"Flack, what are we looking at?" "A parent's worst nightmare." "Victim throws a party while Mom and Dad are out of town." "Someone spills their drink on the new carpet." "Wow." "How many people were up there?" "Not sure yet." "Witnesses' accounts conflict." "Only one death?" "So far." "Name's Libby Drake." "She's 16 years old." "Bunch of other kids were taken to the hospital in pretty bad shape." "Flack, how does this happen?" "Starts out as a group of high school juniors getting a buzz on." "The party goes viral." "Jumps to 700 in under two hours." "Welcome to the end of the world as we know it." "# Out here in the fields #" "# I fight for my meals #" "# I get my back into my living #" "# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. #" "Petechial hemorrhage in the conjunctivae." "Looks like she asphyxiated." "The weight restricted expansion of her chest, and by the time anyone was able to get to her, she probably couldn't breathe." "Witness say there were more than 50 people on that balcony." "That weight, plus a marble table." "50 kids jumping up and down." "Whoever the morons were decided to add a table should have known that was a bad idea." "# #" "# #" "I checked all the functional components with a scanning electron microscope, and there were no signs of any defects or corrosion." "Well, if the building materials are sound, it comes down to too much weight." "We're gonna have to do a stress analysis." "Yeah, which means, we need an estimate of the live load on the balcony." "Now, I already weighed the furniture and the planters." "They were 330 pounds." "Okay, about how many kids were out there?" "We know now there were 60." "Okay. 60." "Using national average weights of 20-year-olds, assume half guys, half girls..." "Well, Hawkes, what party you ever been to where the male/female ratio was fifty-fifty?" "Okay, okay." "So, 35 times 170, plus 25 times 130 gives us 9,200 pounds." "Plus your 330 for furniture." "That puts us at 9,530." "Okay, plus, the 800 pounds for the marble table." "10,330 pounds." "So let's see how much weight one of these holds." "All right." "Okay, offsetting for length, the joists failed at 50 pounds per square foot." "Which translates to a total weight of... 9,600 pounds." "So with 60 people on that balcony, it still would have managed to hold." "Right, until the marble table got out there." "So, given these numbers, whoever brought that marble table onto the balcony could be guilty of manslaughter." "It sounded like..." "like an earthquake." "It was insane." "You could hear this... this... this cracking noise, and then, you could hear it just give way, and I was just praying that Libby wasn't on the balcony." "I know how hard this is, losing your girlfriend, but you can help best by telling me everything you know." "There's nothing that I haven't already told you." "Listen to me, Jake." "This goes beyond an accident." "Sit tight." "Either nobody saw anything, or nobody wants to give up the jackasses who brought 800 pounds of marble out onto the balcony." "Ah, well, bunch of these kids are going to the hospital." "Broken bones and a few injuries might be a quick cure for a fuzzy memory." "If not, I'm hoping this will tell us what they won't." "His name's Stephen." "Were you, uh, up on the balcony?" "You gonna be okay?" "They think it's only a bad sprain." "I just hope it's okay for the marathon this weekend." "I guess that sounds selfish." "Did you see Stephen out there on the balcony?" "I think so." "I can't really be sure." "Could you... could you hold on one second?" "What does that mean?" "You see who else carried that table out onto the balcony?" "No." "Is Stephen in trouble?" "Yeah, in more ways than one." "Next in line." "Next, please." "Excuse me, miss." "Hey." "Has anyone helped you yet?" "My name is Don Flack." "I'm a detective." "Why don't you come inside with me?" "I can help you out." "Just try to relax, okay?" "You want to tell me what happened?" "Um..." "I was, um..." "I was..." "Listen, would it be more comfortable for you to speak with a female detective?" "If so, it's not a problem." "I can get one." "No, uh, I'm okay." "Thank you." "I was raped." "Did you know the guy?" "No." "No, not really." "I mean..." "I was so stupid." "I shouldn't have gone with him." "I-I didn't..." "I was so stupid." "Hey, don't go there." "This was not your fault, okay?" "Okay?" "When did it happen?" "Last night." "Um..." "I must have passed out," "I guess." "I woke up a couple hours ago." "I didn't wash or anything, 'cause I..." "I know you're not supposed to." "Good." "That's good." "That's really smart." "Where did it happen?" "The Logan Hotel on 56th." "What's your name?" "Ali." "Ali