CSI: Crime Scene Investigation s13e10 Episode Script
Risky Business Class
Foxtrot 1-5-Tango, L.
A.
Center.
Please clarify your situation.
Foxtrot 1-5-Tango, do you copy? Foxtrot 1-5-Tango, please respond.
Hey, Gil, just wanted to hear your voice.
It's kind of a slow night here.
Give me a call if you get a chance.
Las Vegas Approach, L.
A.
Center.
Be advised you have inbound traffic.
They are not responding.
Roger that, L.
A.
Center.
I've got him on radar.
Do you have any idea of his intent? He radioed an emergency, said he was inbound.
No contact for almost 12 minutes.
Foxtrot 1-5-Tango, this is Las Vegas Approach.
Low-altitude alert.
Climb immediately.
Repeat, climb immediately.
It's crazy! All these lights-- no wonder you can see this place from space.
Oh, my God! Did you see that? This was shot about 40 minutes ago, right before a charter aircraft nosed into the ground at Tresser Park.
That's just a mile off the Strip.
This is NTSB investigator Doug Wilson.
He's gonna be leading the crash investigation.
You-you two guys worked together before, right? Yeah.
Yeah, on an NTSB crash scene when I worked at the San Francisco Crime Lab.
Right now, we have very little information.
Where did the flight originate? LV Regional Airport, heading for Chicago.
the pilot reported an unspecified emergency, turned the plane around, - and after that, radio silence.
- From the moment it turned around, made a beeline for the Strip.
And almost, as you just saw, slammed into the Mediterranean Casino Tower, missing it by about half a dozen feet.
So you're thinking this wasn't an accident? I'm not sure.
But it's certainly a mystery why the pilot stopped communicating with the tower, why the plane nose-dived near the Strip, what happened on that plane.
All questions we need answers to.
Answers we're hoping you CSIs can provide through evidence.
So, was it an accident or foul play? This is what we need to find out.
Who are you? Who, who, who, who? Who are you? Who, who, who, who? I really wanna know Who are you? Oh-oh-oh Who Come on, tell me who are you, you, you Are you! Vegas Approach, Foxtrot 1-5-Tango.
Got a situation here.
Requesting permission for immediate return.
Boy, it's not a lot to go on for a distress call.
That's what I thought, until I enhanced the audio.
Vegas Approach, Foxtrot 1-5-Tango.
Got a situation here.
Requesting permission for immediate return.
Hey, where the hell are you? There's another voice in the cockpit.
- Sounds agitated.
- Yeah.
Could be a hijacker.
So far, we've only found one body in the cockpit wreckage.
It's got to be the pilot.
Keith Mannheim, co-owner of LVM Charter.
Well, we also found additional remains.
How many bodies? Can't say.
With a charter plane this size, there's no requirement for a passenger manifest.
As for how many were on the aircraft and who, well, we're gonna need your help with that.
NTSB has secured the crash site, right? Nick and David Phillips are coordinating the recovery of human remains.
They're already on scene.
Morgan and Greg are heading out to collect personal effects.
Could help with identifications.
Right.
What about the black box? Still haven't recovered it.
Was about to head back to the site; could use some help.
Two of you have worked together before-- you probably have your own shorthand.
It's a good idea.
All right, let's get to work.
Lot of eyes on this.
We need answers.
You know, I think I should drive this time.
Thank you.
Oh, 'cause you're scared of going more than 20 miles per hour? Hojem-Sanders! I was hoping I'd see you! Hey, Donna.
What are you doing here? Are you looking for me? Me, actually.
Which means you must be Morgan Brody.
Yes.
Hi.
I am so sorry.
We just got a call out, and I completely forgot about our appointment.
Appointment? How do you two? Doc Robbins recommended Donna.
He was blown away by your genealogy work on his family.
You said on the phone that you had some family history for me? I did, and it's on my desk.
But I'm so sorry, we have to get to a crime scene.
Oh, that's all right.
You go do what you have to do, and I'll work here.
Believe me, there's a lot of Brodys out there.
Oh, Brody's actually my stepfather's last name.
I'm interested in Ecklie.
Oh, your biological father.
Of course.
Don't tell me.
You still trying to prove he's not your dad? Uh, just kidding.
Christmas is coming, and I want to get my dad something special, so I thought maybe a family crest.
How wonderful.
Okay.
You go do your thing, and I'll get to work here.
Thanks.
Ready to roll? Just about.
Just like old times, right? Very old times.
Heard you, uh, married your boss.
What's his name again? Gil.
Right.
Grissom.
Bug guy.
You still married to what's-her-name? Candy? Candy, right.
Yoga instructor.
No, no, we crashed and burned years ago.
Yeah, I didn't see that coming.
Yeah, you did.
Just like old times.
Hey, Doc.
How's it going? Hey.
What do you got for me? On the left gurney are the remains from the cockpit.
In front of me and on the right, remains recovered from the passenger cabin area.
And we ran DNA on a small sample of those remains.
Turns out we have one Jane and two John Does.
So in addition to what I assume is our pilot, we have three unidentified passengers.
Looks like I've got something here.
Take a look.
Looks like a T-10 or T-11 vertebra.
What's that? Part of the fuselage? David, hand me that, would you? Yeah.
Hmm, looks like shrapnel.
Surrounding tissue appears deteriorated-- this guy was in pain.
And over a long period of time.
Just a second.
Radioactive? As I suspected.
I think I know how we can identify at least this victim.
Dalton Burk? Not a good time right now.
We're from the crime lab.
We're here investigating the crash.
Crime lab? I don't understand.
What happened was an accident, right? Well, that's why we're here.
There was no passenger manifest filed for the flight, so 'Cause Keith was flying solo-- VFR.
He doesn't need to; there were no passengers.
Well, we found three other bodies in the wreckage.
That's impossible-- Keith was alone.
Told me he was flying home to visit his folks for a few days in Chicago.
I'm sorry, man.
I think he told you wrong.
Can you explain how three other people might get on your plane without you knowing? Keith and I are business partners.
We each focus on different aspects of the company.
Normally, I do the booking, but obviously he must've booked some passengers on his own.
Why are you asking me all these questions? Is there something you're not telling me? When you say Keith was your business partner, how well did you know him? Well, it's not any of your business, but we were a couple.
We were together for the last 15 years.
So, if it seems like I'm not in the mood to talk right now, you're right.
We're really sorry for your loss.
We do need to confirm that one of the bodies that we found was indeed Keith's.
So, if you could get us a toothbrush, a hairbrush, anything that might have Keith's DNA on it, that'd be great, okay? Yeah, I'll get that to you.
Yeah, you're gonna love Donna.
She's awesome.
She totally got me hooked on genealogy.
She seems cool.
I found this mixed with the personal effects.
Take a look.
Looks like a section of airplane carpeting.
Yup.
Melted around something.
Whoa, I got a gun.
It could be our hijacker's.
Can you hold this open for me? Nine-millimeter Beretta, receiver's torqued.
Damage from the fire.
Three rounds left in the magazine.
Someone could have fired it.
And I think we might know who.
Shrapnel in one of the victims turned out to contain depleted uranium.
You mean, like from a battlefield? So the guy's a vet? Right, and the V.
A.
had X-rays on file matched to a Charles Harrigan.
Made headlines last year, when he got into a fight and got tossed out of the Mediterranean.
Yeah, he, uh, gambled away his home, his car, his wife-- he blamed the casino.
Camped out in front to keep people from going in.
Maybe commandeering an airplane and trying to crash it into the casino was his form of revenge.
That's what I'm thinking, so let's run the gun, see if it traces back to Harrigan.
All right.
Flight data recorder's intact.
Wish we had the cockpit voice recorder, too.
Yeah, join the club.
They're not required for smaller charters.
Hey, did you hear that the Rusty Nickel closed? Well, that's about time.
That bar gave dives a bad name.
What are you talking about? You loved that place.
Well, yeah, you're right, I did love it, right up until the moment that they kicked me out for life.
They did do that.
Yup.
Okay, moving on.
So, we have the primary flight display up.
It should show us everything on the instrument panel.
is 250 knots, altitude is 29,800 feet and climbing, heading is 50 degrees-- all normal.
