Bones Season 2, Episode 3
“The Boy in the Shroud”
Air Date: September 13, 2006
The Crime: We open with the FBI going through bags of trash at the scene of an accident where a semi tried to beat a yellow light and collided with a garbage truck. The victim is identified as an adolescent male who Hodgins says has been garbage for about three weeks. There are numerous fractions and breaks that Brennan says are congruent with a fall. The body seems to be wrapped in something and holding something in his hand. Brennan says “everything” goes back to the lab.
The Bodies on the Table: Camille can’t get fingerprints and Zack says FBI is working on dental records. There are multiple shards of lead glass in the remaining tissue, and the contusions on the skull and his broken neck suggest a “swan dive”. He was dropped, but not hard enough to kill. His bones suggest he was unconscious before impact and Zack find that he was hit by a cylinder type object.
The Evidence: Angela analyzes the stains on the cloth and finds that the tissue stains create a photo-negative of his features. When she runs his picture through the Center for Missing and Exploited Persons Database, they find out he’s Dylan Crane, 17, and an honor student from Alexandria who disappeared three weeks ago with his girlfriend, Kelly Morris who was in the foster system. DNA from the under the victim’s fingernails is female and there’s nail polish from the gauges on the arms. There were also traces of rust found in the scratches and on the places where the victim was struck.
The Witnesses: The Cranes want to see their son, but Bones explains it’s not possible. They ask how he died and she says he fell from a height of about 50 feet. Booth and Brennan wonder if their son was despondent? They say no, he was a smart happy kid whose life centered around Kelly Morris. They were hoping the kids had run away together after they told Dylan to stop seeing her. They blame Kelly because of her foster child status.
Kelly’s foster mother, Suzanne, says Dylan was a good kid and a good influence on Kelly. He was also good to Kelly’s little brother Alex. Brennan asks if the couple was sexually active and the foster mom says she had caught them and had to forbid Kelly to bring Dylan into the house after that. She says Kelly and her brother are extremely close. Kelly knew that the foster mom was looking for a new home for them because she couldn’t keep them both. During the interview, Alex comes into the office asks if Dylan is alright. They explain he died and they ask if he knows where Kelly is. He says no.
Booth and Brennan talk to some street kids and gets nothing, but a couple in a van that hands out sandwiches, medicine and condoms has information. The Duncans know Dylan and Kelly and take Booth and Brennan to a warehouse where the kids squatted. The building where they were staying was a plumbing supply warehouse. At the building there’s a make-shift memorial with a copy of Romeo and Juliet that Dylan had given to Kelly.
Brennan stops a street kid that runs and is wearing Dylan’s jacket. He doesn’t want to talk with Booth but she gets him to open up based on her own foster care experience. He tells them to check out the “sandwich pervs”.
The Revelations: Hodgins quotes Romeo and Juliet to Zack and Brennan when he reveals that the flower in Dylan’s hand was a rose. From the trash that surrounded his body Hodgins is able to place the victim at a Russian restaurant. When Hodgins identifies the type of rose that was found in Dylan’s hand, they find that Dylan would have had to have been at the Rose Wing of the US Botanic Garden at some point.
When interrogating Mr. Duncan, the sandwich guy, it becomes obvious that he had propositioned Kelly and tried to trade sandwiches for sex. Despite his protests that he has changed, he hasn’t. Later, he ends up on Cam’s autopsy table. He’s been shot and they think the murders could be connected.
Hodgins identifies the pipe and Cam asks Angela to run the scenario through the computer, but there are too may variables. They re-enact the argument. Brennan says there had to be a third person and they assume it’s Kevin Duncan, but that poses a problem. Why would Kelly confess to protect a dead man? Booth figures out there are only two people Kelly would cover for and one of them went out the window.
The Verdict: At the garden Hodgins and Bones find Kelly Morris. she takes the blame for killing Dylan and under interrogation says it was because he broke his promise and was leaving her. She says she pushed him out the window, he screamed and she ran away. But Brennan says no, you wrapped him in linen and put a rose in his hand.
When they say the sandwich guy died and they think the two deaths were connected she confesses to that murder too. The advocate stops the interrogation at that point.
At the diner, Brennan says Kelly’s lying and Booth says he’s trying to think of a reason why she would. Mrs. Duncan (sandwich guy’s wife) shows up and confesses to her husband’s death so Kelly won’t have to take the blame.
Kelly continues to say she’s guilty, but Brennan connects with her and explains that she thinks she ran away with Dylan so Suzanne would keep Alex and maybe everyone would be happy. She confesses Alex thought Dylan was trying to take her away from him forever. Brennan tells her that it’s not her fault and they can’t let her pay for what Alex did.
The Relationships: There’s tension in the beginning between Brennan, Booth and Cam. Booth and Cam jump to the assumption that the victim is a street kid and Bones has huge issues with these assumptions. Brennan is offended by Cam’s prejudices of kids in the foster system, having been a part of it as a child. She does not reveal that information to Cam, however.
The tension continues as Booth and Cam take the evidence and begin manipulating theories of what could have happened. Brennan hates this and goes off, saying before they convict Kelly of murder because she’s a foster kid she’s going to find actual evidence. She reminds them that Dylan died from a fall.
Later when it looks like Dylan was killed protecting Kelly, Brennan is drawn into the conjecture by her own prejudices, but when asked, still thinks they need to stay open to all the evidence like they did before Cam.
There is a confrontation scene where things between Brennan and Cam come to a head. Brennan wants Hodgins to identify the type of the rose Dylan was holding and Cam wants to look for the sandwich guy’s DNA on the pipe. When she tells Brennan no, Brennan says she can’t work like this. When Cam asks if she should start looking for her replacement, Angela jumps in and says if you lose Brennan – you lose us all. Cam says in the interest of the investigation she’ll defer to Brennan, but she will start the search for her replacement.
Later Cam asks Booth what would happen if Dr. Brennan were to quit the Jeffersonian. He asks what’s going on and she says, “What if I fired her?” He says, “I’m with Bones, Cam. All the way. Don’t doubt it for a second.” Then he tells her she may have gotten off on the wrong foot on the case with Brennan because she was a foster kid. Cam feels awful and Booth says to remember he didn’t tell her that.
In the end, Cam meets Brennan at the diner. they each admit the other was right about evidence. Brennan says they have a problem and confesses her foster care history and talks about the reasons Booth says it’s hard for her to give up control. She mentions how she hates psychology. Cam says not everyone’s brain works as fast as yours. She reminds Dr. Brennan that she’s in charge, but she could extend a “get out of jail free” card to her occasionally. They negotiate three per week. Brennan knows Booth told her.
There’s some flirtation between Angela and Hodgins in this episode when he misinterprets her statement about the squat being a strange place for two people in love to end up. In the awkwardness that follows his obvious interpretation that it was about the two of them, he covers that he was talking about Booth and Cam. In the end Hodgins puts the white rose next to Angela and she smiles as he walks out.