Rand." "Okay, Ali... we're gonna get you off to the hospital and have somebody look at you, all right?" "But before we do that, is there anything you can tell me about the guy who did this to you?" "What he looked like, what he was wearing." "I can do better than that." "I know his name." "Hey." "You wanted to see me?" "Yeah." "Have a seat." "I'm good." "What's up?" "John Curtis raped another woman." "Jo, there's still a lot we don't know." "Okay, I have to go down there." "I have to go to DC and talk to the detectives who are investigating." "Do we know which lab is processing?" "We are." "He's in New York." "Has been for a few months." "The victim walked into Flack's precinct." "He took the report, and then he recognized Curtis as your old DC rape case." "Who is she?" "The victim." "Her name is Ali Rand." "I feel sick." "I knew this day would come, I just..." "I pulled Lindsay off the Drake case." "She'll be handling the rape kit." "That's good." "We're gonna get him, Jo." "Hey." " You on the way to the hospital?" " Yeah." "Okay, listen, here's the deal." "This guy is really careful, so make sure you get everything you can." "Even though she I.D.'d him doesn't mean we don't need forensics." " Got it." " Okay, he drugs his victims, GHB usually." "If the hospital hasn't already, you should take blood." "He also takes his victims' hands, ties them behind their backs so they can't scratch him and get his DNA underneath their fingernails." "Jo, I got it." "It's all good, okay?" "If he left anything behind, I will find it." "Of course you will." "Look..." "I remember you telling me how in DC your colleague made a mistake in the first round of DNA testing and then destroyed the documentation." "You know, the last case I worked on at the Bureau was the rape of a young woman, very high profile." "Senator Matthews' daughter." "We had that suspect dead to rights, but we mishandled the DNA." "We knew he did it beyond the shadow of a doubt, but he was acquitted." "You don't have to worry." "I'm not gonna screw this up." "I know how important this is to you." "Okay, this case eats away at me." "That must've been so hard turning that information over to the defense when you knew that John Curtis was your guy." "Oh, I would feel as responsible as you do for him still being out there." "Responsible?" "Excuse me, you think I'm responsible?" "No, I'm not saying that you're responsible, I'm just saying..." "John Curtis isn't free because of a choice I made." "He's free because of a choice my colleague, Frank Waters, made when he destroyed that document." "Jo, I don't mean to suggest..." "I did the only thing I could have done in that situation, which was follow the law." "Turning over a destroyed document is not a choice, Lindsay, it's my job." "And I would hope that you, as a forensic scientist who testifies under oath, would do the same thing." "I examined Libby's legs for certain characteristic fractures I would expect from a fall that would cause death, and was surprised by my findings." "If she dropped the full height of the balcony without any structure supporting or breaking her fall, the tibias in her legs should have come through the soles of her feet." "Consistent with a conscious victim struggling to right themselves before hitting the ground." "The other indicator that's missing is demonstrated here at the base of her skull." "In previous cases, when the victim suffered a fatal fall from substantial height, I routinely found a concentric fracture around the foramen magnum." "Where the spinal column had been driven through by force." "Libby's skull is pristine." "Now, given these findings," "I took a closer look at other areas of her body and noticed..." "Her hyoid bone was broken." "Suggesting strangulation." "The balcony collapse didn't cause Libby's death... it helped cover it up." "Okay, wait, you're s-saying that she was already dead before the balcony fell?" "I don't get it." "I mean, she was down there in that rubble with everybody else." "Tell us about those cuts and scrapes on your hands." "I already told you." "Okay, when I heard the crash," "I ran out to try and help people." "I cut my hands on the... wood and spikes." "So if we were to ask all of your friends if you and Libby had any kind of disagreement at the party, they'd all say no?" "Yes." "Yes, you had a fight?" "No, stop." "You're twisting my words." "I..." "We're not twisting anything, Jake." "We just need to know everything" " that happened that night." " I already told you." "I can't believe you think I would do something to her." "Hey, she was my girlfriend." "I guess that would make this the first time a boyfriend has ever killed his girlfriend." " You look like