The Early Show

An excerpt of "Mr. CSI"

November 29, 2011 / 4:35 AM EST / CBS News

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PART 1: THE POLICE REPORT

Las Vegas Police Department

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 manager's 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.

PART II: THE FACTS OF LIFE (AND DEATH)

January 9, 2005

The night before my father killed himself I attended the People's Choice Awards. It wasn't my first awards show. Nor was it my last. But I can't 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 People's 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 didn't 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 characters--Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows.

Even though I was on a self-declared two-hour leave of absence, I was happy to oblige. I've always appreciated the connection people have with these shows and the char¬acters. 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, 'I've got an idea for a TV series about CSIs.' And that was it?"

"It's a great cast and I have some exceptional part¬ners," I said.

"But it came out of your head?" he persisted.

I shrugged.

"Holy shit."

"I know," I said.

"You're rolling in it, right?"

"I'm 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 People's Choice Awards.

"I don't know what you're 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.