(male vocalizing over funky rock intro)
* Yeah! Mmm, it was...
(vocalizing continues)
* I can be loud, man, I can be silent *
* I could be young, man, or I could be old *
* I can be a gentleman, I can be violent *
* I could turn hot, man, or I could be cold *
* I could be just like the calm before the storm... *
BOY: That was a weird movie.
Yeah, from the reviews, I thought
it was gonna be more of a comedy, huh?
I thought it was pretty good.
BOY: Teenagers like
boring movies.
You only like cartoons.
No. I just don't like boring movies
about people in love. (kicks seat)
(laughs)
(laughter)
Can we get ice cream?
No, we got to get home.
Oh, come on.
It's on the way. Kind of.
MAN: Actually, bud,
it's-it's not at all.
You know?
However...
You know you want to.
Well, see, if you put it like that, then...
(laughing): Dad!
(laughing)
(gunshot)
Dad?
What was that?!
Take the wheel!
I'm trying!
Dad! Dad!
Watch out, you're gonna hit that...!
Look out!
(tires squealing, horns blaring)
I got it!
Dad? Dad?
Dad!
Lady luck.
Chance.
Randomness.
Human beings truly have a hard time understanding it.
Raindrops fall randomly.
Now, which of these two images best represents
raindrops falling on a sidewalk?
Is it image A?
Image B? Okay.
You're wrong.
Our brains
misperceive evenness as random,
and wrongly assume that groupings are deliberate.
Because of this, people make all sorts
of irrational decisions.
Like, they-they won't work in a high-rise building,
or they're afraid to live in an earthquake-prone area.
And yet, a mathematical assessment tells us
that you are far more likely to suffocate in bed
than you are to die in a terrorist attack.
You are ten times more likely
to die from alcohol than from being in an earthquake.
And it is three times more likely
that you will be killed while driving
to buy a lottery ticket than it is that you will...
that you will win the lottery.
(students laughing)
WOMAN: They said he was shot.
Yeah, that's what we think.
Is there anyone
who would want to harm your husband?
No. No one.
I'm Don Eppes, FBI.
Marla.
So, do you know who did it?
Not yet, but-but we're working on it.
I heard on the news
there were attacks on the freeways.
Yeah. DAVID: That's true.
But we don't know if those incidents are related
to the, uh, the attack on your husband at all.
DON: Right, I mean, what we'd like to do,
if we can, is just take a...
Excuse me. Uh, Mrs. Kinkirk?
Yes.
Your husband's stable.
Thank God.
There are issues that need to be discussed.
DON: All right.
We'll give you a few minutes.
We'll wait for you down here.
Oh, please stay.
Um...
DON: I'll take these guys.
Why don't we go hang out there, guys?
Okay. Thank you.
Come on. It's all right.
Your husband sustained a gunshot wound to his head.
Luckily,
the bullet did not penetrate far.
It's lodged in the right occipital lobe.
Our neurosurgeon is confident that he can remove it
without further damage.
(crying)
So, can you guys tell me anything at all
that you remember from what happened?
I heard a loud crash from the back.
I turned, and Pete was scared.
From the noise.
Right.
And then I saw the blood.
And I looked where Pete was looking,
and I saw Dad was hurt.
So, what happened then?
I grabbed the wheel, and I tried
to keep us from crashing.
Yeah, well, that's smart. You know,
it's good thinking. Now,
right before the shot, is there anything that stood out?
Any cars or anything that you might remember?
I don't know.
I think maybe
there was a white truck?
Okay.
I didn't see who was driving it.
Sorry, I didn't see it.
Is-Is our dad going to be okay?
Yeah.
And, you know, we're gonna do everything we can
to find the guy.
We got seven freeway attacks in eight weeks.
Four people dead.
You okay?
Well, you know, I just lied to those kids.
No, you made them feel a little better, Don.
It's a tough time, you know?
I'm an idiot,
acting like everything's gonna be normal.
Those kids need to believe that
if they're gonna make it through. Come on, Dave.
Their lives are never gonna be the same.
COLBY: There's no indication
of enemies, financial or marital troubles.
Witness testimony and tips came up empty.
All right, so what have we got here?
We got seven attacks
in two months.
What do you think, Megan, serial?
MEGAN: Uh, if so, it's atypical.
All the MOs are different.
Yeah, the previous attacks we had a wrist rocket,
thrown rock, brick, tire iron,
golf club, and then a rifle shot.
Now we're looking at a hand gun
from close range.
Victims don't fit a profile, either.
DAVID: Yeah, it's rich, poor, Asian,
Latino, whites, across the spectrum.
MEGAN: You know, maybe instead
of one sociopath, we have a bunch of copycats.
Maybe there's no pattern at all.
MEGAN: That's what I just said, Charlie.
There's no pattern.
A single assailant,
or a bunch of copycats both imply a pattern.
No, What I'm suggesting here is,
these groupings of shootings might, you know,
very well be random.
Seven completely unrelated attacks?
CHARLIE: Sure. Consider this.
An MP3 player has a random shuffle function, right?
It uses an algorithm
to create a random order to play the songs.
But when people listen
to their random shuffle mode,
they do perceive patterns.
That's just pure coincidence.
