See Also: 'Pirates Of The Third Reich' Episode Guide

CSI Files sources revealed recently that the upcoming CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode "Pirates of the Third Reich" is going to revolve around a case that will have deeply personal repercussions for lead CSI Gil Grissom.

"Pirates of the Third Reich" will be a classic sweeps episode, featuring, as CSI showrunner Carol Mendelsohn promised last month, "Nazis, medical experiments and Siamese twins." But above all, the episode will have the CSIs facing a death toll of more than twenty people. It's made gruesomely easy for Grissom and his team to keep track of the full number of victims, even before they find out any clues as to the killer's identity -- as it turns out, the killer branded a sequential number on all the people he mangled.

One of the first victims to be examined in the autopsy room is a young woman who was found with both of her eyeballs missing and traces of both a painkiller and an antipsychotic drug in her eye sockets. It's as if she was operated on in a mental facility, but there's another clue that points in a completely different direction: when the CSIs found her, the woman had one dried-up eyeball stuck in one of her eye sockets, and it's not her own. DNA testing on the eyeball reveals it belongs to a known rapist called Jack Frist. Sara and Brass head off to find the man and see what kind of bizarre fetish moved him to kill someone, then cut out his own eye and leave it on his victim.

But when Sara and Brass find Jack, they soon realise he couldn't possibly be their serial killer. He's living in a halfway house where he showed up a short while ago, six weeks after being released from jail, and two weeks after he missed his parole hearing. When he arrived at the halfway house, his eye was already missing, replaced by a black eye patch -- and a full set of buccaneer wear, as Jack declared himself to be the fearsome pirate Captain Happy Jack. The people at the halfway house made the Captain take a drug test, but it turned out he was clean, and they left it at that.

The CSIs don't, and they have Jack examined by a doctor. Jack is unable to recall how he lost his eye, but the examination reveals it probably happened as someone shoved an ice pick into his brain -- Jack recently underwent a lobotomy. It's yet another sign that the CSIs' true suspect can be found somewhere in a mental hospital. As for Jack himself, he takes himself off the suspect list when he raises his shirt, revealing an '18' that's branded on his chest -- Jack himself nearly was a victim.

It takes another dead woman to lead Grissom to his suspect. The victim is a girl named Zoe, who disappeared a few months ago after she participated in a medical study at a local mental health clinic. The girl had dropped out of school a year ago and hadn't been in touch with her family, which is probably why her disappearance went unnoticed for so long. The CSIs decide to head over to the clinic to investigate, but not before Grissom goes to talk with Zoe's mother. It's a conversation that he suspects will prove emotional both for the mother and for himself -- as it turns out she is none other than Grissom's former lover Lady Heather...

Please note that the above plot details have not been confirmed by CBS, Alliance Atlantis or Bruckheimer Films, and until such time you should treat this information as you would any other rumour. The above information comes from early script drafts and the details and the airing order of the episodes are liable to change before the episodes are shown.

"Pirates of the Third Reich" is expected to air next month on CBS.

Discuss this news item at Talk CSI!
 Add CSI Files RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a Desperate Housewives fan? Then visit GetDesperate.com!