'NCIS' Season 10, Episode 17: 'Prime Suspect' Recap

‘NCIS’, season 10, episode 17, ‘Prime Suspect’

A woman gets out of the shower and gets stabbed by a man. She is just another of the “Dead Rose Slasher” victims.

As Gibbs is getting his haircut, his barber Frankie Dean worries about his son Cameron since he got out of the Navy. He tells Gibbs that the sketch of the murderer (shown on Bart Crowley’s news reports) looks a lot like his son, and that the murders started 4 years ago when Cameron was still in college, but stopped for 3 years as Cameron joined the Navy, but magically started again once Cameron came home. He tells Gibbs that Cameron was expelled from college after being accused of date rape, even though the charges were dismissed. Frankie worries more because Cameron wasn’t home on the nights when the last two murders occurred. Gibbs promises to look into it for him.

In the office, a new Probie, Ned Dorneget returns a game controller to McGee, thanking him for letting him borrow it. DiNozzo overhears and asks why he wasn’t up all night studying for his GS-11 exam. Dorneget hasn’t heard of the test, but McGee says agents haven’t had to take it in years. DiNozzo says that Vance is reinstating it, and Ziva backs his story. He tells him to ask Vance if he doesn’t believe him.

Vance shows up and asks where Gibbs is. They say it’s haircut Tuesday and he’ll be back soon, so he tells them that he needs to see him when he gets in. Abby walks into the office as Vance leaves, and McGee asks if she’s analyzed the security video he sent her. She tells him to check his email.

He pulls up the footage, and Dorneget asks what it is. They say that Lance Corporal Douglas Alexander stole over $120,000 for the cash office he was assigned to, and then seemingly vanished into thin air. Abby identifies the passenger in his car as Melissa Tourney, a civilian.

The team tells Gibbs that Vance is looking for him, but he dismisses them and walks off.

Gibbs swings by one of the crime scenes of the Dead Rose Slasher and asks the detective in charge for any info he might have. They haven’t found any forensic info because the guy is very careful, but they did determine that the killer is left handed. Just like Cameron.

In the office, Ziva identified Melissa Tourney as a stripper named Misty Blue. She and DiNozzo questioned her coworkers who said she hadn’t shown up for the past three days. Ziva checked her apartment and found that she packed up and moved out the day before. McGee found that she purchased plane tickets to the Bahamas. DiNozzo volunteers to go down there and wait for Alexander to show up. Gibbs sends Dorneget along with him.

Gibbs visits Ducky in the morgue and asks him for a favor. He wants Ducky to get all the info he can from his Metro ME friend on the victims of the Dead Rose Slasher. Ducky asks why, and Gibbs tells him it’s for a friend.

McGee catches Dorneget before he leaves for the Bahamas, and he warns him to not like DiNozzo pull rank on him. Dorneget laughs him off and says that he can handle himself. McGee tries to warn him to watch his back.

In the office, Ziva reads Gibbs Cameron Dean’s records, including the date rape allegations, but he has no other criminal record. McGee and Ziva ask why they’re looking into Cameron Dean, and he tells him about his barber Frankie and the suspicions. McGee says that if they had his cellphone number, they could track him down and keep an eye on him. Gibbs hands it over.

In Gibbs’ basement, Vance pays him a visit, brownies in hand. Vance says he doesn’t like being out of the loop, and says that the detective of Metro called and said that Gibbs was on the scene for the Dead Rose Slasher case, and that Ducky was asking about the autopsies. Gibbs says he’s just looking into something for a friend, but says nothing else.

In a busy bar, McGee watches Cameron from afar. He notices Cameron scoping out a woman in the corner. Ziva comes in and sits next to him, but he ignores her in favor of the woman. McGee sees him taking pictures of her. The woman gets up to leave, and Cameron quickly dismisses himself, and McGee and Ziva tail behind them.

Meanwhile, in the Bahamas DiNozzo lounges poolside. Dorneget arrives in his agent attire, and DiNozzo points out Melissa, but that Douglas Alexander hasn’t shown up yet.

In the office, Gibbs asks about Cameron. They say that Cameron followed the woman home last night, but then he went home. As they are talking, the Metro detective working the case shows up and asks for the suspect’s name. Gibbs won’t give it to him, and is saved when Ducky calls him. He walks away. The detective flirts with Ziva on his way out.

