CSI: Miami

Season 2 - Episode 10 - Extreme

Teleplay by John Haynes
Directed by Elizabeth Devine

After hours, a young couple sneaks off for a rendezvous in the courtyard garden of the Coral Reef business park. As he eases her back against a tree trunk, she notices something shiny on the ground. She pushes him off and goes to investigate – finding the crumpled body of a young woman. In unison they look up at the multiple levels of the parking structure above – seeing the horrible distance from which she fell.

Morning comes, finding Horatio, Alexx and Yelina standing over the corpse. Alexx is quick to notice that everything on the victim is couture from the latest season – and the diamond studded Movado on her wrist tells her this was no robbery – despite the fact that there is no purse or ID to give them a name. Then Horatio points out the one clue they have - Movado’s are registered to the purchaser. Everything changes when Alexx goes to move the body, and finds it already in rigor. Now along with discovering her identity they have to find the murder scene… this girl was dead before she hit the ground.

As Calleigh and Speedle arrive on scene, Horatio asks about Delko. She tries to cover for him, but finally explains that he just didn’t respond to the call. Speedle asks Alexx to take a sample of the dust that is everywhere on the corpse – even in her eyelashes. This combined with the ligature marks on her wrists tell them she was bound and kept in a confined space. But other than that they find nothing other than some gray tracks of sealant. Speedle chimes in: “If you can’t place the suspect at the crime scene” and Calleigh responds with the textbook response: “You place the crime scene on the suspect.”

Back at the lab, Alexx is unable to find the victim’s fingerprints in the database – and no one matching her description has been reported missing. At first she suspects death by asphyxiation, but then she finds bruising on both sides of her face, and a torn frenulum. This victim was smothered to death. Plastic material found on her shoulder may at least provide some key to the murder weapon.

Eric Delko finally walks into the locker room – beaten and bruised. Horatio is relieved to see that he didn’t just miss the call. Delko claims to have discovered a chop shop in his neighborhood and asks if he can continue his independent investigation. Horatio agrees as long as he doesn’t get behind on his casework.


Yelina and Horatio track down Tommy Chandler, whose name is on the Movado registration, at a public rock-climbing wall. Chandler provides them with the name they’ve been looking for: Nikki Wilcox – his girlfriend and heir to the Wilcox Conglomerated fortune. They show him pictures of Nikki’s body, but he remains completely nonplussed, complimenting them on the makeup and asking if they can just move on to the “next stage”. He refuses to believe she is really dead until he is standing over her body in the morgue drawer. He explains that it wasn’t supposed to happen - it was just a game. They were taking part in an extreme kidnapping game hosted by a company called “Gotcha”. For an exorbitant fee, they perform a mock kidnapping, followed by a mock-rescue, for bored, rich thrill-seekers.

As Delko finds himself in conflict with Detective Frank Tripp on the chop shop investigation, Horatio and the team must race to determine the identity of the “sub-contractors” used by Gotcha - and only one thing is certain: it’s not a game any more.