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| • Catherine Willows • |
Background: Willows worked as an exotic dancer on the Strip in her early 20s while going to college. A young filed services officer named Grissom recruited her to work at the lab. She started as an assistant technician and has worked her way up over a decade to become a CSI level Three.
Biography:The character's original CBS biography stated that she was born in Bozeman, Montana in 1963 and raised by her mother, Lily Flynn (Anita Gillette), a former show girl ("Weeping Willows", "Kiss-Kiss, Bye-Bye"). This biography was later revised. The new version states that the character was born in Las Vegas and raised by her single mother, who worked as a cocktail waitress and showgirl at various jobs along the west coast.[1] The seventh season episode "Living Legend" established that Willows was 16 years old (portrayed by Amy Scott) in 1975, the year the movie "Jaws" was released, which places her year of birth in either 1958 or 1959. She had occasional contact with her biological father, casino owner Sam Braun (Scott Wilson), but knew him only as a family friend. Sam Braun nicknamed her "Muggs." She did not learn he had fathered her until she was an adult and compared his DNA sample with her own as part of a murder investigation in the episode "Inside the Box". Willows herself worked for a time as a dancer/stripper and briefly had a cocaine habit, dropping it before pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Medical Technology from the University of Las Vegas. Like the other characters on CSI, she has a wide knowledge of odd facts that help in their investigations of crime scenes.
Willows has one daughter, Lindsey Willows (originally portrayed by Madison McReynolds, as of 2006 by Kay Panabaker), and had a stormy relationship with ex-husband Eddie (Timothy Carhart) until his murder ("Lady Heather's Box"). Prosecution of Eddie's killer proved impossible due to ambiguous evidence, something she took rather hard. The show's writers advanced Lindsey's age several years after the death of Eddie, turning the character from preteen to teenager. Willows' relationship with Lindsey soured somewhat after Eddie's murder, and the girl's behavior took a turn for the worse; she would get in fights at school and was once picked up for hitchhiking. Willows took Lindsey to the morgue and showed her the body of a murder victim to impress upon Lindsey the danger of her behavior. Willows later enrolled Lindsey in Butterfield ("4 x 4"), a private school that would keep a tighter rein on her.
Willows' relationship with Sam Braun occasionally created conflicts in cases where he was involved in some way with an ongoing investigation (i.e., "Inside the Box"). Willows however accepted a large monetary gift from Braun, despite some ethical qualms, and became more financially stable. Grissom expressed some misgivings when he learned of this, but no lasting negative repercussions occur. In episode 702 ("Built to Kill, Part 2") Braun is shot and dies moments later in Willows' arms. She, in episode 705 ("Double-Cross"), lights a candle in a Roman Catholic church in Braun's memory, crosses herself, and whispers, "This one is for you, Sam." It remains to be seen what Willows will inherit from Braun (she was asked about it by fellow investigator Nick Stokes in episode 711 ("Leaving Las Vegas") but beyond describing Braun's large estate as being tied up in land development, she seemed indifferent and not anticipating a large legacy) as he cared very deeply for her, even when she was his legal opponent.
Willows dates in several episodes. The earliest occurrence was a brief fling with a city engineer played by Brad Johnson across three first-season episodes ("$35K O.B.O.", "Justice is Served" and "Scuba Doobie-Doo"). A later brief flirtation, in the episode "Weeping Willows", ended when the man (Adam Novak, played by Marg Helgenberger's real-life husband, Alan Rosenberg) became overly aggressive. In Seasons 4 and 5 she dates an owner of nightclub that she meets while investigating a murder that occurred at his night club. Their relationship ends when she meets him in his office one night and he is fooling around with one of the club girls. No long-term romantic relationships have otherwise been established, though there was a brief flirtation with fellow CSI Warrick Brown, ending with his marriage, which she described as the end of a "fantasy". Willows maintains a close friendship with the other investigators on the night shift, especially supervisor Gil Grissom, though she has occasionally criticized him for his lax attitude toward paperwork and office politics. When newcomer Sara Sidle arrived they briefly butted heads, but have become friends since then.
After Greg Sanders is injured in an explosion in the lab in "Play with Fire", Willows visits him in the hospital so that she can tell him personally that she was partially responsible for the accident. Several years later, she also expresses a deal of concern for Sanders when he returns to work not too long after being the victim of a brutal beating ("Double-Cross").
After Grissom goes on sabbatical, Willows welcomes his temporary replacement Michael Keppler, accepting Keppler quite quickly into his new role on the team (episode 712, "Sweet Jane"). Despite some misgivings on her part, she follows his suggestions in performing an unorthodox investigative style known as "reverse forensics," which, although successful in luring out the suspect, fails to produce charges because a lack of communication between the undersheriff and the district attorney. It also serves to create a great deal of hard feelings when the other members of her team discover that she and Keppler deceived them and created a false crime scene (episode 713, "Redrum"). After Keppler goes rogue during an investigation, she is the first to express concern to and about him. Unfortunately, she locates him just moments too late, after he takes a fatal bullet meant for a murder witness. When the paramedics declare Keppler to be dead, Willows collapses in tears into (recently returned) Grissom's arms ("Law of Gravity").
| | • Sara Sidle • |
Background: Youngest coroner in the history of L.A. County at age 22. Eight years later, a headhunter recruited him to run the Field Services office in Las Vegas. Grissom has spent the last 15 years helping Las Vegas move from #14 to #2 in the U.S. Crime Lab rankings.