you got into a fight." " Look, you saw the house." "Okay, Libby wanted to get everyone out, which, hello, it was out of control." "Just... you know, hundreds of juiced-up guys, bombed out of their minds." "# #" "Hey!" "Hey, you, what the hell, man?" "I did the best I could, but I'm only one guy." "When did you last see her?" "I-I don't know the time." "Um, she went upstairs, and... well..." "I was, like, damn, the place is trashed anyway, so might as well keep partying." "Uh... and..." "The balcony fell." "Some of these other cuts are from trying to find her." "Honest." "Okay, can I see your wrists?" "Okay, good." "You have bruising on your stomach?" "You can go ahead and take o the dress." "He was sitting next to me at the bar... with his back to me, and he accidentally knocked over my drink and he insisted on getting me a new one." "Is that when he introduced himself to you?" "Yeah, but it wasn't an accident, was it?" "I started feeling dizzy maybe... 15 minutes later." "That's GHB." "It can sometimes make a drink taste a little bit salty." "I don't remember." "I thought I was looking at him the whole time." "I can't believe I didn't see him do it." "Well, he's probably had a lot of practice." "You think he's done it before?" "I need to ask you something." "Yeah?" "Were you at the bar alone?" "I was supposed to meet a girlfriend, but she cancelled." "Do you go to the Logan Hotel a lot?" "Sometimes." "I mean, they have a nice bar." "It's an expensive bar with a high-end hotel clientele." "I don't want to offend you, but I need to ask you what you do." "I'm not here to judge you, Ali." "I just need to know the facts." "You weren't really meeting a friend, were you?" "No." "But he did not know that at the time." "He had already bought me the drink, and I was feeling dizzy before I had the chance... to tell him that... that I was working." "What you do for a living, it has nothing to do with what he did to you." "Look at your face." "You are the victim." "You're not gonna let him out of jail, are you?" "He's not gonna be out there when I go home?" "We're gonna do everything we can to keep this guy off the streets, I promise you." "Hey, Jo..." "Yeah." "I read Sid's report on Libby Drake." "The fall didn't kill her." "She was strangled to death." "Really?" "Yeah." "It's odd no contusions emerged on her neck" " even after refrigeration." " You know, it is possible that she could've been strangled with something like a sleeveless shirt or a towel." "Spreading out the trauma, making it indiscernible." "What about that necklace she was wearing?" "If it was under the implement that was used to strangle her, I'd expect to see an impression of the chain on her neck." "Okay, so what are you thinking?" "I'm thinking someone put that necklace on her after she was killed." " Extreme home makeover?" " I was thinking more like Jo's office." "Very funny." "All right, we know Libby was already dead when the balcony fell." "Sid said that some of her injuries could've been antemortem, so we are looking for blood, any signs that she was hurt inside." "Then we'll have our primary crime scene." "Okay." "So, uh, we're looking for signs of a struggle." "Somewhere in here." "# #" "# #" "# #" "Okay, so, given the hair and the emptied jewelry box, we're thinking the bedroom was the primary crime scene." "Which makes the thief our prime suspect." "This guy goes around to parties that explode on the Internet." "He cleans out their valuables and he leaves behind these hashtags." "The riot at the apartment building in the East Village last year... he was there." "Viral party in Murray Hill..." "Where the invite got hacked and went out to 10,000 kids?" "1,000 showed up." "He got in, stole half the family's art collection." "Nobody saw a thing." "Cocky son of a bitch thinks he's smarter than we are." "Yeah, well, let's hope he's not." "I'm on his blog..." "Words R Dead." ""Hemingway would starve today." "You can't get published anymore because nobody reads!"" "So he's a frustrated writer stealing to pay rent?" "He left his calling card;" "maybe he's stealing to get fame." "But Libby walked in on him." "Hey, what are you...?" "And if he got caught, he could kiss his viral 15 minutes good-bye." "He's been leaving these tags all over Brooklyn and Manhattan." "What, somebody has to die before we get the guy?" "All the precincts probably weren't communicating and didn't connect the dots." "On their to do list," "I'm sure." "Plus, we have Adam." "Found him." "See?" "See what, what, what?" "I didn't even do anything." "Go." "He posts his blog on an anonymous IP address from inside a department store with heavy traffic, but what I realized is, all of his postings were