Butterflied

Infobox Television episode | Title = Butterflied
Series =
Season = 4
Episode = 12
Guests= Romy Rosemont (Jacqui Franco)
Erinn Carter (Debbie Marlin)
Airdate = January 15, 2004
Production =
Writer = David Rambo
Director = Richard J. Lewis
Prev = Eleven Angry Jurors
Next = Suckers

"Butterflied" is the 12th episode of the of the popular American crime drama "" which is set in Las Vegas, Nevada

Plot

The episode opens with Grissom walking down the hall of Debbie Marlin's residence wearing protective bags over his feet in order to not disturb the crime scene. He notices the house has been prepared for a romantic night in and also spots a single trail of footprints walking normal pace in front of him and then running back towards the front door him on the carpet. He reaches the bathroom where Debbie Marlin is kneeling on the floor wearing low-riding jeans and a spaghetti-strapped top. Her thong is showing and so is the butterfly tattoo on her lower back. She is dead and a pool of blood surrounds her. Her face is turned towards the entrance, facing Grissom and he is shocked to see that Debbie Marlin bears a startling resemblance to his co-worker, Sara Sidle.

Grissom goes outside and immediately spots Sara, he stares at her. Brass interrupts him and Grissom tells him that no one apart from CSI is allowed in the house. Without being able to control himself, Grissom's eyes return to stare, again, at Sara.

After the opening credits, Grissom tells his team what their jobs are. He tells Warrick to look at both cars parked in Debbie Marlin’s driveway. Brass informs them that one of the cars belongs to the victim's friend who called in the death. Sara is told to take the perimeter as Grissom is trying to prevent her from going inside the house and noticing the resemblance. Catherine will be assisting Grissom inside.

But first, Catherine has to speak to the victim's friend, Kelly McNeil. Kelly tells Catherine that she and the victim were best friends and worked together as nurses at Desert Palms Hospital. She said the victim canceled their lunch plans because she was meeting with Michael Clark, a doctor she had been romantically involved with. Kelly was the person who found Debbie, and she tells Catherine that she touched nothing when she was inside the house and also that she thought Michael's relationship with the deceased must have been special because she had never before canceled plans with Kelly for a man. She also says that she didn't see Michael Clark or Debbie Marlin at work today, assuming they both played 'hooky'.

Meanwhile, Brass questions another neighbor, Jeff Pike, who seemed overly interested in the situation. He says he knows the business of everyone on his street and suggests that Marlin was promiscuous and that he had no chance with her because he wasn't a doctor, and nurses are only interested in doctors. Brass asks him if he saw any cars and Pike replies that a black Mercedes E320 came around lunch time two days ago and left around dinner time. Brass excuses himself and calls to place a search on the car under the name of Michael Clark, and Sara tells Warrick that she found nothing outside of the house that could be used for evidence.

Warrick, who is looking at the cars in the driveway, says there’s lots of evidence in the car. Bananas, stuffed mushrooms, chocolate syrup, a six-pack of soda, a box of condoms. Sara suggests that Marlin was interrupted as she took her groceries out of her car in preparation for her date.

The camera focuses on Sara's face and then fades into very similar Debbie Marlin's face. Catherine and Grissom process the bathroom Debbie was found in. Catherine smells bleach in the room and remarks that the arterial spray is neck-high, suggesting she was standing when she was attacked. The blood evidence also shows that she bled out but Grissom says that there is a lack of footprints in the blood and that Debbie looks like she's been positioned to have her face towards the door, suggesting the killer is sending a message.

Sara and Warrick look inside Debbie's fridge and find fresh milk and from the expiry date they conclude that Debbie bought the unopened milk 2 days ago.

Grissom and Catherine find both blood and bleach inside the drains in the bathroom, which confuses them because it is in both the bath and the sink drains and makes them wonder where all the blood came from. They send Sara to look at the pipes. Sara crawls under the house and collects red-stained water from the pipes.

Grissom and Catherine use luminol to see where the blood is and find that it appears to be everywhere, in wipes and swirls showing that the killer cleaned everywhere in the bathroom except for in the shower where Debbie was positioned. Grissom wonders aloud where all the blood comes from.

At the hospital, Brass questions Vincent Lurie on Michael Clark's whereabouts and finds he hasn't been to work today even though he was scheduled to. Lurie, upon hearing that Clark is a suspect, says he hopes Brass is wrong about him.

