Bones Season 2 Episode 2
“Mother and Child in the Bay”
Air Date: September 6, 2006

The Crime: Booth and Brennan are called to the scene of a body that washes up on the Delaware Bay. Before they leave the Jeffersonian, Booth tells Brennan that it could be the body of Carlie Richardson. When she says “who?”, they banter about her lack of knowledge of television and current events. Booth says Carlie was a newlywed they assumed was murdered by her cheating husband. There was evidence that they fought. He was covered with scratches and seen at the marina on the bay the day of her disappearance, but without a body, he walked.

At the bay, a badly decomposed body wrapped in plastic is pulled from the water. Bones identifies it as caucasian, female, 25 – 30 years old, and says it’s been in the water about a year. Cam lifts the plastic and says “They have.” Brennan notes that the size of the fetal bones indicates the fetus was viable. Booth wonders how someone could do this to their own kid, still assuming Kyle is the murderer.

The Bodies on the Table: Zack says the multiple fractures on the woman’s body could be from assault or battering by rocks and debris in the water. There are stab wounds that prove it was a very violent death, missing bones, and a missing murder weapon. Bones asks Zack to confirm the knife that’s missing from the husband’s set matches the marks on the bone and Cam sets to work on the organic material under the fingernails. A locket is also found melted into the lung. It says “I love you, Kenny.” Not much is said about the baby.

The Evidence: The clothes on the body match the last thing Carlie Richardson was seen wearing and Booth delivers a box of stuff from Richardson’s house that contains rope, plastic sheeting, and a knife set with one missing. They also have Kyle’s DNA results for comparison and a dead fish from the plastic wrapping that leads Hodgin’s to a realization that breaks the case open.

The team re-enacts the stabbing with a dummy, hoping to match the amount of force used with that of a man of Kyle Richardson’s stature. They invite Booth because he’s closest to Kyle’s size. They’re all surprised when the force matches Angela’s height and weight. Karen Tyler, the girlfriend, is a similar size.

The Witnesses: Kyle Richardson’s girlfriend, Karen Tyler says Kyle hit her and ran after seeing the body had been found. She says they started dating after his wife went missing. Later after Dennis and Patricia Campbell, Carlie’s parents, prove she knew Kyle before that, the team takes her DNA. Karen explains she and Kyle were waiting to be together until after he and Carlie separated to make it look better.

A second group of witnesses is the mom’s group that Carlie formed with three other expectant mothers. They tell Booth and Brennan that Kenny was Carlie’s dog and the missing picture was of her and the canine. Mary Corbus, a veterinarian, took care of the dog when Kyle accidentally backed over it with the car. She throws doubt on whether it was an accident. Booth and Brennan show a picture of Karen to the friends, and when they hear she was the girlfriend, they say maybe that was why Carlie said she didn’t want the baby. The vet, says she’s pretty sure she saw Carlie and Karen together around the time of the murder.

The Revelations: The fish that Hodgin’s tests is a fresh water fish, proving that the body was moved from fresh water to the bay. When they dredge the closest body of fresh water, the sediment doesn’t match and the next body of water is over 60 miles away. This messes up the timeline. Kyle Richardson couldn’t have been at the murder site and the marina.

Particles in the cut marks lead Hodgins to the scene of the crime on the shore of a creek in New Jersey. Angela says thunderstorms carried Carlie and the baby to the bay. Cam says the DNA under Carlie’s nails belongs to Kyle, but there is also DNA from a woman and it’s not Karen Tyler’s.

The fetus had antidepressants in its system which could only have been transferred through breastfeeding. When the team looks more closely at the infant’s skull, they see the child was born alive and lived for two weeks. It’s not the Richardson’s baby. Their baby was cut out of Carlie, stolen, and replaced with the baby who died from shaken baby syndrome, probably as the result of its mother’s post partum depression.

The Verdict: When Angela inputs the infant’s skull dimensions into a program that shows what the child would have looked like as it aged, Booth and Brennan see the similarities with the killer. The killer used a scalpel and an antiseptic used to prep patients for surgery. All of this leads them to the vet, Mary Corbus.

The child is returned to his father, Kyle Richardson, who ran because everyone had already decided he was guilty. He was at the marina that night trying to figure out how to tell her Carlie he was leaving her for Karen.

The Relationships: As the episode begins, both Booth and Brennan are aggravated with other people. Brennan is having trouble adjusting to Cam’s authority and Booth is worried that Rebecca’s new boyfriend, Drew, might be taking his place in Parker’s life.

Rebecca confronts Booth regarding his overprotective and controlling behavior. She reminds him she doesn’t legally have to let him see Parker.

Brennan seems to be competing with Cam in everything from who can get to the site the quickest, to who Zack belongs to. The fact that Cam says finding the body should make it a slam dunk against Richardson only motivates Bones to prove her wrong. Cam asks her if she’s working for the defense, but Brennan says,“No, the victims.” Eventually she sees Cam wants the same thing.

Booth and Bones discuss parenthood in the car and Bones mentions she doesn’t know how mother’s do it, giving up their lives for years to raise the child. Booth says when it’s your kid, you don’t feel like you’re giving up anything. When asked if he’d have Parker all over again, even with all the Rebecca drama, Booth says no question.

At the diner, Booth and Brennan wait for Parker. When Rebecca and Drew both show up, too, Booth almost starts a fight. However, when he looks at Parker and Brennan he realizes that Parker is what matters. He invites them to have coffee and tells Bones she can stay. She says it’s a family thing and watches from the door before leaving.