Looks like there's a slight decrease in cabin pressure.
Pilot's turning around, making a descent, looks like he's putting in vectors to return to the airport.
What the hell just happened? Massive depressurization.
30,000 feet, virtually no oxygen, temperature is 34 below.
They were dead before they even hit the ground.
The plane just kept going.
Vector entries kept it on course all the way to the ground.
Barely missing the Mediterranean Tower.
Mm-hmm.
Why the depressurization? Gunshot, maybe.
We know there was a gun on board.
A bullet hole alone wouldn't trigger that kind of event.
This was instantaneous, catastrophic.
Like a bomb? Bomb would've taken out the avionics and hydraulics.
Plane wouldn't have stayed on course.
All right, what's left, then? Uh, maybe a window blew out, or a door.
Whatever it is, it had to fall to earth, right? Extrapolating from their position at the time of depressurization and factoring in their altitude and their velocity, I mean, I can zero in on their location.
Always the physics major.
I tell you what, I'm going to take my physics and I'm gonna find whatever fell out of your airplane.
And what about me? What do I do? Well, you're going to build me a plane.
Well, you found the door.
Still don't know what happened.
Let's go with our gunshot theory.
We're traveling at 30,000 feet.
I'm Harrigan.
I am going to take over the plane and I'm going to fly it into the Mediterranean.
Payback for bankrupting you in one night at the tables.
I pull my nine-mil and I start for the cockpit.
But one of the other passengers sees you.
Jane or John Doe.
Tries to overpower you.
And we struggle for the gun.
We're struggling.
In that struggle, the gun goes off, hitting the cabin door.
Would explain the initial slow loss of cabin pressure.
And then Harrigan breaks free commandeers the plane.
Pilot only has time to radio once and turns the plane around.
It was what Harrigan wanted anyway: to return to Vegas on a suicide mission.
Yeah, and what he doesn't realize is that the cabin door is already compromised.
Bullet must've hit the door somewhere.
I'm not seeing anything.
No holes, no marks.
Must be missing something.
Just saying.
Maybe the bullet hit a cabin door seal and compromised it.
I got something.
Bullet hole? No, but I think our inside job just turned into an outside job.
Tool marks on the outside edge.
This door was tampered with before the plane even took off.
Sabotage.
We've been looking at this the wrong way.
Maybe the motive wasn't hijacking.
Maybe it was straight-up murder.
So the plane was doomed before it even took off.
Yeah, somebody on the ground made sure of that.
Tampered with the cabin door seal.
The seal couldn't handle the increasing pressure, and finally the door blew out.
We're talking murder now, not hijacking.
Somebody on that plane was targeted.
We've got our pilot, Keith Mannheim, and our other three remaining passengers, but so far we've only identified one: Charles Harrigan, the man we thought was our hijacker.
You know, if he got into a squabble with the Mediterranean, maybe he got into a fight with someone else, somebody he shouldn't have.
Yeah, it could have put a target on his back, or maybe the target's just one of the other passengers, our John or Jane Doe.
There is one other possibility.
What's that? Maybe the plane was the target.
Didn't see this on the outside of the door.
Must have gotten wedged in the seal.
Got paint trace from what I hope is our outil de sabotage.
It's all yours.
So this, uh, NTSB guy, Wilson.
Seems like a good sort.
He is.
When you guys worked together in Frisco, were you, uh close? Well, it was a pretty lengthy investigation.
We spent a lot of time together.
Yeah, there's spending time together, and there's spending time together.
What are you getting at, Hodges? I-I-I'm not getting at anything.
How's it going in here? Well, the Mikrosil's ready.
Good.
Good cast.
No bubbles.
You can see the tool marks.
Helps if you get in close, doesn't it? Is that is that paint transfer? Indeed.
Don't you have, like, a machine to go put that in? Say no more.
Three's a crowd.
Come and knock on my door.
What's his problem? Don't even get me started.
These marks are paired.
I'm thinking that the tool might have been two-pronged.
Can you tell what kind of tool it was? No, but between the Mikrosil cast and the paint chips, if we find it, we should get a match.
You know, whoever tampered with this cabin door knew exactly what they were doing.
Too much damage and the plane wouldn't have pressurized at all Setting off a warning light in the cabin.
The pilot would've turned the plane around immediately.
Too little damage would've had no effect at all.
Saboteur had to get it just right.
Suggests an intimate knowledge of the plane.
Hello! Are you Hal? Yeah, I'm Hal.
Yeah, the same Hal that, uh, did the maintenance on that charter jet that went down last night? I-I already gave the logs to NTSB.
Look, I'm good at what I do.
I checked and double-checked every system on that plane.
Well, we're not saying that an oversight caused it to crash.
No, we're saying somebody brought it down.
Can you tell us about your relationship with LVN Charter.
Yeah, my relationship is fine.
Been taking care of their plane ever since I left Beaufort.
When was the last time they paid you? Yeah, it's been a while.
Been a while? It's been, like, four months, hasn't it? They owe you over six grand.
Hey, look, I'm not going to sabotage a plane over a lousy six grand.
These are your tools, right? Yeah, they're my tools.
Well, you certainly have an interesting way of marking them.
Helps me keep track of them.
Green color is the same that we found on the cabin door.
What? You're saying somebody messed with the plane using my tools? No, we're wondering if maybe you messed with it.
I didn't mess with it, all right? I been in Laughlin the last couple of days.
I got back this morning.
Yeah, well, I'm packing up your tools.
They're coming with me now.
These tools are my livelihood.
Hey, you maintain a jet that took a nose dive into the ground last night, I don't think your phone's ringing off the hook.
Is it? Sorry.
Quick question.
I'm having a little trouble searching your father's surname.
Did you ever see it spelled E-K-L-I? Actually, yes.
I think my grandfather.
I've seen him spell it that way.
Brilliant.
I knew it.
Uh, I have a question for you.
In your genealogy work, have you heard of I.
T.
S.
Labs? Indeed I have.
I.
T.
S.
is a DNA lab in Dallas.
Their business specializes in do-it-yourself DNA analysis in paternity suits.
Paternity suits? Mm-hmm.
The lab mails you a DNA kit, you do your own swabbing.
Wrap it up and mail it back.
Answer comes in a couple of weeks.
There's no name on the return label.
Well, for confidentiality, they use serial numbers to identify the client.
Look at the shipping label.
Great.
With a warrant, I might have Jane Doe's I.
D.
You may also have motive.
I'm sorry.
I couldn't help but overhear about the plane being sabotaged.
You know that paternity suits are particularly contentious.
Contentious enough to make Jane Doe our target? I remember hearing about a fast-food franchise mogul who fathered a child with his secretary, and when she tried to prove paternity and get child support, he, uh, dunked her in the fryer.
I'm just throwing it out there.
I'm just going to give this to Henry.
You can take that.
I'll come back.
No, that's all right.
I-I'll call him back later.
If you ever feel like talking You ever tried the long-distance thing? No, but I think it would have helped my relationship with husband number two.
Ah, the Seattle ex? Yeah.
What was that like, seeing him again? It was weird.
And then it wasn't.
You know, I wondered why you took a later flight.
What about your NTSB guy? Is that weird? Very weird.
Gonna stay that way? It has to, right? This looks promising.
Similar tool marks as the sabotage that we found on the cabin door.
Can you pass me those, uh, paint chips that Hodges found? Sure.
Thanks.
Got a physical match.
Got a murder weapon.
But not a murder suspect.
Hal the mechanic's alibi checked out.
Eye in the sky at the Lucky Stakes Casino in Laughlin had him at the tables three nights in a row.
So Hal's off the hook.
But somebody helped themselves to his tools.
Yeah, someone who had access to the airport.
Surveillance hasn't come in yet, but maybe we'll get lucky and find our killer on it.
Well, in the meantime, we have a lead on our other John Doe.
The gun's not registered to Harrigan like we thought.
It's actually registered to a Jeffrey Forsythe.
He's a partner in a law firm downtown.
Brass called the office.
Apparently, Forsythe wasn't on the plane.
Maybe he knows who was.
Mr.
Forsythe, we matched the serial numbers on this gun found at the crash site to you.
