CSI: Cyber Kidnapping 2.0 Recap

patricia arquette with james van der beek in csy cyber 2015

On the series premiere of CSI: Cyber a couple woke up to the sounds of someone moving around in their house. They checked their security camera and saw that someone had taken their four month old son Caleb from his crib. They went into the baby’s room and confirmed that no one was there. Through a baby cam in his room they heard foreign voices.

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. a Special Agent with the FBI read an online report about an abduction filed with the Baltimore police department. She then went to the Cyber Threats Operation Center (CTOC), where she works in D.C., to update her Sergeant on the case. She told him that the baby cam should only communicate the sounds coming from a baby’s room into their parent’s room and that it didn’t make any sense that foreign voices were heard. She also told him that she thought this kidnapping should be handled by the cyber department of the police station because an electronic device was involved.

In the next scene Agent Mundo was at an arcade playing a video game that involved shooting at enemies. He paused his game to take a call on his cell phone. The female cop was on the other end of the phone but he told her he shouldn’t be bothered because it was his first day off in three weeks. Once she told him a kidnapping had been reported he said he was on his way to the station.

When Agent Mundo arrived at the CTOC he discussed the case with the Special Agent (introduced as Ms Avery Ryan) and said that an Amber Alert had been put out about the kidnapped baby. As Ms. Ryan checked in with the staff of the CTOC viewers learned that she is Agent Mundo’s boss. Mundo and Ryan then spoke via video chat with the detective on the case, Detective Cho. At that point Ms. Ryan told Agent Mundo to back his bags because they were going from D.C. to Baltimore to investigate the case.

At the house where the baby was kidnapped Ms. Ryan spoke to the baby’s parents. It was determined that whoever took baby Caleb had somehow been watching him through the baby video monitor so that they knew when the baby would be alone in his crib. Agent Mundo discovered that the security wire to the couple’s surveillance system had been cut. Agent Mundo went to talk to the couple’s next door neighbors. He found their son alone watching TV. The boy said he heard a car leaving the couple’s house in the middle of the night. The father told Agent Ryan that he had heard Chinese voices on the baby monitor.

Agents Mundo and Ryan talked about what they had found out from Caleb’s parents as well as the son of the next door neighbors. The two determined that a team of people had kidnapped Caleb, as opposed to one person, as they originally thought. They then took all the electronic devices out of the home so the kidnappers couldn’t target Caleb’s parents again. Agent Ryan then told Caleb’s mother Fran she needed DNA from both her and her husband.

Back at the CTOC two computer hackers working for Agent Ryan were checking each electronic device taken from Caleb’s parents’ home. They found malware on one of these electronic devices. The infected electronic device was the father’s laptop. Based on the call log on Caleb’s mother’s phone Agent Ryan determined she was cheating on her husband. The agents discovered that Caleb’s biological father was not his mother’s husband, but rather a man named Ricky who works at the location Caleb’s mother had repeatedly called late at night.

csi cyber ep 1 recap images 2015

Agents Ryan and Mundo arrived at the location in question and heard a baby crying. They then confronted Ricky and pulled a gun on him. Agent Ryan took the baby and then Mundo arrested Ricky. She then determined the baby she was holding was not Caleb.

Upon questioning Ricky they found out he was Caleb’s father and that he was the man Caleb’s mother was cheating with. Ricky thought the baby he had was Caleb because he had only ever seen pictures of him.

It was then theorized that though Ricky had tried to buy Caleb, there was a bait and switch and he ended up with another baby. Agent Ryan then took a swab from the baby’s diaper to try and get more answers in the case. Agent Mundo discovered that a female named Vicki worked with Ricky to kidnap the baby he thought was his. Agents Mundo and Ryan determined that Vicki and an accomplice had fled to a local bar. They tracked the two down and arrested them. Agent Mundo then found a bag of cash in the trunk of the car the two had arrived at the bar in. Vicki and her accomplice were then shot by a man in a ski mask and Mundo and Ryan pulled their guns on him. Mundo shot the man right off the dirt bike he was attempting to flee the scene on.

Further detective work by the two agents determined that the kidnappers were in the business of selling babies. Ryan’s Sergeant said it was ironic that the couple bought a baby monitor to protect their baby and instead it led to his kidnapping. They then watched an online bidding war being held over a baby. They also found out that two babies had disappeared in New York the night before, the same way Caleb had.

The kidnapper hacked into the game console of the boy who gave the cops their lead. He then said if his demands weren’t met Caleb would be killed. The agents and their team found where the kidnappers were hiding. They tracked Caleb’s location to upstate NY. A NY state trooper caught the kidnappers, whose car ended up in a lake. Agent Mundo went into the water and rescued Caleb.