between 2:00 and 6:00 in the morning," "and there's only one person in the store at that time." "We have an I.D.?" "Oh, yeah." "This guy's a mall cop?" "Department store security." "Right." "His name's Mickey Nash." "Wrote a manuscript, actually, called "Accessories to Murder."" "It's about a woman killed in the belts and purses department." "There he is." "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this." "Oh!" "Mickey Nash?" "Oh, man, you guys are late." "Excuse me?" "The Code 484... couple of uniforms took him away two hours ago." "Code 484... what is that?" "That's a guy sliding down the escalator?" " Yeah, yeah, very funny." " Actually, we're here to see you." "Oh, wait." "Rock, paper, scissor?" "Wow." "Yeah." "One, two, three." "Aah!" "You always put out rock." "I'll grab the car." "You have a nice run, Mick?" "Aw, crap." "Man, that burns." " Out." " You have the right" " to remain silent." " You know what, Mickey?" "I think the literary world would appreciate that." "I got to ask you a question... what kind of idiot leaves a calling card?" "I was trying to make a statement on the current establishment on the decay of the publishing industry." "Ah, nah, I read your stuff." "You know what?" "I think the only statement that you're making is on the decay of the educational system." "You should stick to burglary." "Look, we know that you target viral parties." "All right, Mickey?" "Place gets out of control, there's too many people for the host to keep track of." "Last night you were stealing some girl's jewelry when she walked in on you." "You didn't anticipate that." "All right, up until then, you hadn't been caught, and thanks to your genius calling card, you weren't going to go away for seven burglaries." "Had no choice." "You had to kill her." "What?" "I didn't kill anybody." "What the hell are you talking about?" "What'd you use to strangle her, huh?" "Was it the bag you stuff the jewels in?" "Are you crazy?" "You really think I would leave my hashtag all over someone's house after I killed them?" "You think I'm stupid?" "Look, I go in, I grab the goods, leave my card, and I get out, that's all." "So you still have the stolen property from last night?" "Blue hockey bag in the wall safe at work." "You use the security office to hide your stolen goods?" "These necklaces stolen from Libby's bedroom?" "Yes." "Identical to the one she was wearing when she was killed." "What's the significance?" "That's what I'm trying to find out, so I thought it'd be helpful to go back to the one she was wearing, check it for prints, maybe see who gave it to her." "Any luck?" "No prints, but I did find DNA." "Looks like there are two profiles there." "Yeah, both female, but neither one a match to Libby." "Any idea who they belong to?" "Not yet." "Keep looking." "Okay." "Just pull up the photos already." "Photos... that's for amateurs." "You know, you need to teach him a little patience there." "Have a seat, watch the big screen." "Please turn off all cell phones, take out the popcorn." "I pulled together all of the photos and videos shot at the party to see if they could give us anything." "Awesome." "Why are we watching this now?" "Patience." "Wait for it." "Does that necklace look familiar?" "Yeah... you're welcome." "Um, listen, I'm gonna be down the hall, probably solving a really big crime, so if you need me... little dingle, okay?" "Libby had three of these necklaces in her jewelry box." "She was wearing a fourth, probably placed there by her killer, and now five." "Mac, what are we missing?" "Is this some kind of dead pool game?" "It's actually worse than that." "We got subpoenas for Libby's blog and Facebook, so I went through the tiers of her friends to see if I could track the original source of the invitation to last night's party." "I found one of her private groups." "She sent this out to them." "What the hell is this?" "This is a game." "You single out a virgin in the school and seduce her into believing that she's popular." "The girls give her a kind of makeover, they take her to a party, they give her a few drinks, and, uh... a guy, a guy takes her virginity." "Okay, this is the most disgusting thing" "I've heard in a long time." "Yeah." "According to the postings, the guys who take the girl's virginity are in Libby's private group, and one of the more active ones is Jake Bennett." "Libby's boyfriend?" "Erin Watson." "That's the same girl in the photo from the party." "I can't believe what I'm looking at, this is so cruel." "These symbols..." "what do they represent?" "A score." "After the guys, you know, uh... the girls get graded." "Look here." "She had "some interesting moves for a novice."" "That earned her