CSI: Miami

Season 2 - Episode 6 - Hurricane Anthony

Teleplay by Ildy Modrovich & Laurence Walsh
Directed by Joe Chappelle

Young suburban couple Todd and Heather Burton struggle to get their Coconut Grove house boarded up before the coming onslaught of Hurricane Anthony. They make it to the car, starting the engine just as everything in front of them disappears in a curtain of water. Heather can barely make out the word “landfall” - as Todd floors it, and something hits the windshield... a human body.

Hours later, the CSIs join the police and the sheriff’s department in the disaster relief. Horatio walks down the street, taking in the stillness left in the storm’s wake – and the corpse pinned under the Burton’s car. As Alexx examines the body, it quickly becomes clear from the impact marks that it wasn’t the car that hit their John Doe – it was the other way around. He was literally blown against it by the force of the storm.

As Speedle and Delko arrive on scene something catches Horatio’s eye: the cover of the Burton’s boat flapping in the non-existent breeze. He rips the cover off, revealing neighbor Martin Medesto impaled on a low, wrought-iron fence. Horatio immediately sees that it is too late… that the man is living his final moments. He promises to tell his wife that his last thoughts were of her, holding his hand as Medesto passes away.

Blocks away, Calleigh is surveying the neighborhood with Detective Frank Tripp when they see a man, Jed Gold, carrying a big screen television to the curb – caught in the process of looting. They accompany him inside to see if he can back up his claim that it is his house. Pictures of him scattered throughout seem to lend credence to his story - but then they find something he can’t explain away: the body of his wife Deena, lying on the bed with a bullet in her skull.

Back at the Medesto house, they take a longer look at the body, where they find hammer marks on his calf. That and the trajectory of his fall make one thing clear – this was no natural disaster, this was murder. Horatio learns that Medesto’s wife is eight and a half months pregnant – and that her over-protective brother clearly never liked the man. When Horatio notices the hammer mark on his forehead, he requests a DNA sample.

Back at the lab, Speedle and Alexx try to unlock the identity of their windshield victim. When they find his fingerprints sanded off, they realize that they may have their work cut out for them. But one thing is clear – their victim wasn’t killed by the impact. He drowned in the horizontal rain.

Horatio and Delko continue to comb the Medesto crime scene, and find a piece of plywood with bloody nails sticking out – giving them a sample that may disprove the brother’s story. But then an even more curious clue presents itself. In the windswept yard, one rosebush remains untouched by the storm.

Three bodies. Three crimes. And it looks like Mother Nature has an alibi.