Somebody’s been killing men who sleep with prostitutes …
Summary: The FBI investigates a series of murders involving men who hire prostitutes.
Original air date: January 22, 2010 (USA)
Written by: Julie Hebert
Directed by: Stephen Gyllenhaal
Opening numbers:
250,000-500,000: Sex workers
7627: Escort services
64: Prostitution advocacy groups
5: Dead Johns
Family Concepts: (character development)
- Don’s motorcycle is a Moto Guzzi Griso 1100
- Professor Lazlo is part of a motorcycle riding club and tries to get Don to join
- Amita does no have any sisters
Episode Quotes:
- Nikki: Sorry, Alan, I thought you were one of the nurses that’s been MIA all morning.
Alan: Yeah, they’re probably afraid of you. Did you tell them you have a gun? - Nikki: You ask me how I’m doing, I shoot you.
Colby: How you doing? [Nikki shoves him] Take it easy, I just got in a car accident! - Colby: Why don’t you [David] drive. I should only be allowed to total one car per case.
Episode Synopsis:
The FBI is working a case involving the murder of Johns when they are called in to discover the body of Edward Zurlanska. The men have burn marks on their right hands, are strangled and then beaten before being dresses in women’s underwear. The team catches a lucky break with this latest death as the body isn’t usually discovered for another day. Colby is able to track Zurlanska’s rental car to Alta Canyon, but lose him when Colby loses control of the car and crashes.
Using surveillance cameras, the FBI is able to track down the woman Zurlanska was with, Siouxsie Dark. Siouxsie doesn’t give them much to go on other that a nondescript man with cheap loafers followed them into an elevator and got off on the same floor. Amita and Charlie go to work on the rest of the camera footage, that’s already been overwritten to see what else they can find.
David and Don go through the evidence they have so far and Don suggests re-interviewing Jack Steves, a prostitute advocate who has no alibi for the night two of the murders occurred. Steves says he knows nothing about the case and wants the FBI to go after the real threats instead of him.
In a break with the pattern, Nikki and David are called to an apartment house where another body, Chaz Marsh is found. Marsh was a bartender at a high priced hotel and since he lives alone no attempt was made to hide his body. The FBI is able to track down that he had an altercation with a prostitute the night before his death and assumes that is why he was killed. They catch another break when the coroner is able to get a good DNA sample; it turns out the killer may be a woman.
On Charlie’s suggestion, Don gives the DNA sample to Professor Lazlo for testing. Lazlo is a cutting edge geneticist and can run more sophisticated tests. He is able to prove the DNA is female, and the woman is a carrier for hemophilia. Amita runs a search through the FBI database and finds a prostitute, Jenny Bailey was killed seven months ago, just when the murders start. Knowing this, they soon find Jenny’s older sister Melanie.
David arrests Melanie at a bar and she refuses to give any information, only wanting to know why the FBI is so eager to protect people who hurt prostitutes, but no one was willing to find out who killed her sister. Reviewing footage from the hotel cameras, Jack Steves is also seen at the same hotel bar. Assumes Steves is working with Melanie, Don wants to know where he is now. Melanie refuses to answer until Nikki comes in with more footage showing a man in a hat getting an OK from Nikki to follow Steves. Jack is the next victim, not an accomplice.
Melanie states Steves is a target because she is there to protect the prostitutes not him, and Steves was trying to scare the girls off with stories about Melanie and her associate. Melanie admits to Don and Nikki that the whole idea was hers and that the man, Rusty is a boy who grew up with Melanie and Jenny is foster care. Rusty doesn’t care so much about Melanie’s vendetta, he just wants to hurt people.