It's your gun.
I lent it to my colleague, my friend Grant Abbott.
He was on that plane.
Our firm uses LVN Charters exclusively.
Grant told me he was flying to Chicago last week.
He used to live there, still has a place.
He'd decided to take a little time off.
Why? Same reason he was carrying my gun.
Grant is the go-to criminal attorney at our firm.
He represents numerous clients with uh, proclivities to violence.
Did Mr.
Abbott have any concerns about any of these clients in particular? I can tell you that Grant a misunderstanding with one client, who subsequently fired our firm and made veiled threats.
I'm going to need that name.
Donna, I've heard so much about you.
It's a pleasure to meet you.
The pleasure is mine.
Donna was helping me with my family tree, but now she is helping us with a case.
We found a DNA kit in our Jane Doe's luggage.
Thanks to Donna, we were able to trace it back to a private lab.
They gave us a name.
Jordan Lowell, Chicago address.
Requested a kit two weeks ago from I.
T.
S.
Labs.
What's that about? Well, we think she may have been looking for proof of paternity in a potential child support case.
Jordan Lowell may have had a baby with the wrong kind of guy.
Okay, do we know if she used the, uh, DNA kit? It looks that way.
Henry's running the swabs now.
If the victim was able to obtain an exemplar from the father, you could have the DNA of the killer.
We could.
You're right.
Then again, I just got a call from Brass.
Turns out that the passenger with the gun was a criminal attorney who may have disappointed a client.
Hey.
Yeah? You're not going to believe this.
A lady in Henderson returned home from a business trip, found some dude floating in her pool.
So? He came from the plane.
There was another passenger on board? No.
According to the driver's license, he was the pilot, Keith Mannheim.
So if he's our pilot, who's the dead guy in the cockpit? Doc, I thought we already found our pilot.
Please, make sense of this for me.
I'll try.
Prints and DNA both confirm this body-- the one pulled out of a pool in Henderson-- is our pilot.
Keith Mannheim.
Victim has a distinctive, crescent-shaped head wound.
Looks like some sort of blunt-force trauma unrelated to the rest of his injuries.
The skin tearing and fractures are both consistent with a high-altitude fall.
All right, what about the other remains that we found in the cockpit? Well, now that we know it's someone else, Henry's running the DNA.
So we have a mystery man that we found in the cockpit who is not the pilot.
How the hell does that work? So, we got five people on a plane.
If our pilot, Keith Mannheim, is at the controls, then our mystery man from the cockpit wreckage must have been sitting in the copilot's seat.
Two in front, three passengers in back.
At the 17-minute mark, we have the slow loss of cabin pressure.
Mannheim radios he's turning around.
Maybe the pilot wants to check something out.
Maybe that's why he gets out of his seat.
Yeah, but not before Mannheim enters in the vector coordinates for a return.
Making a slow descent.
A few seconds later, door blows.
And Mannheim gets sucked out the plane door.
Doc Robbins said that he had a crescent-shaped head wound.
Looks like he hit his head on the way out, huh? Uh-huh.
One mystery solved.
One step at a time.
Hey, guys.
Uh, Henry ran the DNA from our mystery man through CODIS, and he got a hit.
A parolee named Thurston Mayfield, aka Thor.
Thor? Specialized in writing phony checks, and recently was a dancer in an all-male revue.
Now, the club is just two blocks from the executive airport.
Brass talked to the owner.
It turns out that Thor quit last week.
He said he was moving in with his new boyfriend, Keith Mannheim.
That would explain why Thor was sitting up front in the cockpit.
Keith was flying his new boyfriend home to Chicago to meet the folks.
And if Keith's partner Dalton found out about it, might be reason enough to want them both dead.
You know that guy? No.
Classic case of "I didn't recognize him with his clothes on"" How about now? The place where he dances is right out by your airport.
Yeah, I guess.
I-I've been there a few times times with Keith.
Yeah, old Keith, he went there a lot on his own, didn't he? - What does that mean? - It means that we talked to some people at the club, and it, uh, turns out that Thor and Keith were having a thing.
It was kind of hot and heavy.
Well, if that's true, I didn't know about it.
Suppose you didn't know that Thor was on that plane, neither, huh? With Keith? Cockpit, right by Keith's side.
He was flying home to meet Keith's parents.
Yeah, it must suck having your partner cheat on you with someone like this.
That would really piss me off.
You know, maybe just enough to actually do something about it.
You think I brought down my own plane with the most important person in the world to me on board? Well, the way I see it, the plane's insured, right? I mean, with Keith out of the way, you can start the business over, and this time without having to share the profits with some cheating boyfriend.
Fuel log says that you refueled and performed the last safety check on that plane 12 hours before it crashed.
I didn't sabotage my own plane! In the heat of anger.
I get it.
No.
No, you people don't get it.
I lost everything in that crash.
Everything.
Looks like you got the airport surveillance.
Yeah.
Sugar, no cream? Thanks.
Mm-hmm.
Anything? Nothing yet, but I did confirm Burk refilling the plane and doing a safety check He never touched the plane door, and so far, nobody else has touched the plane.
Listen, Sara, I was just wondering if I could buy you and Grissom dinner tonight.
You guys pick the place, NTSB picks up the tab.
I'm a hell of a third wheel.
Actually, Gil's out of town.
Okay, just the two of us, then? Don't.
Don't what? Do this.
Okay.
I mean, if everything's good between you two-- and I know you, Sara, so I'm getting the feeling that maybe it isn't-- then, I understand.
Everything's great.
Okay.
Fuel truck-- stopping in front of the plane.
Right in front of the cabin door.
What's he doing? They already refueled.
One guy's getting out of the truck.
He was only there for two minutes.
Is that enough time to sabotage a plane? Yes, it is.
Can you get a better look at the driver? I can't bring up a face.
But look at this.
Beaufort Aero Club patch.
Those are Hal's overalls.
And we know that Hal was out of town.
We know that somebody borrowed his tools.
Borrowed his clothes, as well.
I got your results.
DNA on the coveralls did not match Dalton Burk, so goodbye prime suspect.
Sorry.
It's a dead end.
Were you able to run the ITS DNA kit that Morgan found in Jordan Lowell's luggage? Yeah.
Jordan used two of the swabs, but both were degraded, probably from the crash and the fire, so I couldn't get DNA.
The weird thing is Morgan said she thought this all had to do with a paternity suit.
Right.
But to do a paternity test, you need to use three swabs.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
One for each of the parents, and one for the child.
So what was Jordan Lowell testing for, then? Most people use ITS to verify the baby's father, but a lot of people use it to find their own father.
Do you think that's what Jordan Lowell was doing? I know that's what she was doing.
Just got off the phone with her roommate in Chicago.
Turns out Jordan was raised by a single mother.
After her mother died, she started looking for her father that she'd never met.
Her roommate said she got a lead in Vegas.
Donna, you think this is something you can help us with? Give me a birthplace and a birth date.
Right there.
Well, we'll start looking for the father by searching for Jordan's birth certificate.
No name for the father.
But that makes sense.
That's who she was looking for, right? Look at the mother's age.
- Fifteen.
- Back in 1968.
There were a lot of strict rules about what unwed mothers could put on the birth certificate.
They could only give the baby their own surname.
But the rules only applied to the baby's last name, so sometimes the girls took the father's surname and made it the baby's first name.
You mean like "Jordan"" Mm-hmm.
Sounds like we should be looking for a Mr.
Jordan in Las Vegas.
Morgan, did Jordan's roommate ever mention if she used a genealogy Web site? Yeah, actually, uh, she said she used ancestry.
com.
Great! Ancestry not only helps people find their relatives, but if it finds two people who are searching for the same relative, it connects them.
So if we input the same information that Jordan did, the we'll be able to find what she found.
Mm-hmm.
Let me just link into Jordan's family tree.
And there he is-- Jordan's father.
"Joseph Donovan Jordan.
" Looks like she found him, but a little too late.
Died December 12, 2005.
Yeah, but look below his name.
He had a daughter-- Helen, born in 1962.
Half-sister.
So maybe Helen is the lead that Jordan found in Vegas.
