A man is found dead in a human hamster ball, while Morgan works with a swing swift CSI to identify a serial rapist.
Tropes for this episode:
- Bait-and-Switch: When Dawn disappears and her car is found with a shirt containing her son's DNA, the others think she may have suspected her son was the rapist and disappeared in grief. While she did vanish in grief, it was for an entirely different reason: Dawn had received a call earlier that a body was found with her son's ID, and she was supposed to go down to help identify him with the DNA.
- Deadpan Snarker: When David learns he has to put the human hamster ball with the body inside into his car, Brass pats his shoulder and remarks, "Have a ball".
- Driven to Suicide: After Dawn learned her son might be dead, she was overcome with grief and went to an old campsite to commit suicide. Thankfully she's found alive, albeit barely.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Dawn’s son realizes his mom nearly committed suicide because she expected he would die young and vows to clean up his act.