Grissom and Catherine find that Debbie Marlin has no cleaning supplies, which, together with the fact she had just been shopping, lead them to think the killer used them to clean up after himself. This leads Grissom and Catherine to searching the bins outside Marlin's residence. There, Grissom notices one particular bin that has flies around it, and when he opens it he finds blood-covered towels and the remnants of the killer's cleaning up efforts. However, he also finds a zip-lock bag with human flesh inside it and assumes that there must be more human flesh in the rest of the bins.

Grissom, Warrick and Catherine, with a team of searchers, look through all the bins and find the rest of the bags of flesh. Catherine comments that she can confirm the victim was male when she finds what is assumed to be the victim's genitalia. Warrick finds his clothes, neatly folded and then finds the victim's face in another plastic bag. He comments that if this is the boyfriend, Michael Clark, then Detective Brass is searching for a ghost.

Back at the lab, Sara takes the water from the pipes to Greg Sanders and finds several hairs in the pipes, which she then finds out has had the DNA in it denatured because of the bleach. But then she notices a hair in the pipe that may have been missed by the bleach and has a skin tag.

Doc Robbins in the autopsy room tells Catherine that the victim found in the bins had been killed by a clean wound to the neck, probably from a scalpel. Robbins also tells her that it took him half an hour to fillet a 25-pound fish he caught and that he estimated the time it took for the victim to be dismembered to be around 12 hours, especially considering the accuracy with which it was performed. They guess, from the level of expertise used to dismember the victim, that the killer was probably a surgeon. Catherine tells him to print his fingers and send them to their fingerprint analyst.

Grissom is still at Debbie's house, looking at her dressing table where there are butterflies and pictures of Debbie Marlin. He looks troubled as the resemblance to Sara is obvious and he imagines Debbie Marlin sitting at the dresser, looking back over her shoulder at Grissom. His vision then changes to Sara looking back over her shoulder at him, and his phone rings and he automatically picks it up to find Sara on the other end, startling him. He tells her he's in a ‘bad area’ and will speak to her later.

The scene then cuts to Sara walking down the hall at the CSI headquarters on the phone to Grissom. She tells him about her skin tag and offers to help at the crime scene. Grissom says he doesn't need her help and that she should stay at the lab so she goes to help Warrick with the car that belonged to Michael Clark which has been found by Brass in an airport car park.

They find it spotless as it has been cleaned thoroughly except for the driver's seat which they conclude must've been covered by something. They find a piece of black plastic that looks like it was torn from a black plastic bag caught in the driver's seat. Warrick sits in it and figures out that Michael Clark was not the last person to drive it as the seat has been moved back for someone taller than Warrick, who is six foot two, and Clark was only five foot nine.

In the conference room, Sara, Warrick and Catherine talk to Grissom on the phone and go over the case. They start with Debbie coming home with her groceries two days before she was found. In between emptying her car she prepares her apartment for Michael Clark's visit, putting candles out and such. Then Clark's car arrives at around noon. At this point, Greg turns up and tells them that the hair Sara found in the pipe was a match to the flesh found in the bins and that the second victim is Michael Clark, which has been confirmed by his fingerprints.

They figure out that all the violence happened in the bathroom as there is no blood elsewhere, and also that Michael Clark was dead in the bathtub as that was where the pipe she collected the hair evidence from came from. Catherine says the bathroom wasn't big enough to kill two people at the same time in, so they believe that Marlin was killed first and positioned. The killer then waited for Michael Clark to arrive. He killed Michael and dismembered him in the bathtub. Throughout this scene, it is Grissom who takes the place of the killer in the several flashbacks demonstrating what happened - Grissom positions Marlin and is there when Clark is dead in the bathtub with Marlin still kneeling on the floor. Grissom imagining himself in the killers' place is likely a reference to Grissoms' perception that he has something in common with the killer, which is an issue brought up later in the episode. Catherine asks why the killer spent so much time and effort cutting Michael Clark up but left Debbie Marlin as she was, and Grissom replies that the killer's anger was directed more at Clark than Marlin.

After this scene, Grissom continues to obsessively process all of the carpets in Debbie Marlin's house, looking for evidence. We see various shots of him on his hands and knees checking for blood. Catherine turns up and forces him to take a break; she gives him peanut butter and yogurt from the victim's fridge. They discuss the case and also the fact that Grissom has worked 3 shifts in a row without sleep and that he’s lost his edge and won’t be able to find any evidence without some sleep. Grissom insists on continuing until he finds something.