Biography:Grissom grew up in Marina Del Rey, California. His mother ran an art gallery in Venice, and his father was in the "import/export" business, dealing primarily with communist China. Grissom's parents divorced when he was five. At eight or nine, Grissom began riding his bike out to the beach every day to collect dead seagulls, opossums, and anything else he could find. He would bring the remains home and conduct autopsies, slowly teaching himself the ins and outs of death. As a teenager, Grissom became known to local authorities, who employed him for quick autopsies on dead animals such as cats and dogs. By age sixteen, Grissom was an "unofficial intern" for the L.A. County morgue. He worked his way through college and then went to work full time as the youngest coroner in the history of L.A. County. His philosophy about his work has always been: "If you want to learn about forensics, master everything else first." While others may have a reason for being a CSI, for Grissom the job is not about choice. Grissom could no more work in another profession than a fish could stop swimming. CSI is not a job for Grissom, it's an expression of who he is as a person, the perfect synthesis of personality and profession.
credit: Crime Lab
| | • Catherine Willows • |
Background:Attended graduate school in theoretical physics. Worked in the San Francisco coroner's office for five years, then transferred to the San Francisco crime lab before being contracted by Gil Grissom to come to Las Vegas.
Biography:Sara was born and raised an hour and a half outside of San Francisco on Tamales Bay. An only child of ex-hippies running a B and B, Sara always needed a bigger stage. Everything about her as a child was outsized. Her intelligence, her energy, her curiosity. And unlike her parents, Sara always maintained perfect self-discipline. Growing up, the roles were reversed for Sara and her parents. They kept telling her to take it easy, and she kept coming up with business models for how they could take their B and B public and then franchise the brand. Sara was pretty much all or nothing in high school, and as talented as she was, grace didn't come with the package. The other kids resented her, and she did nothing to ease the resentment. Sara was a perfect example of why great athletes make rotten coaches. Things come so easy to them, they can't understand why everyone else doesn't perform to their level. At eighteen, Sara found a place where she could be at home. She went to Harvard and enjoyed four of the best years of her life. She took as many classes as she could. She went to as many parties as she could. And she finally dated. Not well, but at least she tried. Like any tragic figure worth their salt, Sara has a single flaw: people. She can solve any problem except for the problem of other people and how she's supposed to relate to them. So she hides in the job. She pursues her career rigorously, perhaps more so than any of the other CSIs. Partly because she's still rebelling against her parents' "lax" approach to social obligations, and partly because she's afraid of what she'd find out about herself if she ever slowed down.
credit: Crime Lab
| | • Nick Stokes • |
Background: Spent his first three years out of college on the Dallas police force, then transferred to the Dallas crime lab, spending one year as CSI level One before transferring to Las Vegas.
Biography: The last child in a family of seven, Nick was born into law enforcement. His father worked as the state D.A. before being appointed to the bench. Two years ago, Nick's father was appointed to the Texas State Supreme Court. Nick's mother has spent her entire adult life working as a public defender. They have been happily-married for 45 years. With one brother and five sisters, Nick had a lot of people looking out for him. Maybe that's why everything feels so personal to Nick. He has no distance from his work because he's always been close to people. Where Sara struggles with relationships, Nick can't help himself. Being with and around people is so easy for him. What's hard is balancing the unspoken but competing perspectives of his parents. He wants to live up to their expectations, and becoming a CSI was one way of finding a compromise. Being a cop was too much for his father. As a CSI, he's objective. He still has social responsibility to uphold, but does his job without an agenda. The evidence speaks and everyone has to respect what it says, both public defenders as well as judges on the bench. Nick could still be in Texas, but he chose to move two states over. There's a part of Nick that loves his family and his family name, but there's a part of him that wants to be on his own, to lay down his own roots and establish his own identity. What he's finding is that roots don't take quickly. Growing them is a slow process fraught with mistakes.and Nick isn't finished.
credit: Crime Lab
| | • Warrick Brown • |
Background: Worked as a casino runner throughout his teenage years. He put himself through college working as a taxi driver, a bell captain at the Sahara, selling helicopter rides over the Grand Canyon, and a grave digger before finding his way to the LVPD and CSI.
