Editor's Note: The following contains talk of sexual abuse.
The Big Picture
- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation broke the unspoken rule of killing a child, making it especially disturbing for viewers.
- The episode "Blood Drops" features a quadruple family homicide, revealing deeply disturbing details about the murders and the history of sexual abuse within the family.
- The episode challenges the audience's sense of justice, as the murders are almost seen as justifiable revenge for years of rape and abuse.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation completely changed the police procedural genre. With a focus on the gritty, gory details of crimes and the forensic techniques used to process evidence, the series established an entirely new type of cop drama. CSI was all about the spellbinding science used to solve the outlandish, often horrifying homicides. The characters had their place, and their interpersonal relationships were compelling, but the show's real stars were the sickening crimes superbly set in Sin City. With fifteen seasons of shocking, stomach-churning crime scenes, many episodes could vie for most disturbing, but there is one that clearly stands above the rest.
In CSI Season 11, Episode 4, titled "Sqweegel," a man in a latex bodysuit creepily lives in his victim's homes, lying in wait under the beds, before murdering them. What makes this one particularly disturbing is that this criminal gets away with murder, literally, since the crime team never apprehends the perpetrator. One of the other more alarming episodes involves the murder of a family, save one daughter, in the Season 6 episode "Gum Drops." The youngest member of the family is found, but with her entire family gone, this is a tragedy on a whole other level. With so many seasons to choose from, it seems unlikely that the most detestable crime would occur in Season 1. However, the quadruple family homicide in Season 1, Episode 7, "Blood Drops," remains the most gut-wrenching crime of all.
CSI
CSI is a procedural franchise of American television series created by Anthony E. Zuiker. The first three CSI series follow the work of forensic scientists as they unveil the circumstances behind mysterious deaths, while the fourth series, CSI: Cyber, emphasizes behavioral psychology and how it can be applied to cyber forensics.
- Created by
- Anthony E. Zuiker
- First TV Show
- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
- Latest TV Show
- CSI: Vegas
'CSI' Broke the Unspoken Rule
Whether it's a television show, movie, or book, there is one rule you don't break...killing a child. While the death of a child is often talked about in various works of fiction, typically as a tragic backstory, making children the victims of monstrous murders is unspeakably unsettling, to say the least. As a parent, watching your worst fears come to life before your eyes, even in a fictional television show, like CSI, is hard to stomach. There's an overwhelming impulse to cry out in indignation and contempt. Many successful crime shows and movies have included plot lines about this very thing, but many have also been met with audience resistance and anger. Choosing to kill off a couple of children was a bold one for CSI, and that was just the beginning of the depravity depicted in their most disturbing episode.
The CSI episode "Blood Drops" begins with a terrified teenage girl screaming for help outside of her home. Cut to a plethora of police arriving, Gil Grissom (William Petersen) pulling up to the scene, a police officer vomiting outside the house, and it's obvious something is really, really wrong. Grissom, first on the scene, quickly finds out four members of the Collins family were brutally murdered in their home. A middle-aged mother and father, and two teenage boys, one of whom can't be more than 13. As Grissom walks through the crime scene with Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox), it becomes clear just how brutal the murder was, particularly of the two boys. One boy is still in bed with a fatal cut to the throat, and the younger boy is on the floor facing the bloody hand prints he made on his wall while being stabbed to death from behind. You wouldn't think it could get much worse, but this is just the beginning.
The CSI episode quickly reveals that not only are the parents and two boys dead, but two girls are left without their family. Tina (Allison Lange), a teenage girl, and her much younger sister, Brenda (yes, that is a young Dakota Fanning), were in the home when the homicides took place. They are terrified and in shock. Brenda, who can't be more than five or six, is taken to the hospital for a physical and mental evaluation, as she has not spoken to anyone save one word, "Buffalo," uttered to Grissom as he was walking away. Sidle goes with Brenda and offers her comfort as she is processed for evidence and evaluated for signs of trauma. As the rest of the team assesses the evidence from the crime scene, blood spatter expert Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) realizes the blood they thought had been a result of the father going to protect his young daughter actually shows that the father was coming out of the little girl's room just before the murderer attacked him.
'CSI' Took "Blood Drops" From Unspeakable to Unthinkable
Evidence from the crime scene reveals that someone on a motorcycle had been at the Collins house the night of the murders. Tracking the tire prints of a Honda bike, CSI Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan) finds out the owner lives only four blocks away. As it turns out, the bike is shared by several teenage boys, and each one admits to having a sexual relationship with the oldest daughter, Tina. The evidence points to one suspect, Jesse Overton (Eric Nenninger), who, in a polygraph test, admits to slaying the entire family at the behest of Tina so that they could be together. Though the team is sure Jesse committed the murders and that Tina collaborated, the polygraph reveals Jesse is lying about his motives. And this is where things get really icky.
The Longest-Running Character on a TV Drama Will Surprise You
We can never get enough.As the CSI episode progresses, while processing young Brenda for evidence, Sara Sidle uncovers the disgusting truth about her sexual abuse by her father. And, as it turns out, "Buffalo," the word spoken to Grissom, was a reference to the buffalo pendant Brenda's father wore around his neck. A pendant she must have looked at every time he abused her. As Tina is questioned, we find out that not only was Brenda sexually abused, but Tina was abused by her father as well. Pretty unforgivable, right? That's not the end, though. Brenda isn't Tina's sister but her daughter. Brenda is the result of the incestuous rape of a thirteen-year-old girl by her own father. Tina had her father killed to prevent her daughter from further sexual abuse, and she wanted her mother and brothers gone because they did nothing to stop the years of abuse perpetrated against Tina and now Brenda.
CSI's episode "Blood Drops" managed to include child murder, and somehow, that wasn't even the worst part of the episode! Not only that, but as horrifying as it is even to think this, the murders even seemed justified in a way. With years of rape and sexual abuse by her father, Tina's desire to protect her daughter from enduring the same traumas she did, it isn't hard to understand her motives. What parent wouldn't do everything possible to protect their child? Needless to say, this episode takes things from bad to worse, and what's worse still, even the most heinous crime seems justified as revenge for an even more heinous crime. That's not the kind of one-upping anyone needs. Thanks, CSI!
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.
