He’s luring them in through the chatrooms …
Summary: The FBI investigates a series of murders where the victims appear to all be sexual predators.
Original air date: December 15, 2006 (US)
Written by: Don McGill
Directed by: Chris Hartwell
Special Guest: Buzz Aldrin
Opening numbers:
491,000: Registered sex offenders
3.2 Million uploads
34: Million teenagers
24, 452, 618 (619, 627, 642): Chatroom sites
Family Concepts: (character development)
- Larry leaves for a six month stay on the International Space Station
- Larry now has a cell phone (with a Star Trek ring tone) since NASA is calling him so often.
- Charlie has known Larry for approximately seventeen years.
- Don: Who ya gonna call?
David: Charlie! - Megan [about Larry]: His spirit is crushed. He’s like a star collapsing in on himself.
- David [to Larry]: It’s often been confusing, it’s always been real man.
John Santos is found by a real estate agent in a house for sale; he’s been beaten to death. Santos is now the third victim to be found with this killers MO, but the FBI is stymied to find any connection among the victims. Charlie thinks the killer is trying to find a “dream house” and offers to try to figure out what kind of houses the killer would want to use in the future. Megan pulls together information on all three victims so far, Scott Tillman, Jarod Holt and now Santos, to try and find some kind of link. To her surprise she does find that all three men have a history of sexual assault, though only one, Holt, was convicted on a lesser charge. Further digging reveals all three men had chatroom conversations with a user called cheerchick15.
David finds an ISP link to a Brenden McCrary, and arrest him on suspicion of committing the murders. McCrary however proves to have an alibi for the last murder and he is involved with a parents group that lures sexual predators to homes to have them arrested.
Larry has been told by NASA that he is possibly off the space mission as someone requested a more thorough background check and discovered some of Larry’s eccentric behaviors. Megan asks Charlie if there in anyone in the science community he, Charlie can call to get Larry back on the mission; Charlie isn’t sure who he could call that would have any influence. However, later Megan and Amita hear him talking to the NSA in reference to Larry; Charlie personally vouches for Larry being not only kind but brilliant.
David discovers a video of Santos’ confession as a sexual predator uploaded to a site that houses suicides and other deaths. Charlie thinks he can trace the videos back to who’s uploading them but he would have to have a live upload signal to trace. He doesn’t realize how true this is when his set up leads to another attack, this time the video is uploaded live, the mane isn’t dead yet. Don’s team sets out to the house in question only to find they’ve been tricked into going to the wrong house. They find the right house only a couple of blocks away, but the man, Wendall Henderson, is now dead.
Charlie thinks he can find the killer through his chatroom conversations, the patterns used by different people when messaging can be analyzed. He finds a near perfect match back to McCrary; Megan however points out that family members can start to sound alike over time and she thinks the culprit is McCrary’s son. Don talks to the boy, Matt and finds he’s been talking to someone in a family support group; he gave a list of names he got from his father’s computer to this person, not knowing the person meant to start killing the men on the list. Matt is upset and angry at his parents for how they have behaved since the death of his sister Katie; he can’t believe his father thinks counseling for sexual predators would really work.
Matt’s thinking is eerily similar to the thinking of Elaine Tillman, the wife of the first victim. When Megan asked her about why they’ve moved so much and confronts her with the fact her husband was preying on school kids, Elaine says Scott promised not to hurt the kids. Megan realizes now Tillman must have molested his own daughter and Elaine found out and killed him. When the FBI can’t find Elaine, Charlie narrows down possible houses for sale that she has asked about down to five. Megan and David lead a team to the house where Elaine’s car is parked to find her with another man tied and beaten in a chair. Megan convinces her to let the man go, he will be going to jail as well since he solicited underage sex.
Larry leaves for NASA with Buzz Aldrin and everyone is at the Eppes house to watch the launch and toast Larry’s mission with milk.