Synopsis  

Gwen Onetto is found murdered in front of a miniature casino model. The model is of the Premiere, a casino that never was, because Jack Witten was accused of murdering a young woman fourteen years ago.

When D.B. Russell arrives, Jim Brass explains that fourteen years ago, Jack was a suspect in a similar murder, but they had no evidence. Sara , having wandered away from Greg, is exploring the house alone. She tells DB that this is one of the cases that got away. It was Sara’s first high profile case since joining the team in Las Vegas.

Down in the cold-case storage, Sara runs into Conrad, who has already pulled the files. They go over the old case, the evidence they had is slim, and consists of a carpet fiber found soaked in blood in the trunk of Darcy’s car. The fourteen year-old fiber is a visual match to the sample Sara took the night before, following Gwen’s murder. It is not, according to David Hodges, an actual match, and Sara must yet again tell Darcy Blaine’s father that they have nothing new.

Back at Witten’s house, Greg tries to find a fiber match, and instead finds a secret, climate controlled room. Tied up in the room is Gwen’s friend, Emily Bridwell, who had come to Witten’s house with her, and claims that Witten lured them there, tied her up in the preservation room, and killed Gwen. However, Gwen and Emily were both suspects in robbery cases in the area, and when they find the murder weapon (a flashlight) it has Emily’s prints all over it. Before they can question her, Emily dies in the hospital, from having swallowed a roll of film.

The girls had all the security codes to Witten’s house, and were a regular Bling Ring. It turns out Emily killed Gwen because Gwen slept with her boyfriend. When Hodges is able to recover the film, it’s filled with Darcy Blaine.

Witten claimed he’d never met Darcy before, but the fact that the film was in his vault certainly makes the suspect. The CSIs trace the film to the camera that filmed it, and from there to Robert Gear, a cameraman Witten hired to film the opening of the Premiere (which never happened). Of course… Gear is found dead in his house, shot in the head with a .22 caliber. Gear had received payments from an LLC owned by Witten to fund his casino, presumably blackmail money. Having run low on money, Gear hired the girls to steal the film.

Finally Witten admits he did know Darcy. He’d met her at NA – Narcotics Anonymous. They were both screwed up, addicts, but they both loved old movies. So she and Witten were friends who watched the movies. He thought of her like a daughter, but fell back into drugs. After the club, he woke up with Darcy dead in the bed. Bob Gear showed up and helped him get rid of the body, but Witten kept a photo of Darcy’s dead body to remind him of the kind of man he really was.

Sara is not as pleased about the confession as one might expect. The bullet used to kill Gear was not a match to Witten’s gun. Greg manages to restore the film more, and finds that it was shot two months after Darcy’s death. Darcy faked her death to get away from her father, who may have abused her.

Review  

Fourteen years ago, Sara and Catherine worked the case where Jack Witten was accused of murdering Darcy Blaine, an eighteen year-old he met at a bar and who was never seen again after leaving with Witten. When they were unable to come up with enough evidence, Conrad Ecklie (then only the dayshift lead) took the case from them. With Grissom away at a conference, there was nothing Catherine or Sara could do to prevent the case from being filed away as a cold case, unsolved until now.

Sara is, again, a soft touch for a sob story that hits her in the right place. She immediately believes Emily’s story, even when DB is skeptical, because she’s chasing rabbits. DB warns her not to push too hard.

However, when faced with Darcy, Sara stays true to justice. Instead of relying on justice when (and if) her father abused her, Darcy’s choice to pervert it, let innocents suffer, and in the end, commit murder is too much for Sara to let slide. But Sara doesn’t know what to believe anymore.

Notes  

• Sara still chases rabbits.

Quotes  

Russell: Sara, got something?
Sara: A piece of the past.

Sara: Terrible, unspeakable things happen to all of us. But that doesn’t give us the right to destroy someone’s life. Whatever happened to you, whatever the truth is, for fourteen years you let an innocent man believe that he killed the one thing that he cared about. The one person in his screwed up universe that he genuinely loved like a daughter. You took his desire to protect and save you and you perverted it. You twisted it. I know you. I know who you are. You haven’t changed, Darcy. You never will.

Russell: That thing I said to you? About pushing too hard? Thank god you did.

Sara: All this evidence, all these years … you ever think you’ve had enough?
Greg: You kidding? I’m just getting started.