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This March, a mysterious death in eastern New Mexico eventually led investigators to a 2003 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Thomas Hickman, 55, a Red Lobster Regional Manager from Texas, was found dead southeast of Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Police originally believed the man, found with duct tape over his mouth, and shot in the back of the head, was the victim of homicide. Soon, though, balloons found in a cholla cactus, just 30 feet from the body, made investigators think otherwise. Tied to the balloons, they found a revolver missing its grip and trigger guard, presumably to lighten the load on the balloons.

Apparently, the man had plans similar to those of a “victim” in the CSI: Vegas episode Homebodies. Hickman seems to have tied the gun to balloons, shot himself in the back of the head, and thought that the weapon would escape the scene, making his death look like a homicide. The man had a life insurance policy that would have paid his wife $388,000. Of course, a verifiable suicide would kept the money out of his beneficiaries’ hands, so, he tried hide the evidence of suicide. Too bad for his survivors that his plan didn’t work.

When a New Mexico State Police detective heard about the CSI episode, he rented the DVD to watch. When investigators searched Hickman’s North Richland Hills, Texas home, they found metal shavings in his garage that matched the handgun. These clues fit with the fact that Hickman, 6 feet 6 inches tall and 260 pounds, was found with his mouth taped shut, but with no signs of a struggle, and he was not in any way bound. According to Lt. Rick Anglada, though, they found no evidence that the man had seen the Homebodies episode of CSI.

ABC News reported this on Thursday.

I guess, sometimes, truth is just as strange as fiction.

Do YOU doubt that the man saw Homebodies?

Episode 8.15 - Two and a Half Deaths
Air Date: 8 May 2008

Loads of fun, this episode was written by the people who bring us Two and a Half Men. It’s also quite funny, and packed with guest stars, including Diedrich Bader (Office Space, Drew Carey Show), Katy Sagal, and even Jon Cryer, Charlie Sheen, and Angus T. Jones. This is also a good example of a couple different shades of meta-fiction –various types of fiction portrayed within a work of fiction, or references to fiction. For the most part, I found the action to be funnier than the dialog.

Annabelle Fundt, a feisty, mean comedic star, is bitching at her show’s creator, and everyone else involved. The next morning, she’s dead on her hotel room floor, with a blow to the head, and a rubber chicken stuffed into her mouth. The team estimates time of death around midnight. The creator tells Brass that the rest of the cast and crew returned to LA, right after rap. Annabelle insisted that he stay behind, because she doesn’t travel at night.

Annabelle’s former driver, then writer, then producer, rushes into the hotel room, and tells the team that he and Annabelle married two days earlier. [Everybody! Suspect time.] Annabelle didn’t like to look at him after sex, so they slept in separate rooms.

Mr. Little: [in the crime lab corridor] Beautiful people doing high tech police work. There might be a series in this.
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