Mm-hmm.
And that's why Jordan used the DNA kit.
She swabbed herself, so she could compare her DNA with that of her sister's.
I'm looking up Helen Jordan right now.
And I'm getting nothing.
Not a driver's license? Not even a Social Security number.
How is that possible? Okay, well, hold on.
There's a link under Helen's name.
Looks like we just found Helen Jordan.
Are you feeling all right today? We didn't realize Helen Jordan wasn't living on her own.
Yeah, how long has she been under your care, Dr.
O'Keefe? Helen's been at our facility for almost 40 years now.
Since she was 12.
Helen? These nice people have come to visit.
Uh I don't understand.
Helen was in a car accident when she was ten.
Her mother was killed and she was left, well, as you see her.
Her father tried several special hospitals before bringing her here.
Helen? Did a woman named Jordan Lowell visit Helen recently? Yes.
Several times over the past few months.
She was wonderful.
Read to her for hours.
She told me she thought Helen was her half-sister.
Even took a DNA sample.
We're gonna have to do the same.
Is there some reason the police are interested in Helen? Actually, we're interested in the woman who came to visit her-- Jordan Lowell.
Please don't tell me she's some sort of scam artist.
No, ma'am.
She's dead.
She died in a plane crash yesterday.
Oh, my Lord.
She was just here.
Helen's father never visited.
I understand he died a few years ago.
I had hoped that, after all these years, that Helen had someone who wasn't a stranger to hold her hand.
Talk about a tragic story.
And an unlucky family.
Well, someone in that family had good fortune.
I mean, you saw that place; it's pretty high-end.
I would cost a pretty penny.
The kind of money Joseph Jordan would amass over a lifetime.
I looked into Jordan's father.
His family's owned property in Nevada for over a century.
He made a fortune in ranching, mining and real estate.
And when Joe Jordan died, he left over $100 million in a trust to Helen.
Does it say who controls the trust now? No.
Those terms are confidential.
But it looks like the trust donates several million dollars to a nonprofit home for the disabled every year.
Let me take a wild guess-- Tranquil Hours? Correct.
So Tranquil Hours is getting millions from Helen Jordan's estate.
And then, one day, Jordan Lowell shows up and takes a DNA sample from Helen.
Hoping to prove she's part of the family and perhaps entitled to a big share of her newfound inheritance.
You thinking what I'm thinking? Tranquil Hours saw Jordan as a threat.
Just one problem with our theory.
You know the DNA sample we took from Helen? Well, Henry just compared it to Jordan Lowell's DNA.
Helen and Jordan aren't sisters.
That's impossible, Hojem-Sanders.
I'm sorry, Donna, but it's science.
Your science, not mine.
Mr.
Russell, my research is meticulous, my methods precise.
I fact-check and verify my information at every turn.
I'd like to say I make mistakes, but I don't make mistakes.
Jordan Lowell's half-sister was at Tranquil Hours.
Donna, I'm sorry, but science is science, and the DNA results show conclusively that Helen Jordan and Jordan Lowell are not half-sisters.
They're not even related.
A little help here? Well, maybe you're both right.
I mean, who's to say that microfiche and microcentrifuges don't mix? Uh, I don't know what you're talking about.
Finally, we agree.
Jordan Lowell found her sister, Helen Jordan, through genealogy.
Right.
But DNA proves that the woman she found at Tranquil Hours was not her sister.
Right.
So what happened to Jordan's sister? And who's the woman pretending to be her at Tranquil Hours? Obviously, something happened to the real Helen.
Maybe she died.
And maybe another patient was substituted in Helen's place.
Because the woman that I met was definitely not pretending.
All of which suggests a much wider conspiracy.
Why-why the conspiracy? Who who benefits? Well, Tranquil Hours does get several million dollars a year from Helen's trust.
And if she dies, the money dries up.
It's a Social Security scam.
Until Jordan Lowell shows up and threatens to expose all of that.
But Jordan showed up months ago.
Why did someone wait till yesterday to kill her in a plane crash? Ah.
The DNA kit.
Right.
Jordan swabs the fake Helen, and that is when somebody at Tranquil Hours got spooked-- 'cause they realized they were about to be found out.
So the question is: How wide is this wider conspiracy? Don't know.
But if I were you, I would start with Helen's doctor.
Excuse me.
Can I help you? Yeah, we're here to see Dr.
O'Keefe.
She called in sick this morning.
Big surprise.
Uh, in that case, we'd like to see Helen Jordan.
We have a warrant for her fingerprints.
I'm sorry.
Helen was transferred to a critical care facility a few hours ago.
Really? Where? You'd have to ask Dr.
O'Keefe.
Okay.
Well, if her room hasn't been transferred, we're going to need to see it.
You smell that? Bleach.
Mm-hmm.
Not a speck of dust.
No DNA, no trace and probably no fingerprints.
Hold that thought.
Maybe we do have Helen's fingerprint.
They always miss something.
Nick.
Yeah? Get this.
Henry found a sibling match between our killer and the impostor in the wheelchair.
What do you mean? The swab we got off our impostor has multiple alleles in common with the DNA we pulled from the coveralls of our saboteur.
Mmm.
So what? We still don't have a name.
We do.
Print we got from the room at Tranquil Hours comes back to a Marcia Forsythe.
As in Jeffrey Forsythe? Well, he's the guy who loaned his gun to the lawyer who died in the crash.
She's his sister.
She had a skiing accident-- brain damage.
He put her in Tranquil Hours.
He's the trustee in charge of Helen Jordan's millions.
Mmm.
I'll call Brass.
I already called Forsythe's law firm.
He's on his way out of town for a business trip.
Flying his own plane.
Are you going somewhere, Mr.
Forsythe? Is there a problem, officers? I don't know.
Have you checked your cabin door seals lately? We know about your scam, siphoning millions from Helen Jordan, enriching yourself at her expense.
And putting your sister in her place whenever anyone came to visit.
Oh, and by the way, we found her stashed away in another hospital.
These are absurd allegations.
I don't think so.
We've arrested the good doctor, and she's confessed.
So, perhaps there was a little creative accounting.
A victimless crime.
That plane crash wasn't victimless.
You can't possibly think I had anything to do with that.
I already told you my associate, Grant Abbott, had enemies-- the type that were capable of doing such heinous acts.
Just stop, okay? We already know that you persuaded Dr.
O'Keefe to offer Jordan a free charter flight to Chicago.
Plus you had access.
Got your plane at the airport.
You know, people wouldn't think twice seeing you walk in and out of the hangar.
That's wildly speculative.
DNA evidence isn't.
What DNA? Yours.
Found on the coveralls you were wearing when you sabotaged the plane's cabin door.
You're bluffing.
You don't have a sample of my DNA for comparison.
We have your sister's.
That's good enough.
You killed five people on that plane.
It's just dumb luck you didn't kill more on the ground.
I hope you saved some of the money you stole, because you're going to need it to hire a lawyer a lot smarter than you.
Get him out of here.
Okay.
I heard you got your man.
Yeah.
Thanks to you.
Little help from DNA.
You don't see genealogy as a pure science, do you, Mr.
Russell? I wouldn't say that.
It is, after all, a systematic pursuit of knowledge, right? Seeking an understanding of who we are and where we came from.
I mean, that sounds like science to me.
Maybe not pure, but Well, if you ever need a little systematic pursuit of knowledge, you know where to find me.
Bye-bye.
What do you think? Donna, this is awesome.
My dad is going to love it.
I just love that your family crest has an evergreen and reindeer on it.
It's perfect for Christmas.
Perfect for Christmas.
Anyone ever tell you two that you're really very cute together? But, of course, you'd want be careful.
Because Ekli and Hojem-Sanders are both Norwegian names.
They could branch off of the same family tree.
Which would make you kissing cousins.
But probably not.
All right, I'll see you in a bit.
Cargo plane, San Jose.
All hands on deck.
No rest for the NTSB.
Nope.
So, I guess this is it.
Yeah.
Listen, about my, uh, dinner offer Oh.
It's just that seeing you again brought back a lot of good memories, Sara.
Honestly, it's kind of annoying how great you look.
Thanks.
I'm glad things worked out for you.
