CSI: Miami

Season 4 - Episode 3 - Prey

Written by Brian O’Brien & Corey Miller
Directed by Scott Lautanen

Sarah Jennings and Tina Saunders are in full party mode at the Liquid Neon club, celebrating the next morning’s Bahamas trip.  When Sarah failed to show up at the boat, Tina went looking for her and found Sarah’s car but no trace of Sarah. 

 At the car, which is now a crime scene, Horatio follows a trail of blood spots to a pile of vomit, a good indication that Sarah was alive when she left the car.  Tina tells Horatio that she last saw Sarah at 2:00 am.  Horatio discovers a hidden camera in the car, connected to a laptop in the trunk.  Tripp and Horatio question Ted Griffith, the travel agent that rented the car to Sarah.  On the laptop Wolfe discovers a heated make-out session between Sarah and a young man named Brad Walker.  Calleigh and Wolfe question Walker.  Walker claims during their tryst, a male stalker opened the door, grabbed Sarah and pulled her out of the car. 

 Delko questions a beach jogger who says she saw a girl matching Sarah’s description drop her purse.  Delko finds the purse, with a single tablet of Adderine, a prescription drug, in it.  Horatio suspects Griffith was the supplier.  Griffith admits he gave Sarah the Adderine and his assistant, Hanna, planted the purse at the beach.  Horatio arrests Griffith.  Calleigh gets a lead from Valerie Nordoff, a liquor representative who was at Liquid Neon that night.  She says a guy named Marshall wanted to take Sarah to his boat. 

 Horatio questions Jeff Marshall on his boat.   Marshall admits Sarah and Tina had been on his boat and left around 5am.  Tina admits she initially lied and the pair did visit Marshall’s boat but she doesn’t remember anything else about that night.  Delko finds Sarah’s body at the park.  Natalia approaches Horatio with a file on a 1995 unsolved murder case he was involved with back in New York.   Horatio tells her to put the file on his desk and to remain quiet about it; he then orders police surveillance for Jennifer Wilson. 

 Alexx’s autopsy reveals Sarah was strangled and sexually assaulted.   Wolfe traces the hidden camera back to Sarah’s stepfather, Paul Jennings.  Jennings said he was just protecting his daughter when he grabbed her out of the clutches of Walker, but they argued and she left him.  Calleigh IDs the DNA found on Sarah as Thomas Woodward’s.

 Woodward tells Horatio he and Sarah had sex on Marshall’s boat, but he left Sarah behind when Marshall showed up and was angry that he was with Sarah first.   Marshall denies the accusations, saying Sarah got sick on his boat around 4:00 am and he asked her and Tina to leave, and Woodward followed her.  Marshall and Woodward each blame the other for Sarah’s death.  Woodward’s prints are found on Sarah’s neck, making him the killer. 

 As Horatio sits at his desk and opens the file Natalia gave him, he once again faces the enormity of an unsolved murder that still very much haunts him.