Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Las Vegas crime-scene investigator Gil Grissom takes over the night shift after rookie Holly Gribbs is shot while working alone and dies from her injuries. Warrick Brown had left her at the scene to place a bet, putting his job and gambling problem under scrutiny. Sara Sidle arrives to investigate the shooting and stays with the team alongside Catherine Willows, Nick Stokes and Warrick. Jim Brass moves from the lab back to homicide, where he works with them on the police side of their investigations.
The cases range from an apparent suicide involving a casino winner to a severed leg recovered from Lake Mead. Catherine balances the work with raising Lindsey, while Grissom evaluates investigators whose personal lives increasingly overlap with their cases. In “Gentle, Gentle,” a reported infant kidnapping draws the team into a family’s concealed circumstances. “Sounds of Silence” concerns a deaf man apparently killed in a road accident; the evidence shows the death cannot be explained by the last vehicle to strike him.
The finale brings the FBI into the search for the Strip Strangler, with Sara volunteering as bait because she resembles his victims. The FBI arrests Bradley Walden, but Grissom sees that the evidence connects him to his wife’s death rather than the serial murders. The sheriff removes Grissom for challenging the announcement. His colleagues keep investigating, and towels from a gym lead to Syd Goggle. Grissom confronts Goggle in his laundry room and is attacked; Catherine shoots the killer, saving Grissom and closing the case.