You deserve it.
Give my regards to the Bay.
Will do.
A.
Center.
Please clarify your situation.
Foxtrot 1-5-Tango, do you copy? Foxtrot 1-5-Tango, please respond.
Hey, Gil, just wanted to hear your voice.
It's kind of a slow night here.
Give me a call if you get a chance.
Las Vegas Approach, L.
A.
Center.
Be advised you have inbound traffic.
They are not responding.
Roger that, L.
A.
Center.
I've got him on radar.
Do you have any idea of his intent? He radioed an emergency, said he was inbound.
No contact for almost 12 minutes.
Foxtrot 1-5-Tango, this is Las Vegas Approach.
Low-altitude alert.
Climb immediately.
Repeat, climb immediately.
It's crazy! All these lights-- no wonder you can see this place from space.
Oh, my God! Did you see that? This was shot about 40 minutes ago, right before a charter aircraft nosed into the ground at Tresser Park.
That's just a mile off the Strip.
This is NTSB investigator Doug Wilson.
He's gonna be leading the crash investigation.
You-you two guys worked together before, right? Yeah.
Yeah, on an NTSB crash scene when I worked at the San Francisco Crime Lab.
Right now, we have very little information.
Where did the flight originate? LV Regional Airport, heading for Chicago.
the pilot reported an unspecified emergency, turned the plane around, - and after that, radio silence.
- From the moment it turned around, made a beeline for the Strip.
And almost, as you just saw, slammed into the Mediterranean Casino Tower, missing it by about half a dozen feet.
So you're thinking this wasn't an accident? I'm not sure.
But it's certainly a mystery why the pilot stopped communicating with the tower, why the plane nose-dived near the Strip, what happened on that plane.
All questions we need answers to.
Answers we're hoping you CSIs can provide through evidence.
So, was it an accident or foul play? This is what we need to find out.
Who are you? Who, who, who, who? Who are you? Who, who, who, who? I really wanna know Who are you? Oh-oh-oh Who Come on, tell me who are you, you, you Are you! Vegas Approach, Foxtrot 1-5-Tango.
Got a situation here.
Requesting permission for immediate return.
Boy, it's not a lot to go on for a distress call.
That's what I thought, until I enhanced the audio.
Vegas Approach, Foxtrot 1-5-Tango.
Got a situation here.
Requesting permission for immediate return.
Hey, where the hell are you? There's another voice in the cockpit.
- Sounds agitated.
- Yeah.
Could be a hijacker.
So far, we've only found one body in the cockpit wreckage.
It's got to be the pilot.
Keith Mannheim, co-owner of LVM Charter.
Well, we also found additional remains.
How many bodies? Can't say.
With a charter plane this size, there's no requirement for a passenger manifest.
As for how many were on the aircraft and who, well, we're gonna need your help with that.
NTSB has secured the crash site, right? Nick and David Phillips are coordinating the recovery of human remains.
They're already on scene.
Morgan and Greg are heading out to collect personal effects.
Could help with identifications.
Right.
What about the black box? Still haven't recovered it.
Was about to head back to the site; could use some help.
Two of you have worked together before-- you probably have your own shorthand.
It's a good idea.
All right, let's get to work.
Lot of eyes on this.
We need answers.
You know, I think I should drive this time.
Thank you.
Oh, 'cause you're scared of going more than 20 miles per hour? Hojem-Sanders! I was hoping I'd see you! Hey, Donna.
What are you doing here? Are you looking for me? Me, actually.
Which means you must be Morgan Brody.
Yes.
Hi.
I am so sorry.
We just got a call out, and I completely forgot about our appointment.
Appointment? How do you two? Doc Robbins recommended Donna.
He was blown away by your genealogy work on his family.
You said on the phone that you had some family history for me? I did, and it's on my desk.
But I'm so sorry, we have to get to a crime scene.
Oh, that's all right.
You go do what you have to do, and I'll work here.
Believe me, there's a lot of Brodys out there.
Oh, Brody's actually my stepfather's last name.
I'm interested in Ecklie.
Oh, your biological father.
Of course.
Don't tell me.
You still trying to prove he's not your dad? Uh, just kidding.
Christmas is coming, and I want to get my dad something special, so I thought maybe a family crest.
How wonderful.
Okay.
You go do your thing, and I'll get to work here.
Thanks.
Ready to roll? Just about.
Just like old times, right? Very old times.
Heard you, uh, married your boss.
What's his name again? Gil.
Right.
Grissom.
Bug guy.
You still married to what's-her-name? Candy? Candy, right.
Yoga instructor.
No, no, we crashed and burned years ago.
Yeah, I didn't see that coming.
Yeah, you did.
Just like old times.
Hey, Doc.
How's it going? Hey.
What do you got for me? On the left gurney are the remains from the cockpit.
In front of me and on the right, remains recovered from the passenger cabin area.
And we ran DNA on a small sample of those remains.
Turns out we have one Jane and two John Does.
So in addition to what I assume is our pilot, we have three unidentified passengers.
Looks like I've got something here.
Take a look.
Looks like a T-10 or T-11 vertebra.
What's that? Part of the fuselage? David, hand me that, would you? Yeah.
Hmm, looks like shrapnel.
Surrounding tissue appears deteriorated-- this guy was in pain.
And over a long period of time.
Just a second.
Radioactive? As I suspected.
I think I know how we can identify at least this victim.
Dalton Burk? Not a good time right now.
We're from the crime lab.
We're here investigating the crash.
Crime lab? I don't understand.
What happened was an accident, right? Well, that's why we're here.
There was no passenger manifest filed for the flight, so 'Cause Keith was flying solo-- VFR.
He doesn't need to; there were no passengers.
Well, we found three other bodies in the wreckage.
That's impossible-- Keith was alone.
Told me he was flying home to visit his folks for a few days in Chicago.
I'm sorry, man.
I think he told you wrong.
Can you explain how three other people might get on your plane without you knowing? Keith and I are business partners.
We each focus on different aspects of the company.
Normally, I do the booking, but obviously he must've booked some passengers on his own.
Why are you asking me all these questions? Is there something you're not telling me? When you say Keith was your business partner, how well did you know him? Well, it's not any of your business, but we were a couple.
We were together for the last 15 years.
So, if it seems like I'm not in the mood to talk right now, you're right.
We're really sorry for your loss.
We do need to confirm that one of the bodies that we found was indeed Keith's.
So, if you could get us a toothbrush, a hairbrush, anything that might have Keith's DNA on it, that'd be great, okay? Yeah, I'll get that to you.
Yeah, you're gonna love Donna.
She's awesome.
She totally got me hooked on genealogy.
She seems cool.
I found this mixed with the personal effects.
Take a look.
Looks like a section of airplane carpeting.
Yup.
Melted around something.
Whoa, I got a gun.
It could be our hijacker's.
Can you hold this open for me? Nine-millimeter Beretta, receiver's torqued.
Damage from the fire.
Three rounds left in the magazine.
Someone could have fired it.
And I think we might know who.
Shrapnel in one of the victims turned out to contain depleted uranium.
You mean, like from a battlefield? So the guy's a vet? Right, and the V.
A.
had X-rays on file matched to a Charles Harrigan.
Made headlines last year, when he got into a fight and got tossed out of the Mediterranean.
Yeah, he, uh, gambled away his home, his car, his wife-- he blamed the casino.
Camped out in front to keep people from going in.
Maybe commandeering an airplane and trying to crash it into the casino was his form of revenge.
That's what I'm thinking, so let's run the gun, see if it traces back to Harrigan.
All right.
Flight data recorder's intact.
Wish we had the cockpit voice recorder, too.
Yeah, join the club.
They're not required for smaller charters.
Hey, did you hear that the Rusty Nickel closed? Well, that's about time.
That bar gave dives a bad name.
What are you talking about? You loved that place.
Well, yeah, you're right, I did love it, right up until the moment that they kicked me out for life.
They did do that.
Yup.
Okay, moving on.
So, we have the primary flight display up.
It should show us everything on the instrument panel.
is 250 knots, altitude is 29,800 feet and climbing, heading is 50 degrees-- all normal.
Looks like there's a slight decrease in cabin pressure.
