- CSI investigates the death of a toddler who was left in a cardboard box in a parking lot. A registered sex offender who is wrongly accused threatens Catherine after the real cause of death is identified.
- Grissom leads the team in the investigation of a murdered 3-year-old child found in a cardboard box near a parking lot. The child died from a severe blow to the head and had chemical burns on much of her body. Catherine Willows in particular takes the death quite hard and will stop at nothing to find the killer. When the box she was found in is traced to a registered sex offender, Willows ignores other evidence that calls his guilt into question.—garykmcd
- A pre-teen girl's corpse is left, skull smashed and chemically burned recently, on a parking lot in a cardboard aspirator box. The serial number traces the box to a gullible woman whose virtually in-living boy-friend has a record as sex-offender, but only for drunk indecent exposure, accidentally near families, and an alibi. His handcuffed arrest ruins his new life under an alias. The kid is, after a failed identification, found to be the daughter of an inmate, whom the mother left for an ex-con 'mate' at her peril.—KGF Vissers
- When a baby girl is found dead in a wrapped in a blanked inside a cardboard box in a parking lot, the CSIs investigate the case. Soon there is a great commotion about the case, and Warrick and Nick install a survey camera hidden in a bunch of flowers at the shrine of "Baby Cordelia" to see the people that is honoring the toddler. Grissom finds a bar code inside the box, and the CSIs find that the box was shipped to a Nora O'Toole with a vacuum cleaner. Brass and Catherine visits Nora and she tells that her fiancé Dean James discarded the box in the trash. When Catherine learns that Dean James is indeed the registered Leo Finley that lied to Brass and she, he becomes her prime suspect despite his explanations and Grissom warnings that there are other evidences to be followed. But the investigation continues to a tragic conclusion.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- A comedian on stage jokes about child abuse and abortion. Last Comic Standing, it's not. A heckler interrupts that his jokes aren't funny. The heckler makes the sign of a gun with his hand and walks out. The comedian leaves after his set, looking over his shoulder. Back in his car he backs up and finds a little girl in a box. Also not funny.
Back at the lab, the team examines the girl, who is dressed in pjs and holding something in her hands. Catherine helps examine the girl while Grissom looks over the box, giving dictation that the box doesn't seem to show she struggled.
Anyone with a pulse is probably a little choked up right now.
Grissom notes hairs in the packing tape and a residue on the underside of the box.
Nick and Warrick go back to where she was found, Brass fields questions at a circus press conference.
She died from a single blow to the back of the head but is covered with chemical burns and bruises.
Grissom tells Catherine the girl, "baby Cordelia" was holding the patron St. Jude and says the positioning of the body suggests remorse.
They spitball depressing, inhumane scenarios.
Hodges tells them the burns were caused by drain cleaner. Then he innocently says: "It's hard to believe anybody could do something like this to such a beautiful little girl." Catherine, fired up about the case already, says: "So if she'd been plain or homely, it'd be easier for you to accept?"
When Catherine leaves, Hodges asks Grissom if he just pissed her off. He agrees, yes, but Catherine was heading that way anyway.
At the crime scene, there are flowers sprouting up around a makeshift memorial. Nick and Warrick plant a cross with a camera.
In the lab, Hodges looks over a hair and calls in Grissom. The girl's hair has been dyed blonde.
Wendy does some quick math and determines the hair was dyed in the last 48 to 72 hours. It had also been curled.
Grissom sharpens a bar code from the box using several expensive machines in place of squinting. He links it to a name.
Brass and Catherine go check it out, finding the world's ditziest vaccuum cleaner owner who is "living in sin" with her boyfriend, Dean James. (Like James Dean, except backwards. "He's like a cause without a rebel - I made that up, is that funny? I can't tell," she says)
Warrick electronically changes the girl's hair color and looks through a missing kid's database, thinking he has found a possible match in a missing Lebanese girl. He brings in her parents. They look at her body - it's not her.
Wendy checks out Dean James and finds him listed as a sex offender in a criminal database. Brass goes to arrest him, Leo Finley. His hair is on the box. He describes doing ecstasy and peyote one night and doing a naked dance for the Egyptian sun god Rah on his lawn - accidentally in front of pre-schoolers. He describes a rought life having to register under Megan's Law.
Catherine shows him a picture of the dead girl. He starts to cry, says he had nothing to do with her death.
Greg, Grissom and Catherine check out a map and Grissom is doubtful that Leo is the guy, asking why he's still in custody. Catherine says it's because he lied to them and is still lying.
Nick and Warrick look into the residue on the box, oil. Nick goes to a body shop near the place where the girl's body was found.
The guy in the garage remembers working an engine part brought in a box by Dean James.
Brass is still not thrilled that Leo has lied to him, giving his best tough guy routine.
In a chow line at a prison, a convict freaks out after seeing the girl's face on TV. He's screaming "that's my daughter" as the guards beat him into submission.
He meets with Catherine and Brass, one eye swollen shut. He asks to go to the funeral, saying he knows exactly who did it - his former cell mate, Boyd.
He told Boyd about his wonderful wife, whom Boyd got with when he got out and who he is still living with with his own two children.
Officers raid his wife's house, finding empty beds. Catherine and Grissom search it, theorizing the mom might have dyed Inez's hair so she'd blend in better with Boyd's two kids.
Catherine spies an overturned bottle of oil and a sink reeking of drain cleaner. She tests the sink for blood and it comes up positive.
They launch a manhunt for the parents. They are found, but hole up in a stand-off with police, taking hostages in a diner.
Boyd lets the kids out, followed by the hostages.
Boyd shoves his wife out, but she crashes into the door and police start firing on her, killing her.
Back at the station, Brass tries to get Boyd to tell him what happened and he tells Brass to write it up and he'll sign it, clearly giving up.
Out in the hall, Boyd's kids are sobbing and Catherine goes to talk to them. They says they were playing hide and seek and Inez won while Boyd was asleep on the couch. The older girl describes telling Inez about the best hiding place in the house, under the sink.
Catherine goes in to talk to Boyd. She tells him she doesn't believe his confession.
He describes what happened, waking up on the couch and finding Inez knocked out under the sink. He says his wife had the car so he took the bus, while Inez was still alive. When she died on the way, he put her in the box and gave her the St. Jude medallion.
Catherine asks why he didn't report it. "Look at who I am. If I reported it, you wouldn't believe me," he says, making a good point.
As Catherine prepares to leave for the day, Grissom calls her over to see the footage of her parents visiting the memorial.
Leaving, she walks into the dark and spooky parking garage and runs into Leo/Dean, upset that his ditzy girlfriend left him, kicked him out and called his boss, causing him to lose his job. He says he blames Catherine. She says she was doing her job. He says that was no excuse, just following orders. Calls her a "Nazi bitch." Catherine starts to feel threatened and pulls her gun. He says he should save her the trouble and kill himself. But if he does, it'll be on her front lawn. He walks away.
So she's got that to look forward to. Super.
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