Bones/A Man on Death Row

A Man on Death Row
Season 1, Episode 7
Airdate	November 22, 2005
Production Number	1AKY03
Written by	Noah Hawley
Directed by	David Jones
Stream
← 1x06 The Man in the Wall	1x08 → The Girl in the Fridge
Bones — Season One

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A Man on Death Row is the seventh episode of the first season of Bones.

Starring: Emily Deschanel (Dr. Temperance Brennan), David Boreanaz (FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth), Michaela Conlin (Angela Montenegro), Eric Millegan (Zack Addy), TJ Thyne (Dr. Jack Hodgins), Jonathan Adams (Dr. Daniel Goodman) (credit only)

Guest Starring: Rachelle Lafevre (Amy Morton), Michael Mantell (Larry Carlyle), Jeffrey Nordling (David Ross), David Starzyk (Ken Wright), Joan McMurtrey (Mary Wright), Heavy D. (Sid Shapiro), Heath Freeman (Howard Epps), Michael Rothhaar (Judge Cohen)

Co-Starring: Marcus Ashley (Troy Pruit), Gabe Cohen (Buck Harmon), Price Carson (Prison Guard), Sarayu Rao (TV Reporter), Ivan Da Vila (Agent #1)

Plot Overview

On death row on the eve of his execution, convicted murderer Howard Epps's attorney Amy Morton calls in a favor with Booth to get him to reexamine the case. This is complicated by the fact that Booth was the arresting officer and is convinced he is guilty. After revisiting Epps in prison, Booth reluctantly agrees to re-look at the case, enlisting the help of Bones and her staff on their vacation time.

The central element begins with a pubic hair found on the victim, April Wright, that suggests she had sex with a man other than Epps on the day of her murder. Looking at the specifics of the case, they find that she had a seemingly unrelated phone number to an old woman in her possession and unidentified particles lodged under the skin.

Zack, while visiting the location of the murder, makes the connection that the phone number is really a code format suggesting that April was meeting someone at the park she was killed at in a particular picnic area and parking slot at 12:40. While getting permission to exhume the body, Booth finds that the rendezvous was with David Ross, the family lawyer. Although he had consensual sex with her, he claims to not have killed her.

Examining the body, they find the particles are gravel and match a piece of gravel found on her clothing. As there wasn't any gravel in the park, the body was likely dumped there after the murder. Examining fragments of the murder weapon, a tire iron, they find pollen from Smooth Cord Grass that includes chemicals suggesting that she was killed in a marshy area near a chemical plant.

With only a few hours until he is to be executed, they narrow the search to the Rockhaul Processing Plant as a likely location and scan the area with a Ground Penetrating Radar and metal detectors. While looking for the missing murder weapon, they find a buried body. Uncovering two more bodies both killed over five years ago, they realize that Ross was not the killer but, in fact, Epps was, as well as apparently being a serial killer. Epps had conned Booth into investigating the crime again. As Epps had led April's body back to the park to implicate Ross, he was gambling that Booth would either reopen the case to investigate Ross as a killer or would find the body dump location. As they have found new victims, Epps' execution will be delayed until a new murder investigation and trial for both victims can be concluded. After briefly considering delaying a report on the new bodies until after the execution, Bones and Booth agree that the victims deserve proper justice and closure.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Zack doesn't know how to drive.