Pilot's turning around, making a descent, looks like he's putting in vectors to return to the airport.
What the hell just happened? Massive depressurization.
30,000 feet, virtually no oxygen, temperature is 34 below.
They were dead before they even hit the ground.
The plane just kept going.
Vector entries kept it on course all the way to the ground.
Barely missing the Mediterranean Tower.
Mm-hmm.
Why the depressurization? Gunshot, maybe.
We know there was a gun on board.
A bullet hole alone wouldn't trigger that kind of event.
This was instantaneous, catastrophic.
Like a bomb? Bomb would've taken out the avionics and hydraulics.
Plane wouldn't have stayed on course.
All right, what's left, then? Uh, maybe a window blew out, or a door.
Whatever it is, it had to fall to earth, right? Extrapolating from their position at the time of depressurization and factoring in their altitude and their velocity, I mean, I can zero in on their location.
Always the physics major.
I tell you what, I'm going to take my physics and I'm gonna find whatever fell out of your airplane.
And what about me? What do I do? Well, you're going to build me a plane.
Well, you found the door.
Still don't know what happened.
Let's go with our gunshot theory.
We're traveling at 30,000 feet.
I'm Harrigan.
I am going to take over the plane and I'm going to fly it into the Mediterranean.
Payback for bankrupting you in one night at the tables.
I pull my nine-mil and I start for the cockpit.
But one of the other passengers sees you.
Jane or John Doe.
Tries to overpower you.
And we struggle for the gun.
We're struggling.
In that struggle, the gun goes off, hitting the cabin door.
Would explain the initial slow loss of cabin pressure.
And then Harrigan breaks free commandeers the plane.
Pilot only has time to radio once and turns the plane around.
It was what Harrigan wanted anyway: to return to Vegas on a suicide mission.
Yeah, and what he doesn't realize is that the cabin door is already compromised.
Bullet must've hit the door somewhere.
I'm not seeing anything.
No holes, no marks.
Must be missing something.
Just saying.
Maybe the bullet hit a cabin door seal and compromised it.
I got something.
Bullet hole? No, but I think our inside job just turned into an outside job.
Tool marks on the outside edge.
This door was tampered with before the plane even took off.
Sabotage.
We've been looking at this the wrong way.
Maybe the motive wasn't hijacking.
Maybe it was straight-up murder.
So the plane was doomed before it even took off.
Yeah, somebody on the ground made sure of that.
Tampered with the cabin door seal.
The seal couldn't handle the increasing pressure, and finally the door blew out.
We're talking murder now, not hijacking.
Somebody on that plane was targeted.
We've got our pilot, Keith Mannheim, and our other three remaining passengers, but so far we've only identified one: Charles Harrigan, the man we thought was our hijacker.
You know, if he got into a squabble with the Mediterranean, maybe he got into a fight with someone else, somebody he shouldn't have.
Yeah, it could have put a target on his back, or maybe the target's just one of the other passengers, our John or Jane Doe.
There is one other possibility.
What's that? Maybe the plane was the target.
Didn't see this on the outside of the door.
Must have gotten wedged in the seal.
Got paint trace from what I hope is our outil de sabotage.
It's all yours.
So this, uh, NTSB guy, Wilson.
Seems like a good sort.
He is.
When you guys worked together in Frisco, were you, uh close? Well, it was a pretty lengthy investigation.
We spent a lot of time together.
Yeah, there's spending time together, and there's spending time together.
What are you getting at, Hodges? I-I-I'm not getting at anything.
How's it going in here? Well, the Mikrosil's ready.
Good.
Good cast.
No bubbles.
You can see the tool marks.
Helps if you get in close, doesn't it? Is that is that paint transfer? Indeed.
Don't you have, like, a machine to go put that in? Say no more.
Three's a crowd.
Come and knock on my door.
What's his problem? Don't even get me started.
These marks are paired.
I'm thinking that the tool might have been two-pronged.
Can you tell what kind of tool it was? No, but between the Mikrosil cast and the paint chips, if we find it, we should get a match.
You know, whoever tampered with this cabin door knew exactly what they were doing.
Too much damage and the plane wouldn't have pressurized at all Setting off a warning light in the cabin.
The pilot would've turned the plane around immediately.
Too little damage would've had no effect at all.
Saboteur had to get it just right.
Suggests an intimate knowledge of the plane.
Hello! Are you Hal? Yeah, I'm Hal.
Yeah, the same Hal that, uh, did the maintenance on that charter jet that went down last night? I-I already gave the logs to NTSB.
Look, I'm good at what I do.
I checked and double-checked every system on that plane.
Well, we're not saying that an oversight caused it to crash.
No, we're saying somebody brought it down.
Can you tell us about your relationship with LVN Charter.
Yeah, my relationship is fine.
Been taking care of their plane ever since I left Beaufort.
When was the last time they paid you? Yeah, it's been a while.
Been a while? It's been, like, four months, hasn't it? They owe you over six grand.
Hey, look, I'm not going to sabotage a plane over a lousy six grand.
These are your tools, right? Yeah, they're my tools.
Well, you certainly have an interesting way of marking them.
Helps me keep track of them.
Green color is the same that we found on the cabin door.
What? You're saying somebody messed with the plane using my tools? No, we're wondering if maybe you messed with it.
I didn't mess with it, all right? I been in Laughlin the last couple of days.
I got back this morning.
Yeah, well, I'm packing up your tools.
They're coming with me now.
These tools are my livelihood.
Hey, you maintain a jet that took a nose dive into the ground last night, I don't think your phone's ringing off the hook.
Is it? Sorry.
Quick question.
I'm having a little trouble searching your father's surname.
Did you ever see it spelled E-K-L-I? Actually, yes.
I think my grandfather.
I've seen him spell it that way.
Brilliant.
I knew it.
Uh, I have a question for you.
In your genealogy work, have you heard of I.
T.
S.
Labs? Indeed I have.
I.
T.
S.
is a DNA lab in Dallas.
Their business specializes in do-it-yourself DNA analysis in paternity suits.
Paternity suits? Mm-hmm.
The lab mails you a DNA kit, you do your own swabbing.
Wrap it up and mail it back.
Answer comes in a couple of weeks.
There's no name on the return label.
Well, for confidentiality, they use serial numbers to identify the client.
Look at the shipping label.
Great.
With a warrant, I might have Jane Doe's I.
D.
You may also have motive.
I'm sorry.
I couldn't help but overhear about the plane being sabotaged.
You know that paternity suits are particularly contentious.
Contentious enough to make Jane Doe our target? I remember hearing about a fast-food franchise mogul who fathered a child with his secretary, and when she tried to prove paternity and get child support, he, uh, dunked her in the fryer.
I'm just throwing it out there.
I'm just going to give this to Henry.
You can take that.
I'll come back.
No, that's all right.
I-I'll call him back later.
If you ever feel like talking You ever tried the long-distance thing? No, but I think it would have helped my relationship with husband number two.
Ah, the Seattle ex? Yeah.
What was that like, seeing him again? It was weird.
And then it wasn't.
You know, I wondered why you took a later flight.
What about your NTSB guy? Is that weird? Very weird.
Gonna stay that way? It has to, right? This looks promising.
Similar tool marks as the sabotage that we found on the cabin door.
Can you pass me those, uh, paint chips that Hodges found? Sure.
Thanks.
Got a physical match.
Got a murder weapon.
But not a murder suspect.
Hal the mechanic's alibi checked out.
Eye in the sky at the Lucky Stakes Casino in Laughlin had him at the tables three nights in a row.
So Hal's off the hook.
But somebody helped themselves to his tools.
Yeah, someone who had access to the airport.
Surveillance hasn't come in yet, but maybe we'll get lucky and find our killer on it.
Well, in the meantime, we have a lead on our other John Doe.
The gun's not registered to Harrigan like we thought.
It's actually registered to a Jeffrey Forsythe.
He's a partner in a law firm downtown.
Brass called the office.
Apparently, Forsythe wasn't on the plane.
Maybe he knows who was.
Mr.
Forsythe, we matched the serial numbers on this gun found at the crash site to you.
It's your gun.
