Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
The third season follows Grissom, Catherine, Sara, Nick and Warrick through cases that unsettle easy explanations. A street racer is found dead at an airstrip; a convention becomes a murder scene; and new DNA evidence challenges the conviction Catherine helped secure in an old rape and murder. In “Got Murder?” a body appears to move during autopsy. Warrick’s ties to his old neighborhood shape his response to a young girl’s drive-by killing.
Catherine’s daughter Lindsey is trapped in a sinking car in “Lady Heather’s Box,” and Catherine saves her, but her former husband Eddie is found murdered. Grissom and Brass investigate deaths connected to dominatrix Lady Heather. An explosion at the lab in “Play with Fire” injures Greg and Sara and destroys evidence. Catherine and Warrick investigate the blast, while Grissom’s worsening hearing becomes harder to ignore and Sara recovers from her injuries.
In finale “Inside the Box,” masked robbers steal a safe-deposit box in a daytime bank raid, and Detective Cyrus Lockwood is shot dead protecting a woman and child. The box links the robbery to casino owner Sam Braun, Catherine’s close family friend. As the team pursues the robbers, Catherine compares DNA from the case with her own and learns Sam is her biological father. Grissom seeks help from Robbins for his hearing loss. Robbins warns that the damage could become permanent. Grissom schedules surgery, and Catherine visits him at the hospital before he goes in.