In the morgue, Ducky says that the two recent murders were identical to the ones three years before, all with the same knife, by a left-handed person. All the women also were intravenous drug users. And Ducky knows there’s something else the ME isn’t telling him.

In the Bahamas, Dorneget is tired of DiNozzo bossing him around, but he notices that Melissa has been eyeing them. DiNozzo goes to talk to her, and she reveals that she thought he and Dorneget were a couple.

In the office, Bart Crowley does another Dead Rose Slasher report. As the watch, the Metro detective calls Gibbs and tells him that he’s picking up Cameron Dean for questioning. Gibbs asks how he got the name, and he reveals that he read it off of Ziva’s desk when he was flirting with her. Gibbs hangs up and tells McGee to get Cameron first, and for Ziva to make sure that the victim isn’t the woman he was following.

Gibbs visits Frankie and tells him that they got careless, and the police are going to be questioning him.

In interrogation, Gibbs asks Cameron where he was in the morning, and he says he went to work. Then he asks why he was following the woman from the night before. He reveals that he was doing a friend a favor, and making sure she wasn’t cheating on him.

The Metro detective bursts into the interrogation room, and says he’s taking Cameron. Gibbs says they’re holding him for 24 hours under a technicality and says that he needs all the evidence from the case. The detective says no, but Vance says it’s already on its way over.

In the Bahamas, Dorneget studies for him GS-11 when he sees Douglas Alexander. He texts DiNozzo. Melissa gets a text from Alexander saying he’s in the lobby. She goes to meet him.

In the lobby, DiNozzo tries to intercept them, but Alexander flees, punching Dorneget in the process. They chase him outside and tackle him to the ground.

In the office, Vance asks Abby to help his daughter with one of her science projects. She is thrilled.

Vance and Abby arrive in the garage, and Metro PD’s forensics specialist Ramsey Boone is waiting for her with the Dead Rose Slasher evidence. She’s thrilled to work with him, and introduces him to Vance.

In the office, McGee and Ziva confirm Cameron’s story. DiNozzo and Dorneget return with Alexander, but reveal that Melissa was detained by authorities there.

In the lab, Gibbs shows up with some Caf-Pows for Abby. Boone introduces himself. Abby goes over the evidence; the killer left a silver wedding band in each of the victim’s mouths, and only three people knew about it, the Metro ME, the Metro Detective, and Boone. And she found DNA on one of the roses left behind, and it doesn’t match Cameron Dean, but it belongs to Leo Winkler, a man who died after the original murders, which means the new murders were done by a copycat.

Dorneget and DiNozzo learn that they’re doing the Dead Rose Slasher case, and he is geeked. They say the original killer was Leo Winkler, who was born to an unwed drug addicted mother whose name happened to be Rose, and left behind a rose, to prevent women from giving birth to kids like him. And Cameron couldn’t have done it, because no one knew about the wedding bands in the mouths.

Cameron asks Gibbs why he was a suspect, and he says it’s because someone thought he resembled the sketch. Frankie shows up and Cameron asks if he thought he was a serial killer. He storms off, angry. Gibbs follows and tries to talk some sense into him.

The ME Detective says that all references to the wedding bands were redacted in reports to discredit false claims… but one report that went out to a reporter, a certain Bart Crowley, failed to redact one mention of the wedding bands. Gibbs sends McGee and Ziva to find Crowley and see where he was the night before.

In the evidence locker, Vance finds Dorneget studying for his GS-11 exam and points out that they haven’t taken that exam in decades. He tells Dorneget to help him teach DiNozzo a lesson.

In the office, they find that Crowley was parked a few blocks from the scene of the crime, but it wasn’t enough to get a warrant. But Dorneget points out that Crowley is left-handed, which is what they needed to get a warrant. As they leave, Dorneget drops a large envelop on DiNozzo’s desk.

Near the scene of the crime, Crowley is giving a report on the crime when Gibbs and the detective show up. They tell Crowley about a copycat, and that they found roses, silver rings, and a knife in the suspect’s apartment. Gibbs points out that his crew has been filming the whole time and tells him to turn around as they arrest him.

DiNozzo comes in the next morning and opens the envelop and finds that his expense reports have been rejected and he’s being audited for the past two years. He panics.

At Frankie’s, Gibbs gets his weekly touch-up. As he leaves, Cameron walks in. Gibbs leaves them to talk. Outside, Gibbs calls his own dad.

Inside, Frankie and Cameron embrace.