I lent it to my colleague, my friend Grant Abbott.
He was on that plane.
Our firm uses LVN Charters exclusively.
Grant told me he was flying to Chicago last week.
He used to live there, still has a place.
He'd decided to take a little time off.
Why? Same reason he was carrying my gun.
Grant is the go-to criminal attorney at our firm.
He represents numerous clients with uh, proclivities to violence.
Did Mr.
Abbott have any concerns about any of these clients in particular? I can tell you that Grant a misunderstanding with one client, who subsequently fired our firm and made veiled threats.
I'm going to need that name.
Donna, I've heard so much about you.
It's a pleasure to meet you.
The pleasure is mine.
Donna was helping me with my family tree, but now she is helping us with a case.
We found a DNA kit in our Jane Doe's luggage.
Thanks to Donna, we were able to trace it back to a private lab.
They gave us a name.
Jordan Lowell, Chicago address.
Requested a kit two weeks ago from I.
T.
S.
Labs.
What's that about? Well, we think she may have been looking for proof of paternity in a potential child support case.
Jordan Lowell may have had a baby with the wrong kind of guy.
Okay, do we know if she used the, uh, DNA kit? It looks that way.
Henry's running the swabs now.
If the victim was able to obtain an exemplar from the father, you could have the DNA of the killer.
We could.
You're right.
Then again, I just got a call from Brass.
Turns out that the passenger with the gun was a criminal attorney who may have disappointed a client.
Hey.
Yeah? You're not going to believe this.
A lady in Henderson returned home from a business trip, found some dude floating in her pool.
So? He came from the plane.
There was another passenger on board? No.
According to the driver's license, he was the pilot, Keith Mannheim.
So if he's our pilot, who's the dead guy in the cockpit? Doc, I thought we already found our pilot.
Please, make sense of this for me.
I'll try.
Prints and DNA both confirm this body-- the one pulled out of a pool in Henderson-- is our pilot.
Keith Mannheim.
Victim has a distinctive, crescent-shaped head wound.
Looks like some sort of blunt-force trauma unrelated to the rest of his injuries.
The skin tearing and fractures are both consistent with a high-altitude fall.
All right, what about the other remains that we found in the cockpit? Well, now that we know it's someone else, Henry's running the DNA.
So we have a mystery man that we found in the cockpit who is not the pilot.
How the hell does that work? So, we got five people on a plane.
If our pilot, Keith Mannheim, is at the controls, then our mystery man from the cockpit wreckage must have been sitting in the copilot's seat.
Two in front, three passengers in back.
At the 17-minute mark, we have the slow loss of cabin pressure.
Mannheim radios he's turning around.
Maybe the pilot wants to check something out.
Maybe that's why he gets out of his seat.
Yeah, but not before Mannheim enters in the vector coordinates for a return.
Making a slow descent.
A few seconds later, door blows.
And Mannheim gets sucked out the plane door.
Doc Robbins said that he had a crescent-shaped head wound.
Looks like he hit his head on the way out, huh? Uh-huh.
One mystery solved.
One step at a time.
Hey, guys.
Uh, Henry ran the DNA from our mystery man through CODIS, and he got a hit.
A parolee named Thurston Mayfield, aka Thor.
Thor? Specialized in writing phony checks, and recently was a dancer in an all-male revue.
Now, the club is just two blocks from the executive airport.
Brass talked to the owner.
It turns out that Thor quit last week.
He said he was moving in with his new boyfriend, Keith Mannheim.
That would explain why Thor was sitting up front in the cockpit.
Keith was flying his new boyfriend home to Chicago to meet the folks.
And if Keith's partner Dalton found out about it, might be reason enough to want them both dead.
You know that guy? No.
Classic case of "I didn't recognize him with his clothes on"" How about now? The place where he dances is right out by your airport.
Yeah, I guess.
I-I've been there a few times times with Keith.
Yeah, old Keith, he went there a lot on his own, didn't he? - What does that mean? - It means that we talked to some people at the club, and it, uh, turns out that Thor and Keith were having a thing.
It was kind of hot and heavy.
Well, if that's true, I didn't know about it.
Suppose you didn't know that Thor was on that plane, neither, huh? With Keith? Cockpit, right by Keith's side.
He was flying home to meet Keith's parents.
Yeah, it must suck having your partner cheat on you with someone like this.
That would really piss me off.
You know, maybe just enough to actually do something about it.
You think I brought down my own plane with the most important person in the world to me on board? Well, the way I see it, the plane's insured, right? I mean, with Keith out of the way, you can start the business over, and this time without having to share the profits with some cheating boyfriend.
Fuel log says that you refueled and performed the last safety check on that plane 12 hours before it crashed.
I didn't sabotage my own plane! In the heat of anger.
I get it.
No.
No, you people don't get it.
I lost everything in that crash.
Everything.
Looks like you got the airport surveillance.
Yeah.
Sugar, no cream? Thanks.
Mm-hmm.
Anything? Nothing yet, but I did confirm Burk refilling the plane and doing a safety check He never touched the plane door, and so far, nobody else has touched the plane.
Listen, Sara, I was just wondering if I could buy you and Grissom dinner tonight.
You guys pick the place, NTSB picks up the tab.
I'm a hell of a third wheel.
Actually, Gil's out of town.
Okay, just the two of us, then? Don't.
Don't what? Do this.
Okay.
I mean, if everything's good between you two-- and I know you, Sara, so I'm getting the feeling that maybe it isn't-- then, I understand.
Everything's great.
Okay.
Fuel truck-- stopping in front of the plane.
Right in front of the cabin door.
What's he doing? They already refueled.
One guy's getting out of the truck.
He was only there for two minutes.
Is that enough time to sabotage a plane? Yes, it is.
Can you get a better look at the driver? I can't bring up a face.
But look at this.
Beaufort Aero Club patch.
Those are Hal's overalls.
And we know that Hal was out of town.
We know that somebody borrowed his tools.
Borrowed his clothes, as well.
I got your results.
DNA on the coveralls did not match Dalton Burk, so goodbye prime suspect.
Sorry.
It's a dead end.
Were you able to run the ITS DNA kit that Morgan found in Jordan Lowell's luggage? Yeah.
Jordan used two of the swabs, but both were degraded, probably from the crash and the fire, so I couldn't get DNA.
The weird thing is Morgan said she thought this all had to do with a paternity suit.
Right.
But to do a paternity test, you need to use three swabs.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
One for each of the parents, and one for the child.
So what was Jordan Lowell testing for, then? Most people use ITS to verify the baby's father, but a lot of people use it to find their own father.
Do you think that's what Jordan Lowell was doing? I know that's what she was doing.
Just got off the phone with her roommate in Chicago.
Turns out Jordan was raised by a single mother.
After her mother died, she started looking for her father that she'd never met.
Her roommate said she got a lead in Vegas.
Donna, you think this is something you can help us with? Give me a birthplace and a birth date.
Right there.
Well, we'll start looking for the father by searching for Jordan's birth certificate.
No name for the father.
But that makes sense.
That's who she was looking for, right? Look at the mother's age.
- Fifteen.
- Back in 1968.
There were a lot of strict rules about what unwed mothers could put on the birth certificate.
They could only give the baby their own surname.
But the rules only applied to the baby's last name, so sometimes the girls took the father's surname and made it the baby's first name.
You mean like "Jordan"" Mm-hmm.
Sounds like we should be looking for a Mr.
Jordan in Las Vegas.
Morgan, did Jordan's roommate ever mention if she used a genealogy Web site? Yeah, actually, uh, she said she used ancestry.
com.
Great! Ancestry not only helps people find their relatives, but if it finds two people who are searching for the same relative, it connects them.
So if we input the same information that Jordan did, the we'll be able to find what she found.
Mm-hmm.
Let me just link into Jordan's family tree.
And there he is-- Jordan's father.
"Joseph Donovan Jordan.
" Looks like she found him, but a little too late.
Died December 12, 2005.
Yeah, but look below his name.
He had a daughter-- Helen, born in 1962.
Half-sister.
So maybe Helen is the lead that Jordan found in Vegas.
Mm-hmm.
And that's why Jordan used the DNA kit.
