CSI: NY Recap - 4.20 Taxi

4.20 Taxi
Air Date: May 14, 2008

This is a great episode that finally closes the book on the Cabbie Killer story.

As Don wrestles with a suspect trying to escape, Jennifer pushes them out of the way when a taxi speeds by them. The taxi dumps a body, and speeds off onto the sidewalk, and around the corner, with Don in pursuit on foot. The dead man is Jimmy Komitis, a Jersey City police officer. The body has scratch marks on the neck. Ants in some leaked oil indicate that it’s derived from animal fat –G Oil.

Stella and Don follow up at Five Brothers, the only cab company in town that uses G Oil. The workers there are belligerent.

Autopsy indicates that Komitis suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning, but carvings on Komitis don’t match those of the other Cabbie Killer victims. He also had blows from three separate objects. Komitis was beaten by three people, then marked to look like a Cabbie Killer victim. The markings were never released to the public, though, so how did these people know about them?

Police recover the cab that leaked the G Oil. They discover that Komitis drove that cab, moonlighting in the City. The cab belongs to Five Brothers, but was not accounted for in the documents that Don examined at the dispatch office.

Jordan comes down and tells the team that the mayor wants to know who leaked the unreleased information about the Cabbie Killer markings. It had turned up on a blog –Reed Garrett’s blog. The blog also indicated that the killer was a cabbie named Jimmy.

Reed won’t tell Mac who his informant is. Mac blames Reed for Komitis’ death.

DNA on Komitis’ jacket is that of a white-throated monkey. It’s a popular bush meat, that has many side-effects. Stella remembers one of the drivers from Five Brothers, Artie, had pox on his hands. Don and Stella question Artie, and take hand imprints. Artie says they knew who it was because of a blog.

Quinn tells Mac that they are about to get a court order for Reed’s source. Mac begs her to give him one hour. When Mac arrives at Reed’s apartment, his keys are in the door, and his backpack is lying in the hallway.

Reed, in a cab trunk, hears the driver try to talk a woman into taking a cab ride. The driver kills her, and puts her in the trunk with Reed.

Stella notices that Reed is blogging from wherever he is. The Cabbie Killer is using Reed to get his “message” out to the public. Reed is describing the killer’s ritual on the woman. At Stella’s suggestion, Mac decyphers a message that Reed is sending him, including clues to his location. Reed’s recorder has his interview with the Cabbie Killer. When Reed’s blog led so quickly to Komitis’ death, the killer knew that he could use Reed’s blog to get his message out. They wonder why he wanted people to turn against Komitis. Linday traces the blog source’s general physical vicinity. Powder on Reed’s backpack is yeast. Reed’s blog entry gives clues that they he is in a brewery.

The team descends upon an abandoned midtown brewery. They find Reed with his throat bleeding massively. The killer escapes on foot. Jordan shows up at the scene, angry that Stella never told her about Mac’s relationship to Mac. She also said that the mayor’s preparing to turn the investigation over to the FBI forensics team.

Lindsay and Danny find the mechanism that sends the carbon monoxide to the back seat. Hawkes matches prints on the knife that cut Reed match prints found inside Komitis’ cab. Danny tells them that prints and paint transfer indicate that Jimmy and the Cabbie Killer had had a “fender bender”.

Mac learns from Reed –in the hospital- the series of events from the time that Reed was snatched, until they made it to the brewery. He smelled candy corn. Prevailing winds would carry candy corn smell from a Fort Lee candy company to Washington Heights. Lindsay matched the material used to divert the exhaust in the cab to that of fire hoses. Stretching indicate that it had been used. They find an abandoned fire house where the killer might live. They capture the Cabbie Killer. He spews a lot of mixed up religions ideas, calling himself Kharon, the Greek ferryman. He recites Leviticus 27:29, which, of course, Mac knew off the top of his head. This matches the “L2729″ in the carvings on the victims.

What did you think of this episode, Taxi? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.