four cherries for performance." "One of the most private, intimate moments of a girl's life." "Jake not only steals it from her, he debases the experience." "Not Jake... it's Libby." "Jake and the guys give her the information, then she does her thing... gives a girl marks for her body, the way she smells, the things that she said during the act, and then, uh, she... sends it out to her group of friends." "Okay, so the necklaces in her jewelry box... those were tokens given to the girls, kind of like a scarlet letter?" "And whoever has one of those necklaces has a good motive for revenge." "We need to talk to Erin Watson." "Erin, were you at Libby's party the whole night?" "A lot of it." "I left before the accident." "I'm curious, why did you go in the first place?" "What do you mean?" "Did Libby invite you personally?" "Well, not personally." "Is that because she stopped hanging out with you?" "She didn't stop." "She just got busy and she has her crowd who have been friends for, like, forever." "Have they all been busy?" "I thought..." "I thought if I got to the party, that I could see some of them and, and maybe fix it." "That's a very pretty necklace." "Where'd you get it?" "Someone gave it to me." "Did Jake give you that necklace, Erin?" "Yeah, so?" "I thought Jake was Libby's boyfriend." "He was, but they started trying a more open thing." "Libby's cool with it." "She's the one who told me that he likes me." "Have you two still been hanging out together?" "So you went to Libby's, hoping to see him." "The party was crazy." "I never did find him." "She has no idea she's the joke in a game." "May be better if she feels she was loved a little longer." "They brought in the other girls from the Cherry Bomb list, took DNA samples, got a match... a Kate Weber." "Mac's bringing her in." "You know Libby Drake and Jake Bennett." "Were you at Libby's party?" "No." "You know, Kate, it's better to tell us the truth now, whatever that is." "We found your DNA on the necklace that Libby was wearing." "Any ideas how it got there?" "Is this the necklace Jake gave you?" "Do you still have it?" "Maybe in my room somewhere." "Since I found out what they did," "I haven't even worn it." "How did you find out about the game?" "Game?" "Out of the blue, Libby Drake invites you home after school one day, and at first, you don't even say yes because you think it's a joke, but then she convinces you." "Next thing, she's loaning you clothes, taking you to yoga class, doing your makeup for you... so you let yourself believe that this is really happening, that, that you're actually friends with the popular girl" "and all of her popular friends." "And Jake?" "He's one of them, but he acts like he thinks he's not, and that's what makes him attractive." "And then one night, he tells you that he wants to be with you." "And..." "Flash forward a-a few weeks, and you find a post about yourself." "And everyone's reading it and laughing." "And you realize that everything was a lie." "Can only imagine how that kind of betrayal would make you feel." "Maybe angry enough to even want to kill someone." "Kill?" "Kate," "Libby was murdered." "I can't explain the DNA, necklace thing." "I mean, she loved to hug people and do the whole double-kiss routine." "Maybe that's how it got there." "But I would have rather slit my wrists than go to that party." "How could I face any of those people again?" "At least when you're dead, you don't have to feel anything anymore." "Danny found grease on the window frame of Libby's bedroom, and I couldn't figure out what any possible application for that mixture would be." "But then I remembered this little hottie that I used to date that was a runner, and she used all these balms, and at night, she would soak in a bath of mustard for detox." "Danny mentioned this Rachel in ER who was worried about running the New York Marathon this weekend." "You going to be okay?" "They think it's only a bad sprain." "I just hope it's okay for the marathon this weekend." "Good." "We have a new suspect." "Better than that." "I took a closer look at the two DNA profiles on the necklace." "Multiple alleles in common." "Half-sibling relationship." "If the runner's trace comes back to this Rachel..." "Could be Kate's half-sister." "And our killer." "Rachel, you and Kate are half-sisters." "Yeah." "Mom remarried, and Dad Two adopted me." "Then she had Kate." "There's nothing like the bond between sisters." "That's what you have with Kate." "Yes." "So if anyone hurt her, you'd be the first to want to protect her." " Of course." " Like you did in the case of" "Libby's nasty game." "I don't know what you mean." "You were at Libby's party." "Briefly, but I