She swabbed herself, so she could compare her DNA with that of her sister's.
I'm looking up Helen Jordan right now.
And I'm getting nothing.
Not a driver's license? Not even a Social Security number.
How is that possible? Okay, well, hold on.
There's a link under Helen's name.
Looks like we just found Helen Jordan.
Are you feeling all right today? We didn't realize Helen Jordan wasn't living on her own.
Yeah, how long has she been under your care, Dr.
O'Keefe? Helen's been at our facility for almost 40 years now.
Since she was 12.
Helen? These nice people have come to visit.
Uh I don't understand.
Helen was in a car accident when she was ten.
Her mother was killed and she was left, well, as you see her.
Her father tried several special hospitals before bringing her here.
Helen? Did a woman named Jordan Lowell visit Helen recently? Yes.
Several times over the past few months.
She was wonderful.
Read to her for hours.
She told me she thought Helen was her half-sister.
Even took a DNA sample.
We're gonna have to do the same.
Is there some reason the police are interested in Helen? Actually, we're interested in the woman who came to visit her-- Jordan Lowell.
Please don't tell me she's some sort of scam artist.
No, ma'am.
She's dead.
She died in a plane crash yesterday.
Oh, my Lord.
She was just here.
Helen's father never visited.
I understand he died a few years ago.
I had hoped that, after all these years, that Helen had someone who wasn't a stranger to hold her hand.
Talk about a tragic story.
And an unlucky family.
Well, someone in that family had good fortune.
I mean, you saw that place; it's pretty high-end.
I would cost a pretty penny.
The kind of money Joseph Jordan would amass over a lifetime.
I looked into Jordan's father.
His family's owned property in Nevada for over a century.
He made a fortune in ranching, mining and real estate.
And when Joe Jordan died, he left over $100 million in a trust to Helen.
Does it say who controls the trust now? No.
Those terms are confidential.
But it looks like the trust donates several million dollars to a nonprofit home for the disabled every year.
Let me take a wild guess-- Tranquil Hours? Correct.
So Tranquil Hours is getting millions from Helen Jordan's estate.
And then, one day, Jordan Lowell shows up and takes a DNA sample from Helen.
Hoping to prove she's part of the family and perhaps entitled to a big share of her newfound inheritance.
You thinking what I'm thinking? Tranquil Hours saw Jordan as a threat.
Just one problem with our theory.
You know the DNA sample we took from Helen? Well, Henry just compared it to Jordan Lowell's DNA.
Helen and Jordan aren't sisters.
That's impossible, Hojem-Sanders.
I'm sorry, Donna, but it's science.
Your science, not mine.
Mr.
Russell, my research is meticulous, my methods precise.
I fact-check and verify my information at every turn.
I'd like to say I make mistakes, but I don't make mistakes.
Jordan Lowell's half-sister was at Tranquil Hours.
Donna, I'm sorry, but science is science, and the DNA results show conclusively that Helen Jordan and Jordan Lowell are not half-sisters.
They're not even related.
A little help here? Well, maybe you're both right.
I mean, who's to say that microfiche and microcentrifuges don't mix? Uh, I don't know what you're talking about.
Finally, we agree.
Jordan Lowell found her sister, Helen Jordan, through genealogy.
Right.
But DNA proves that the woman she found at Tranquil Hours was not her sister.
Right.
So what happened to Jordan's sister? And who's the woman pretending to be her at Tranquil Hours? Obviously, something happened to the real Helen.
Maybe she died.
And maybe another patient was substituted in Helen's place.
Because the woman that I met was definitely not pretending.
All of which suggests a much wider conspiracy.
Why-why the conspiracy? Who who benefits? Well, Tranquil Hours does get several million dollars a year from Helen's trust.
And if she dies, the money dries up.
It's a Social Security scam.
Until Jordan Lowell shows up and threatens to expose all of that.
But Jordan showed up months ago.
Why did someone wait till yesterday to kill her in a plane crash? Ah.
The DNA kit.
Right.
Jordan swabs the fake Helen, and that is when somebody at Tranquil Hours got spooked-- 'cause they realized they were about to be found out.
So the question is: How wide is this wider conspiracy? Don't know.
But if I were you, I would start with Helen's doctor.
Excuse me.
Can I help you? Yeah, we're here to see Dr.
O'Keefe.
She called in sick this morning.
Big surprise.
Uh, in that case, we'd like to see Helen Jordan.
We have a warrant for her fingerprints.
I'm sorry.
Helen was transferred to a critical care facility a few hours ago.
Really? Where? You'd have to ask Dr.
O'Keefe.
Okay.
Well, if her room hasn't been transferred, we're going to need to see it.
You smell that? Bleach.
Mm-hmm.
Not a speck of dust.
No DNA, no trace and probably no fingerprints.
Hold that thought.
Maybe we do have Helen's fingerprint.
They always miss something.
Nick.
Yeah? Get this.
Henry found a sibling match between our killer and the impostor in the wheelchair.
What do you mean? The swab we got off our impostor has multiple alleles in common with the DNA we pulled from the coveralls of our saboteur.
Mmm.
So what? We still don't have a name.
We do.
Print we got from the room at Tranquil Hours comes back to a Marcia Forsythe.
As in Jeffrey Forsythe? Well, he's the guy who loaned his gun to the lawyer who died in the crash.
She's his sister.
She had a skiing accident-- brain damage.
He put her in Tranquil Hours.
He's the trustee in charge of Helen Jordan's millions.
Mmm.
I'll call Brass.
I already called Forsythe's law firm.
He's on his way out of town for a business trip.
Flying his own plane.
Are you going somewhere, Mr.
Forsythe? Is there a problem, officers? I don't know.
Have you checked your cabin door seals lately? We know about your scam, siphoning millions from Helen Jordan, enriching yourself at her expense.
And putting your sister in her place whenever anyone came to visit.
Oh, and by the way, we found her stashed away in another hospital.
These are absurd allegations.
I don't think so.
We've arrested the good doctor, and she's confessed.
So, perhaps there was a little creative accounting.
A victimless crime.
That plane crash wasn't victimless.
You can't possibly think I had anything to do with that.
I already told you my associate, Grant Abbott, had enemies-- the type that were capable of doing such heinous acts.
Just stop, okay? We already know that you persuaded Dr.
O'Keefe to offer Jordan a free charter flight to Chicago.
Plus you had access.
Got your plane at the airport.
You know, people wouldn't think twice seeing you walk in and out of the hangar.
That's wildly speculative.
DNA evidence isn't.
What DNA? Yours.
Found on the coveralls you were wearing when you sabotaged the plane's cabin door.
You're bluffing.
You don't have a sample of my DNA for comparison.
We have your sister's.
That's good enough.
You killed five people on that plane.
It's just dumb luck you didn't kill more on the ground.
I hope you saved some of the money you stole, because you're going to need it to hire a lawyer a lot smarter than you.
Get him out of here.
Okay.
I heard you got your man.
Yeah.
Thanks to you.
Little help from DNA.
You don't see genealogy as a pure science, do you, Mr.
Russell? I wouldn't say that.
It is, after all, a systematic pursuit of knowledge, right? Seeking an understanding of who we are and where we came from.
I mean, that sounds like science to me.
Maybe not pure, but Well, if you ever need a little systematic pursuit of knowledge, you know where to find me.
Bye-bye.
What do you think? Donna, this is awesome.
My dad is going to love it.
I just love that your family crest has an evergreen and reindeer on it.
It's perfect for Christmas.
Perfect for Christmas.
Anyone ever tell you two that you're really very cute together? But, of course, you'd want be careful.
Because Ekli and Hojem-Sanders are both Norwegian names.
They could branch off of the same family tree.
Which would make you kissing cousins.
But probably not.
All right, I'll see you in a bit.
Cargo plane, San Jose.
All hands on deck.
No rest for the NTSB.
Nope.
So, I guess this is it.
Yeah.
Listen, about my, uh, dinner offer Oh.
It's just that seeing you again brought back a lot of good memories, Sara.
Honestly, it's kind of annoying how great you look.
Thanks.
I'm glad things worked out for you.
You deserve it.
Give my regards to the Bay.
Will do.