Anthony E. Zuiker - Mr. CSI: How a Vegas Dreamer Made a Killing in Hollywood, One Body at a Time

Mr. CSI

How a Vegas Dreamer Made a Killing in Hollywood, One Body at a Time

Anthony E. Zuiker

For Eddie

Contents

The Police Report

Crime Scene Investigation Summary

Date: January 10, 2005

Address: [ REDACTED ]

DETAILS

At the request of apartment complex manager, officers were summoned late morning to assist in entering unit 6A after the occupant failed to respond to managers repeated attempts to make contact.

ADDITIONAL DESCRIPTION

Officers arrived in front of the two-story apartment complex at 9:50 AM. The residential street was quiet, with no traffic. The complex manager and his wife, both in their 60s, exited from their front unit and flagged the officers. They guided the officers to ground floor unit 6A, explaining they were worried about the victim. They had not seen him for several days. They tried calling, but without a response. They also knocked on his door, again with no response. Fearful, they called Las Vegas Police Department.

Arriving officers broke through front door with minimal damage and intrusion into the scene, and were able to visually encounter the victim slumped on the sofa, clearly dead. Officers turned on lights and saw the victim was male.

Manager identified the victim as the occupant, after which the manager and his wife returned to their apartment, where they explained the victim had been a tenant for three years and worked as a handyman. He had done odd jobs for them in the past, they said. Neither recalled the last time they had seen him, though they remembered noticing a flickering TV light in the window the night before.

Officers noted the television was turned on when they entered apartment. They found the victim had suffered severe head wounds. Victim, wearing white underwear, was found lying on his back, his torso twisted, with his head over the side facing north and his feet facing southeast. He was holding a shotgun in his right hand, with the barrel pointed toward his head. There was a large stain of dried blood and fragments of skull scattered in a semi-circular area to the left of the body.

Officers secured the scene and notified homicide division and LV County coroner.

PENDING TASK

Notify next of kin.

The Facts of Life (and Death)

January 9, 2005

T he night before my father killed himself I attended the Peoples Choice Awards. It wasnt my first awards show. Nor was it my last. But I cant imagine another one ever being as significant, though it was more for the marker in my life it became rather than for the hardware I picked up.

The event was held in Pasadena, at the Civic Auditorium, which, barring traffic, was about forty-five minutes from my twenty-fourth-floor suite at the Universal Sheraton, where I lived while my shows, CSI , CSI: Miami , and CSI: NY , were in production.

On weekends and during the off-months, I lived with my wife and two sons in Las Vegas.

According to the Peoples Choice Awards invitation, the doors closed at 5 p.m. As I pulled out of the Sheraton, I checked my watch. It was one.

I didnt need a four-hour cushion. I left early so I could stop at a bar near the auditorium and spend a couple of hours watching a football game. With three TV series in production, those few hours of downtime with a beer and the NFL were my vacation, my trip to the French Riviera.

I got to the bar in half an hour. Inside, my eyes quickly adjusted to the relative darkness and I claimed a stool with a good view of the screen. With days that were scheduled, then overscheduled, and then changed depending on what happened on the sets, and nights that were also jammed with research and rewrites, I savored the first sip of a cold beer and the sight of football on a big screen.

Soon I started up a conversation with the bartender, a thick, sandy-haired guy who looked like he was between college and a career. I remembered the feeling. We talked about the game, which I had a bit of money on, but after he found out my connection to the three shows, he grilled me about crimes, murder, corpses, maggots, cops, and his two favorite TV charactersGil Grissom and Catherine Willows.

Even though I was on a self-declared two-hour leave of absence, I was happy to oblige. Ive always appreciated the connection people have with these shows and the characters. Those of us involved in the CSI franchise could go almost anywhere in the world and find fans with opinions and questions. Once, one of our producers was grilled on a beach in Spain about blood-splatter theory. Here in the bar it was no different. As we talked, I noticed most of the half-dozen guys near us were trying to eavesdrop.

So you just thought of those shows? the bartender asked. Just one day you said, Ive got an idea for a TV series about CSIs. And that was it?

Its a great cast and I have some exceptional partners, I said.

But it came out of your head? he persisted.

I shrugged.

Holy shit.

I know, I said.

Youre rolling in it, right?

Im lucky.

Dude, let me buy you a drink, he said.

No thanks, I said. I have a long night ahead of me.

I explained about the Peoples Choice Awards.

I dont know what youre up against, but CSI ought to win, he said.

They tell a few people ahead of time to make sure they show up, I said.

So CSI wins? he asked.

I nodded.

Congratulations, he said.

Thanks.

He wiped down the counter with a white towel, provided refills to a couple of the other guys, and checked on the bottles lined up behind the bar. I could see he took pouring booze seriously. He was also good at making small talk, the kind of skill that makes a bar a welcome refuge from the outside world. Two brothers owned the place, he told someone. I glanced around the joint, then looked back up at the TV and got involved in the game again. During a commercial, the bartender stepped back in front of me.

So those shows must be pretty fun? he asked.

Yeah, I said.

Unable to help himself, he asked about CSI stars William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger, as well as David Caruso from Miami and Gary Sinise from New York , plus a few others. He was a diehard. He forced me to remember storylines from previous seasons, little details, and questions that I tend to forget after the shows are written and produced. Each episode is a new challenge, and after we wrap I step back and breathe, and in that breath much of the struggle evaporates, or gets parked in a box in the back of my brain, before its on to the next one.

But hey, if this guy wanted to talk about episode 19 of season two, Stalkera show in which a woman is found dead in her apartment and the position reminds Nick Stokes of nightmares hes hadI was willing to call up memories of writing it with Danny Cannon, and explain to this guy that the idea was a combination of imagination and newspaper headlines. What if your nightmares were true? What if they happened and you found out about them after the factafter the deadly fact?

You mind me asking questions? the bartender asked.

No, not at all, I said.

I enjoy talking about writing almost as much as I like to write. Both take you to places you could only imagine, or didnt want to imagine. If I have a passion, its work, immersing myself in the creative process. Its something I have to do because I cant not do it. Getting paid to do something I love is the biggest luxury in my life. Im constantly aware of it, and appreciative, because I know the stakes. Like most everyone, I work to put a roof over my familys heads and food on the table, and some security in the bank. But for me, writing is also about figuring out issues beyond the work. My work isnt just about creating stories for a TV series. Its about creating my life, a life that is radically different from the one I knew before CSI . Its not a job or a lifestyle. Its an obsession.