Karen Bishop (CSI)

Karen Bishop (Gina Holden) is the hidden villainess of "Dead in His Tracks", the Season 14 finale of CSI (airdate May 7, 2014). She was the daughter of Sam Bishop, the former Deputy of their small town of Ellis Springs.

History[]

In 1989, Karen (11 years old at the time) followed three of her friends (Roger Mathers, Tyson Briggs, and Scotty Gates) out to their hideout shack, where the boys discovered mortally wounded robber Ben O'Malley, who had robbed mafia boss Michael Scarno with his brother Paul. After Ben succumbed to his wounds while attempting to shoot the boys, Tyson revealed his intentions to keep the money for themselves, ordering the reluctant Scotty to go along and striking him with a valuable lion statue the O'Malley brothers stole from Scarno when he attempted to go home to tell the police.

Shortly afterwards, Karen showed up and warned the boys of an approaching car, having presumably been spying on the boys the whole time. The driver of the car was Paul, and as Paul went into the shack and became enraged at his brother's demise, Karen hid with Tyson and Roger behind a car and put her hand over Scotty's mouth to silence his moans of pain. By the time Paul drove off, however, Karen had already smothered Scotty to death. Rather than report what happened, however, the three kids buried Scotty's body and the statue and hid the stolen money under Roger's porch, with the money being destroyed along with the rest of the house in a fire.

Events[]

In the present events, Roger (desperate for money to save his failing business) returned to town to dig up Scotty's makeshift grave to retrieve the statue, with Karen assisting him in his plan using Sam's aerial photos after she caught Roger breaking into her father's workshop. However, after finding the statue, Karen became angry when Roger revealed his intent to take most of the profits, prompting her to pull out a pistol she had with her. After Roger challenged Karen to shoot him and taunted her about how she'd killed Scotty, Karen shot Roger to death before making off with the statue.

The episode's progression has Sam being brought on to investigate the case of Scotty and Roger's deaths, with Karen's partnership with Roger being uncovered by CSI. Under questioning, however, Karen falsely claimed that the two had found the statue was already taken by someone else, while proclaiming that she and her father deserved the money after the 1989 case destroyed their lives. Tyson was later suspected after evidence proved he struck Scotty with the statue, but it was ultimately his testimony to the full events of 1989 that revealed Karen as Scotty's unintentional killer and, by extension, Roger's murderer.

When interrogated by Nick Stokes, Karen admitted to killing Scotty, claiming it was either him or the rest of them and that their cover-up was a result of them being "stupid kids". When Stokes confronted Karen on how she'd killed Roger for the statue, however, the evil Karen boasted that they had no evidence to her involvement in Roger's murder and that her father always taught her that no evidence meant no case. Soon after, however, Sam came into the station and turned over a box of items he found at Karen's hiding place near the creek behind their house, which included the statue and the gun Karen used to kill Roger. Now armed with evidence proving her guilt, Karen was arrested (off-screen) for Roger Mathers' murder.