Meanwhile, Warrick searches through the vacuum bag found in the bin for evidence of what the killer vacuumed up as he was cleaning up after himself. Sara joins him. They find white fibres from the spare bedroom, which is not on the exit or entry path to the bathroom. They also find a butterfly charm that looks like it has been ripped from a charm bracelet.

When Grissom is refreshed, they carry on processing the scene. In the bedroom they find that Marlin had clean sheets, ready for a date and also find toe prints on her bedstead and silk ties attached to the mattress. Warrick calls them and tells Grissom about the butterfly charm, and tells him to look in the spare room. Grissom goes in there and sees other butterfly bracelets and jewellery and a collection of butterflies. He finds a broken charm in the jewellery box, a match to the one found in the vacuum bag. Catherine joins him and they find another hair, and Grissom says that that is why he stayed working for three shifts without a proper break.

Sara has to compare the toe prints from Debbie's bed to the two victims, which means she has to see Debbie Marlin. She prints her toes while Debbie is covered in a sheet, but curiosity gets the better of her and she can't help but look at her face. She looks grim when she notices the similarity between herself and the victim. Later, she lies and tells Catherine that she didn't look at the victim's face when she printed the toes.

Catherine goes to the hospital where Marlin and Michael Clark worked to print the employee's toes to sample taken from the bed. They find a match at the hospital to Dr Tripton, who tells them that the victim was quite well-known for having relationships with doctors at the hospital and for being provocative. Brass mentions that Tripton took the day off the same day Debbie and Clarke were killed, but let him off because he seems to have an alibi.

Greg tells Grissom that there was an oily substance on the hair found in Debbie Marlin's spare room that has the following four chemicals on it; ethyl alcohol, propylene glycol, minoxidil, and finasteride. Greg launches into a tale about his "Papa Olaf", and they say that it is a treatment for baldness. Grissom then goes to Doc Robbins to try to find out if the murderer was left or right-handed, and although it's not sustainable in court, Robbins tells him that the killer was probably left-handed.

Grissom and Greg then use a special type of torch to look at all the male surgeons in the hospital and find that Vincent Lurie uses the same treatment for his baldness that was found on the hair in the spare room. They take him in for questioning and find out that the broken bracelet in the victim's home was given to her by Lurie. Lurie's lawyer dismisses all of their evidence as either circumstantial or not admissible in court. Brass says that they have a theory. They think that Lurie killed Marlin and Clark because Marlin broke up with Lurie to be with Clark. In a jealous rage, he murdered them both and then dissected Clark's body and disposed of them. The lawyer says that they don't have a case and stands to leave.

As Lurie is going through the door, Grissom starts to talk to Lurie. He had previously been silent for the interrogation. He says: "It's sad, isn't it, doc? Guys like us. Couple of middle-aged men who've allowed their work to consume their lives. The only time we ever touch other people is when we're wearing our latex gloves. We wake up one day and realize that for fifty years we haven't really lived at all. But then, all of a sudden ... we get a second chance. Somebody young and beautiful shows up. Somebody ...we could care about. She offers us a new life with her ...but we have a big decision to make, right? Because we have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her. I couldn't do it... but you did. You risked it all.. and she showed you a wonderful life, didn't she? But then she took it away and gave it to somebody else...and you were lost. So you took her life. You killed them both, and now you have nothing."

Lurie responds to this saying 'I’m still here’ and Grissom simply looks at him and asks "Are you?" It is made clear that Lurie was the killer but since they have no evidence he will walk away.

Throughout Grissom's speech we see flashbacks of the events leading up to the murder and the murder itself.

The final scene is of Sara standing in the observation room staring at Grissom. She glares through the glass at Grissom as Lurie finally leaves the room. It's not clear how long she's been there or what she heard, but it is suggested that she was there the entire time. She stares into the room through the mirror at a defeated looking Grissom.

ee also

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External links

*imdb title|id=0534661|title=Butterflied
*Tv.com episode|id=286380|title=Butterflied
*csiguide episode|id=134|title=Butterflied
* [http://www.csifiles.com/episodes/csi/season4/butterflied.shtml "Butterflied"] at CSI Files
* [http://www.grissomsararomance.com/ Grissom and Sara fansite]