted in her death. In fact I started to believe that the two of them had a hand in this case and that I was on the side of Shara, whom felt that she was the one that had set up the prank.

    I also wasn't surprise of the verdict that the jury delivered at the end of the trail, I knew that was going to happen. But it was the last monuments in the episode that really gives this episode its strength and makes the episode worth the wait. That she didn't do the crime, her half-brother really did it and that she did all to bring up reasonable doubt so that her brother would acquitted of the crime. A slick and devious move on her part, which really breaks through the faade that she put up and really shows what kind of person she is. She is a cold hearted extremely intelligent woman that shows no values to others, only if they are apart of her family, if they aren't, who gives a care about them. This type of intelligent and view on the world is akin to how serial killers view their world.

    This type of person scares me, that while the world is safe when she is a child, with limited access to the world. What will happen to the world when she grows up? When she has full access to the world?moreless

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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  • Trivia

    ADD TRIVIA
    • Goof: When the CSI's are talking behind the glass with the Lawyer after the boyfriend has been interviewed (and cleared) the lawyer should say "so we're back to Marlon and Hannah" instead he says Malcolm and Hannah. Edit

  • Notes

    ADD NOTES
    • International Episode Titles: Czech Republic: Neobvyklá poderželá (Unusual Female Suspect) Edit
    • Music Featured In This Episode: Rock & Roll Queen- The Subways Someday You Will Be Loved- Death Cab for Cutie War- Cobra Edit
    • During a commercial, executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer announced that his company and GMC plan to donate several Yukons like the ones seen on the show to the police departments in Las Vegas & Los Angeles. Edit

  • Quotes

    ADD QUOTES
    • Sara: Stacy landed here and bled out from the trauma to her skull. Nick: Darcy, why don't you put those headphones back on? Darcy: Like I didn't hear what you just said. (Warrick smirks) Edit
    • Sara: I bet you really liked high school. Nick: Yeah playin' football, chasin' girls, books when I wanted to learn somethin', what's not to like? Warrick: Hey, guys. Nick: Hey. Warrick: This is Darcy, my wife Tina's niece. Sara: Hey, Darcy. (Darcy kinda waves) Nick: Yeah, you were right she's about Hannah's size. Warrick: More or less. Darcy: Stop talkin' about me. (Warrick pulls an earbud out of her ear) Hey, that was the best part! Warrick: That's what the pause button is for. It's time to work, it's child labor day. (Sara laughs) Edit
    • Hodges: Ah, teen lust. It starts with some chemistry, mess around with some biology. (Nick and Sara give each other looks) And once you have some experience under your belt then you introduce the physics. Apparently chivalry is not dead. The bloody fingerprint tested positive for nonoxynol spermicide. Nick: So much for the boyfriend. Sara: If we can't pin this on Hannah or Marlon they could both walk. Hodges: You could flip a coin. Edit

  • Allusions

    ADD ALLUSIONS
    • Mandy mentions the video game Grand Theft Auto in this episode. Grand Theft Auto is a video game in which you are a thug/gangster/hustler basically, a criminal. You steal cars, run drugs, steal money, murder people, amoung other things. Edit
    • Hannah's mother reports her IQ at 177. IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient, and is determined by a written test. Average IQ is 100, a person is considered retarded at 75 and a person is considered genius at 130. Super geniuses like Steven Hawking have 200+. The test is supposed to measure a person's capacity for learning and the result should not greatly alter over time, barring extraordinary events. However, the IQ test is debated because although many people with high IQs excel in academic areas, not all do. Edit
    • Hodges: Does that make Doogie Howserette our killer? Nick: No. Hodges is obviously referring to the Doogie Howser character on the TV series, Doogie Howser, M.D., which is about an exceptionally intelligent young man who was able to become a doctor at a very young age. Edit

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