FBI

No.

Sweetie, stay with me.

Mom, my stomach hurts.

Mine too.

This'll all be over soon.

Don't be scared.

Mommy's gonna fix everything.

Please, it's been days.

Have you made your choice?

He needs to eat.

Have you made your choice?

Yes.

So you're saying that this car is tied

to a missing person's case? What?

A mother and young son disappeared

when they were visiting family upstate.

FBI is assisting in the search, but this is the first

real lead we've gotten.

The plates are a match to the Palmers'.

- Well, wherever they went, they left their luggage behind.

- Park ranger found it a few days ago abandoned by a trail.

I just got around to logging the plates in this morning.

- You've been sitting on the information for 48 hours?

That's the two of them there, OK?

And every second counts, so if there's anything else

you might have overlooked...

Like I told you, the car was abandoned.

- We towed it. - Heads up.

Got a vertical gash on the sidewall of this flat.

It's about two inches long.

Any chance they just hit a curb?

No, I don't think so.

This kerf is deep and narrow, and there's no radial scuffing.

Somebody slashed it.

- We need the exact location where this was towed from.

I'm Agent Bell. This is Agent Ramos and Scola.

SUV was over this way.

Tire was flat, so I cut whoever owned it some slack,

- gave him time to find a spare. - When was this?

Thursday.

After a couple days, I called for a tow.

A man's gotta have limits to his goodwill.

- Mr. Bream, do you think it's possible that the Palmers

got lost on the trail?

- Over the years, some folks have been known

to go in and never come out.

What does that mean?

Nature can be cruel, that's all.

You said you were working that day.

You see these people?

No, not that I recall.

Any cameras in the park?

- Not unless you're looking for Hessel's hairstreak.

What?

- It's a butterfly on the endangered species list.

Beautiful creature.

They're dying off.

Ah, suppose some things are too fragile for this world.

Hanford University put up this camera last year to track 'em.

Pretty sure that it records.

All right, we're gonna need

to get our hands on that footage.

- And while you're at it, a list of your whereabouts

this past week.

- We finally caught a break in our missing person's case.

We now know that Valerie and Troy Palmer

detoured on their way from Long Island to Utica.

We located their vehicle here,

tires slashed, seemingly abandoned.

But maybe they went hiking

and got lost or hurt, although something tells me

that tire didn't slash itself.

Either way, we are swimming with questions,

and we need to start fishing for answers. Yeah.

State police expanded

the search grid to include the trail.

- No trace of the family. - But?

- They found Valerie Palmer's cell phone in a ditch,

smashed pretty good.

I do not like where this is going.

Hey, got that butterfly cam video cued

to the day the Palmers went missing.

Let her rip.

OK, here they are.

Mother and son stopping for a hike, right?

Tire looks fine.

Scrub forward. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Who is this?

Whoa.

That explains the tire.

Think that's enough for an ID?

- Got a little profile there. - Maybe.

- What about the Palmers? - Yeah.

- Scrub forward. - OK.

- OK. - Oh, here we go.

Mother and son return from the trail after about an hour.

They see the flat.

And here goes.

- Is that our, uh, tire slasher? - He circles back.

Looks like he's offering to help.

So the tire slasher vandalized

the Palmers' vehicle, then poses as a Good Samaritan

to offer them a ride.

- Yeah, plan comes together for our bad guy.

So this is not just a missing person's case...

the Palmers were abducted.

Let's see if we can get lucky and get an ID

- with what we got there. - OK.

Yeah, resolution is too low for facial rec on the driver.

- What about the car? - Running the plates.

- Stolen. - Yeah? OK.

NYPD, look into the stolen vehicle.

- Here's something. - Hmm?

- That Nissan passed a plate reader 15 minutes ago...

Yeah?

Entering Caleb Smith State Park.

Get a team there now.

That's the vehicle.

Clear.

Pop the trunk.

Jubal, we found the sedan.

There's blood in the trunk, and Troy Palmer's hat.

Guys.

Looks like we got a set of boot prints.

- Well, our suspect could have gone anywhere.

- All right. - What do you want to do, Maggie?

We're going in.

Let's split up. Stay on your comms.

Go dark.

What's wrong?

I just feel like I'm being watched here.

Suspect is fleeing south on foot.

I'll try to cut him off.

FBI!

Scola, Eva, I've got eyes on the mother.

We're too late.

You see him?

- He's gotta be close by. - We need to set up a cordon.

I need a helo and a K-9.

We have another body, young male.

Hey.

So the best I can tell,

your victims were killed in the last 24 hours.

Ligature marks on their wrists and ankles

suggest they were bound for several days.

Bodies were washed with soap and bleach,

so no trace DNA,

and rape kits came back negative for both.

It's not a lot to go on.

Well, autopsies were more revealing.

Both mother and son show signs of organ shrinkage

pointing to starvation, plus darkening

of the buccal membrane

and poor skin turgor, classic signs of dehydration.

- So he abducted them and then starved them.

To start with.

You know, I can email you my report.

- I'm already here. - Right.

I just figured with what happened to your sister.

- Thanks, Neil. - Um, it's OK.

I'm good.

Boy was killed quickly, slit throat.

Mom, not so lucky.

Cause of death, penetrating sharp-force

injury to the chest.

She was stabbed in the heart?

At least 20 times.

Violent and rageful.

What do you know about the weapon?

- Wounds suggest a nonstandard profile and thickness.

- A specialty blade? - Or combat, maybe?

Edge geometry's multipurpose.

I think we're looking more for...

- A dive knife. - Right.

Actually, how do you know that?

For the same reason I know

I need to get back to the beach.

Thanks.

- No sign of our suspect since he slipped the cordon

last night, but the cadaver dogs

did hit on another pair of graves.

Got adult female, adolescent male.

You were right, Maggie.

You want to tell me what's going on here?

Yeah.

There was a case back in 2002...

a serial killer took 17 lives

before the bureau caught the guy.

The details match the Palmer murders.

I mean, from the way they were tied up,

they were starved, and even the weapon, a dive knife.

You think this is all connected?

- I do. - Maggie.

- Give me a sec. - Yeah.

Hey, Peter, thanks for coming.

What's up?

I don't really know how to say this.

Just say it.

The South Shore Ripper is back.

- Maggie, I caught the Ripper a long time ago,