See Also: 'All in the Family' Episode Guide

A judge goes from banging the gavel to being treated like the sound block.

According to CSI Files sources, "Family Ties" begins with Mac and Hawkes trying to figure out how and why Emily Morris was shot. She was hit by a bullet and died on the sidewalk in front of a clothing store. The two CSIs search for the murder weapon and determine that the trajectory indicates that she was shot from above. Mac enters the building and goes to a higher floor as Hawkes stands on the street and looks up toward him. Flack searches through garbage bins in the alley for the gun. Mac breaks through the slats of a boarded-up window that would have provided a good vantage point to shoot Emily, but since the window was nailed shut, he knows that the killer was not aiming from here.

As Mac looks down toward the street, he notices that a gargoyle beneath the window has a chipped tooth. He realizes that the gun fell from a higher floor, firing when it hit the gargoyle and shooting Emily Morris. She was merely an innocent bystander. Mac imagines the path the gun would have taken as it continued to fall toward the street, and he sees a rolled-up awning over the clothing store. The manager tells Hawkes that he closed the store after the shooting and rolled up the awning. When he unrolls it, what appears to be a strange bulge in the fabric is revealed to be a shotgun that is tucked inside. Hawkes hands the gun to Mac. There is blood on the barrel, and they realize that there must be another victim somewhere because Emily was shot from three stories up--it couldn't be her blood on the gun.

The team finds their second victim: a Family Court judge. Judge Prescott was bludgeoned to death in his home while watching television. His 18-year-old daughter, Madison, found him when she came home after going for a walk. She was going to ask him for money to go to the movies. Her boyfriend Jake Reynolds and his brother Charlie were with her, and Jake had to catch Madison to keep her from collapsing on the floor when she saw her father dead on the floor, blood and brain matter everywhere. Mac and Flack question the three young people about what they saw. Flack tells the Reynolds brothers that he will need their fingerprints for elimination purposes since they were in the apartment.

Inside, Danny and Mac go over the scene. They find glittery powder on the victim's sleeve and a single black sunflower seed. The cast-off pattern from Prescott's wounds indicates that the murderer was standing behind the couch, so there is no blood trail leading away--any blood that hit the attacker would have been above his or her waist. Stella finds a $20,000 Rolex watch and a wallet on the entry table beside the door, so they are able to rule out robbery as a motive. They decide that the victim's job gives them their most likely pool of suspects. Whoever killed Prescott was filled with rage, and they believe that the person who committed the crime may have been part of a case that the judge presided over.

Meanwhile, Danny is faced with a personal problem and Lindsay has to cover for him at work. Flack, worried about Danny, goes to his friend's apartment. He gets the superintendent to open the door and finds that Danny left in a hurry. The only clue about what's going on is a funeral program for Ruben Sandoval, the ten-year-old boy that was killed in "Child's Play".

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 of the episodes are liable to change before the episodes are shown.

"Family Ties" is expected to air in January.

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