Biography: The only member of the team born and raised in Las Vegas. To this day, Warrick has never met his father. His mother passed away when Warrick was seven, leaving Warrick in the care of his maternal grandmother. He grew up in a strict household, and that meant he kept his position as a runner a secret from his grandmother. Warrick was quite literally born to live in Vegas. He loves the casinos, loves the action, loves the pulse of the city. He can move just as easily through the Clark County courthouse as he can through the Sportsbook at Hard Rock. To let off steam, he DJs at clubs run by his friends, and writes his own songs. Spending his whole life in the city means Warrick knows at least one person in every bar, club, and hotel in the city. He's connected, and he uses those connections to move between his worlds. He went through a lot of women in his early twenties, but the first time he fell in love, the woman broke his heart. He now looks at women with a cautious eye. Warrick knows how all the games are played in Las Vegas and is aware of the universal truth of the city . the only one who wins consistently is the house because the odds are stacked. Warrick's got enough of a rebel in him to challenge those odds, and enough of a realist in him to know the only one watching out for him is him, so he'll cut his losses to fight again another day if need be.
credit: Crime Lab
| | • Jim Brass • |
Background: Brass spent 20 years working his way up to homicide detective in New Jersey. He transferred out of Homicide and out of New Jersey 10 years ago and came to Las Vegas. He eventually came to run the CSI department, more as an administrator than as an investigator.
Biography: Brass was born into a middle-class family in Newark. When the riots hit in the mid-sixties, Brass was in college. Something about the injustice made him decide on a career in law enforcement. He approached his job with the zeal of a reformer, and at first Brass gained a great deal of notoriety for his tenacious investigative style. Unfortunately, tenacious investigators tend to be indiscriminate. When they see someone do something wrong, they go after the crime. Even if the criminals are cops. And that's what happened to Brass. He became a Serpico-like figure in New Jersey. He cleaned up the department and the effort cost him his marriage and what little relationship he had with his daughter. When the dust cleared, Brass headed for Second Chance City, landing at CSI. He could get his fix of the investigative process without having to expend any personal capital. His life gently slid into strip bars and J and B doubles and all was well enough until a young newbie named Holly Gribbs showed up. Her death cost Brass his job and in some ways his peace of mind. Since she died, he's been transferred back to homicide. He's not sure if he likes it, but it's familiar and it's easy, and that'll do for the short term. The long term is irrelevant for Brass, because he stopped believing in the future long ago.
credit: Crime Lab
| | • Greg Sanders • |
Background: Interned as an entry-level lab tech at San Francisco PD for two semesters.
Biography: Since picking up his first amateur chemistry kit when he was seven, Greg Sanders has wanted to be a scientist. Even though he was told that science was supposed to be a hobby of the pasty-faced and romantically challenged, that did not dissuade him from joining the Science Club in high school, nor from majoring in chemistry in college. He has always balanced lab work with athletics; studying with flirting; and computer work with dating. Addicted to the pursuit of knowledge, he has been on a quest to learn all he can about the scientific breakthroughs of past centuries. And discovering and naming a brand-new theory or element after himself wouldn't hurt, either.
credit: Crime Lab
| | • Sofia Curtis • |
Background: Sofia Curtis used to be supervisor of the swing shift but was demoted to regular CSI by Conrad Ecklie. Later on she became a detective.
Biography: Sofia Curtis was the supervisor of the swing shift and had to work a case with Gil Grissom while Ecklie was being promoted. Ecklie later had Sofia evaluate Grissom's team in the hopes that she would give him enough ammo to break up Grissom's team. Sofia found no lacking in Grissom's leadership or the ability of the night shift to function. Ecklie broke up the team anyway and Sofia was demoted and moved as CSI to the night shift under Grissom. She decided that lab politics wasn't her thing and transfered to the Las Vegas Police Department as a detective. She participated in the arrest of suspected drug dealers that were firing automated weapons at police officers. One officer was killed by friendly fire and Sofia suspected that she might have fired the fatal shot. That almost broke her up. It was later discovered that Captain Brass had fired the fatal round. Sofia Curtis still works as a detective in the night shift.
credit: Crime Lab
| | • Albert Robbins • |
Background: After completing his residency at Johns Hopkins, Robbins opened a clinic in the inner harbor area of Baltimore. He worked as a general practitioner for 20 years before the chronic budget shortfalls and the practices of the newly powerful HMOs forced him to close the clinic's doors. Strictly out of academic curiosity, he became an assistant coroner for the Arlington, VA, police department, where he worked his way up to coroner in two years. After putting in four years in Arlington, he transferred to Las Vegas. He has been the chief medical examiner in Las Vegas for the past five years.
Biography: Born to a single mother in an era when everyone came from a two-parent household, Robbins spent his life as an underdog. Spurned by his peers, he took solace in books from an early age, discovering an aptitude for academia. His mother worked as a nurse, so Robbins spent most nights in the local hospital. The doctors and nurses unofficially adopted him, and they not only gave him free rein of the premises, they allowed him to assist in any number of activities the chronically short-handed facility required. From stocking shelves as a ten-year-old, to assisting in simple surgeries as a teenager, Robbins knew more about the hospital than some of the doctors who worked there. And he put that knowledge to work when he opened his own clinic. Many years of fighting the good fight eventually left him drained, and after shifting into what felt like a natural career change for him (medicine is all about life and death), he and his wife and their three children packed up and moved to Las Vegas. He's free to pursue his own interests, both at work and at home, and that's the way he likes it right now. His medical career has somewhat followed the path he envisioned for himself, but his personal life has far exceeded his wildest expectations. His wife and his children have replaced books as the center of his life and nothing will ever change that.
credit: Crime Lab
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