- The team is searching for a suspected serial killer. The murders started with a young man who was hitchhiking home from the casino after winning $3000. They have little to go on other than a boot print.
- The episode opens with the Delaware State Police sending a "teletype" request for Philly to check all recent cases, open or closed, that involve young male hitchhikers being shot in isolated woods off major roads. The squad members remember such a case which turned out to be that of Matt Mills. He was a very good-looking boy who had won $3000 gambling in Atlantic City, but missed his bus, was seen hitchhiking home, and then found shot execution-style in woods; the body positions and 38 caliber gun matching two other cases in NJ and DE. Other evidence available for the three cases included shoe prints, and a few fibers.
Looking into the records of the victim, he and a friend, Blaine Robbins, had tried to rob a convenience store in Philly a few years before his murder when they were juveniles. They had been caught by the Russian-immigrant owner who was angered that they were released with probation. The robbery plan had been to raise capital for a legitimate vending machine business planned by Blaine. After that, Matt reformed, stayed out of trouble, and got a good entry-level brokerage-firm job.
Looking into Matt's last day in Atlantic City, Blaine said that he met Matt there by accident but couldn't give him a ride home because he had no car.
Other evidence linked the three crimes to a truck driver whose route matched all three locations. Locating a long-time girlfriend who had originally met him while working as a whore at truck stops, she described violent sexually abusive behavior which could just as easily be directed to boys. Fibers from her carpet were consistent with but not unique enough to match the crime scenes. When bought in for questioning, he was arrogant and denied any connection, and agreed to take a lie-detector test, which was useless as he could lie on the control questions without detection. In his arrogance, he had put his feet on their table in front of the officers. Lilly noted that one shoe was worn in a distinctive clutch-pedal pattern, which turned out to match the other two cases but not Matt's. The Delaware police were very thankful for Lilly solving their case.
One of the squad members had formally been at the precinct where the convenience store robbery had occurred. Asking there, he found that the Russian had recently been reported shooting at other robbers. The Russian admitted it, and told from whom he had both got and later returned the gun after using it. But the gun had been sold again and was unavailable. After finding that the Russian's wife had won an Atlantic City excursion, the Russian admitted that he had lied about working at his store the day of the murder, and had in fact seen both boys in Atlantic City but that Blaine had driven off from the hotel before he met up with them. With further extremely intensive questioning by Scotty, the Russian then admitted that yes, he had killed Matt in the manner they said, but please don't hurt his family.
Although Scotty was proud of eliciting a confession, the captain who had been observing wasn't so sure, as it looked like the Russian would have confessed to anything at that point. He held off arresting the Russian and suggested another trip to New Jersey, as further investigation of Blaine's database records had found an employment address at a car-rental company.
The car-rental manager said that shortly after that time, he had turned over a gun, which turned out to be a 38, to his local police after confiscating it from Blaine and firing him for bringing it into work. They then looked at rental records and found that there was one car with unexplained mileage on it that Blaine could have used that day. With more inquiries, they found that Blaine had paid $3000 a few months after Matt's death for flying lessons in a scheme to make money in aerial advertising.
Finally, Blaine confessed, saying that they had been best friends but that Matt had ridiculed and ignored him. In the flashback, they met accidently in the casino, and discussed Blaine's tip from a casino worker about an IPO that needed an investment in a few days; Matt was not enthusiastic, and said he would check with analysts at his firm, and besides, where would they get capital? Then Blaine showed him a gun and told him his plan to rob the casino. Matt treated him like a child, and said he would warn the casino security if he acted like he was going to do anything like that. Later when Matt was hitchhiking, Blaine stops and says he wants to apologize and give him a ride home. After Matt gets in, the next thing we see is Blaine leading Matt at gunpoint into the woods.
In the follow up, Scotty is seen apologizing to the Russian and his family at their store.
(contributor lemoviecritic noted that a repeat air date 9/14/2008 which listed that title and storyline was not that episode, but another storyline of a college co-ed murdered and her lover/professor was suspected, she was not shot, but strangled and left in a wooded area.)
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