was..." "Don't." "We have your DNA on Libby's necklace." "Evidence that you were in her bedroom." "Okay." "You knew about the game?" "Rachel, we know how awful it was." "How humiliating and degrading it was." "Kate... started to change." "She doesn't smile anymore." "She stopped... eating, going to classes." "Mom and Dad started freaking out." "And she wouldn't talk to me, no matter what I said or did." "That must have been scary." "I went on her computer to see if I could find out what was happening." "You saw the ratings sheet." "I always thought Libby was a little bitch, and I didn't like Kate hanging out with her." "But..." "I had no idea what her and Jake were doing." "She... trusted Jake, and they turned that into a way to humiliate her." "Kate is so beautiful, but now, she just feels like garbage." "So you went to Libby's?" "# #" "Oh." "I found out what you did to Kate." "I don't know what you're talking about." "Please." "You are in so deep." "On Monday, I go to the head of the school and tell him about Cherry Bomb and the Web page you shared with your fellow sociopaths." "Kate was so excited and proud of this." "It's the first piece of jewelry a guy's ever given her." "And then to find out that it's a symbol?" "That you've been branded a joke?" "Please tell me you know how cruel that is." "Kate should be thanking me." "I did her a favor." "Jake is a ten." "In real life, she'd never get that." "Maybe a six, if she keeps on wearing makeup." "I lost it." "I've never been that angry, never felt my head that hot." "It was all over." "Then someone started banging on the door, and I panicked." "I had to get rid of the body." "What about the necklace?" "Why did you put the necklace on Libby?" "I guess I thought, if anyone should be wearing this, it was Libby." "This planet... is so much better without her on it." "I wish" "I could say I was sorry... but I'm not." "Tox came back on our rape victim." "Ali Rand had" "GHB in her system." "So he drugs her at the hotel bar and then takes her up to a room." "The room had already been cleaned?" "Yeah, and there was nothing under her fingernails." "Her hands were tied behind her back, right?" "No semen?" "He used a condom." "He used a condom with Senator Matthews' daughter, also." "But it either broke or something happened, because we recovered his semen on her underwear." "Well, I went over every inch of the dress, Jo." "There was no semen." "No hairs, no fibers." "You're right." "This guy is careful." "Jo, are the injuries consistent with the D.C. victims?" "Yes, it's more or less consistent with his pattern." "His rage intensifies with each victim." "Why would he tell her his name?" "Senator Matthews' daughter... she didn't give his name, did she?" "None of the victims did." "Ali was working that night." "She's an escort." "It's possible that he risked it because he figured she'd never report it." "Or that no one would believe her if she did." "The M.O." "is the same, Ali can I.D. John Curtis." "She has GHB in her system, the bartender, the hotel clerk... they'll be able to back up Ali's statements." "It's a pretty good circumstantial case." "But she's still a prostitute, Mac." "We can get this guy, Jo." "Jo?" "Yeah." "I just wanted to apologize for before." "I didn't mean to be presumptuous about what you were feeling." "Don't worry about that, Lindsay." "The trust is, if I were really honest with myself," "I do feel a little responsible, so hearing you say that to me," "I just lost my cool for a second." "We are gonna get this guy, Jo." "We will." "What is it with guys like you?" "Seriously?" "You got to drug a woman, rape her, and beat her senseless to get your rocks off?" "What is it with guys like you?" "You got to harass innocent people and make their lives miserable to get your rocks off?" "Yeah." "Serena Matthews, the Senator's daughter... you were innocent of that, right?" "Your DNA was planted on her underwear?" "I was acquitted." "A jury of my peers said so." "You didn't think she'd report it, so you told her your name." "And those damn condoms." "They don't always work, as you know." "Your semen was collected at the scene." "I think you might have a pretty good class action lawsuit against the condom company." "I got nothing to say about this." "I've been down this path before." "You want to railroad me?" "Talk to my lawyer." "Oh, there he is!" "Here he comes!" "This is breaking news." "We are live outside the Manhattan John Curtis has been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault." "You may remember Curtis as a suspect in the 2008 rape case involving Serena Matthews, the daughter of Senator Matthews." "The case was lead by former FBI Agent Jo Danville..."