Dead and Unburied (NCIS)

Infobox Television episode | Title = Dead and Unburied
Colour =
Series = NCIS
Season = 4
Episode = 5


Airdate = October 17, 2006
Production = 4x05
Writer = Nell Scovell
Director = Colin Bucksey
Guests = Brian Dietzen as Jimmy Palmer Liza Lapira as Michelle Lee
Episode list = Episode chronology
Prev = Faking It
Next = Witch Hunt

"Dead and Unburied" is the 75^th episode of the drama television series "NCIS".

Plot

This episode opens with a real estate agent getting the shock of her life while doing a "showing" of a house to hopeful would-be home owners, as she discovers a months old dead body settled into a chair in front of the fireplace - in a house she'd shown only the previous day.

The team is called in to investigate the death of and belated discovery of the unfortunate Lance Corporal. Quickly determining the body had been buried, then dug up and placed inside the house the team divides up, McGee going to find the place of burial, and Ziva questioning the real estate agent, who also turns out to be part owner of the house in question. It isn't until after the team returns to NCIS that things really take a turn for confusing when not one, but TWO fiancées of the dead Lance Corporal arrive in response to a news bulletin about the body's discovery. Apparently the dead Lance Corporal not only borrowed a large sum of money from each fiancée, he had been sending them letters from his post overseas for months after he died.

Things begin to come together in the case with the discovery of a "pal" who accepted $200 dollars to regularly send letters to the girls from the dead Lance Corporal; and McGee and Ziva's discovery of a bag with $78,000 in gold coins in the Corporal's rented storage locker. Meanwhile Abby discovers two matches for female dna found in the underwear the corpse was wearing - one of the fiancée’s and, surprise!, one of the real estate agent who is part owner of the house.

While Gibbs is questioning the lady, Ducky first interrupts the interrogation to declare "she didn't do it", and then, with McGee and Abby's help, gets a confession - from the lady's husband. The husband had jealously watched the meeting between his wife and the Lance Corporal, and, when an accident left the Corporal lying face-first in floor insulation with a severe blow to the head, had acted to protect his wife’s future $2 million dollar inheritance by burying the body. With the recent death of his wife's father, and the inheritance being secured, the husband had decided the "resurfacing" of the body might just leave him holding all the money, and his unfaithful wife in prison for the murder. Only after the husband confesses to "merely" burying the body of the man his wife had killed does Ducky reveals the Lance Corporal had still been alive when he was buried, leading to a furiously upset wife and somewhat stunned husband being led away.

The case isn't quite over though as an anxious Ziva reveals she left the bag of gold coins unattended on her desk and they are now missing. She's very relieved when Gibbs hands her a completed evidence check-in form, and then surprised to discover the amount is listed at only $18,000 - Gibbs having saved the court some paperwork and returning the "borrowed" money to the Lance Corporal Fiancée’s. Only one problem...McGee then introduces Gibbs to a just arrived THIRD fiancée.