People swear their MP3 players like to play certain songs.
I know mine has a thing for ZZ Top.
CHARLIE: Right, right.
And that's exactly it-- that human beings perceive patterns
where there just aren't any.
All right, look, you know, until we know different,
then we're gonna pursue these as individual crimes, all right?
Hey.
Hey, Larry, do you have a minute?
Yes, I have the eight and a half minutes
it takes me to walk to my office.
Now, if we need more time,
I guess we could choose a longer route,
maybe stop and contemplate the turtle pond.
Or we could just keep talking at your office.
Yeah, it's not as scenic, but sure.
You know, I'm finding it a little strange,
uh, being a professor after being a student for so long.
(laughing): Oh.
We have all been there, my young friend.
I mean, I feel like I should be going to lectures,
not giving them.
You know, I run into former teachers
every day, who act like nothing's changed.
That's why, you know,
people usually leave the school
where they earn their doctorate and go off and teach elsewhere.
But, what, CalSci made you an offer you couldn't refuse?
I don't know.
Maybe I would have been better off on the East Coast.
No, no, no, no. Come on, this is not about geography.
Listen, you yourself must embrace this new role.
'Cause only then will others be able to see you differently.
Wow.
Larry, even for you, that was profound.
I guess you just caught me when the caffeine
was kicking in. Come on.
MEGAN: I get the concept of random clusters, I do,
but road rage is associated with certain factors,
none of which are present in any of these cases.
Wait. When you say factors,
you mean, like, what, like weather?
Yeah, and bad traffic, and racial conflicts, and accidents.
Stuff that makes people tense and angry.
All right, so, it's not a typical streak.
No, and there's something else-- the youngest boy, Pete, said
he thought he saw a white pickup truck.
Now he thinks he saw the same truck
drive by his house that morning.
What? A white pickup truck?
I mean, they're all over the place.
He says both had a bobble-headed hula dancer on the dashboard.
Yeah? What do you think?
I think he's nine, and he's been traumatized,
and he's searching, but it opens up the possibility
that Jeff Kinkirk was stalked, you know?
That he's not a random victim.
All right. Well, look, play both sides. I mean,
get a list of white pickup trucks from the DMV
and-and work it with the guys.
What's the other side?
Well, the wife said she didn't think
the husband had any enemies, but, I mean,
maybe she was hiding something from us.
Okay.
I took out the garbage,
helped Pete with his homework.
Everything's good at home.
(knocking)
DON: Hey.
How's he doing?
They got the bullet out.
Now we just have to wait.
PETE: Did you find
the white truck?
Not yet, Pete,
but, I mean, we got a lot of people working on it.
Guys, I need to speak to your mom
for a minute. Is that okay?
DON: Your son Pete thinks
he saw a white pickup truck the day of the shooting.
Now it's possible
that that same truck was near your house that day.
Someone was following Jeff?
Yeah.
Any reason for that?
No. I-I can't think of anything.
Does your husband have any problems at work,
or with neighbors, anything at all?
No, there's nothing.
Anyone want to hurt you?
Me? Yeah.
Not that I know of.
Marla, somebody tried
to kill your husband, and, I mean,
you have no idea about who or why?
It doesn't make sense. I mean, it could be something minor.
Just even a-a fight over a parking space.
That's just it. You have to understand Jeff.
He'd let someone else have the parking space.
(voice breaking): If he has a flaw, it's that he tries too hard to be nice.
Okay. All right, that's-that's all I need.
Come on. That's all right.
We were looking for a white truck.
I've checked 177 so far.
I'm just also checking some other factors.
Looking at traffic, weather,
employment,
time of day, day of the week.
Looking for a pattern in a series
of random events?
Oh, dear, Professor Eppes wouldn't approve.
Okay, but here's the thing.
None of these attacks can be linked to the typical causes
of freeway violence
like bad traffic and hot weather.
Gang shootings.
Seven random freeway attacks,
and not one of them fits a profile
of a random freeway attack?
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
At least some should have typical causes.
All we have are invisible assailants
and no motives.
Yeah, I mean, is it possible
for something to be too random to be random?
CHARLIE: I'm sorry, too random?
MEGAN: Yeah. Too ran...
Uh, something can be a little random.
Something can be very random.
But, no.
No, no, not, not too random.
Why?
Well, we're just kind of assuming
that all these freeway attacks are a series of random events,
but not one of them can be linked
to the typical causes of freeway violence.
You mean, like road rage, stuff like that?
Yeah, actually.
70% of all traffic assaults stem from arguments between drivers,
especially if one or the other
has something called Intermittent Explosive Disorder.
Oh, we used to call that having a screw loose.
(laughing): My dad had... that screw loose,
but, uh, explosive rage can be a little more serious.
People can erupt
into violent anger for seemingly no reason.
I see what you're saying. Okay.
You're saying that in this particular string,
there are none of the typical causes. Mm-hmm.
And what are the odds of that?
I would say that they're not very good.
What if there's a pattern that you're just not able to detect?
Hidden variable theory.
The idea that, that
nothing in this world is ever really random,
that there is some influence
or some force that we can't detect.
Isn't it, like, weird that none of these attacks are typical?
Not one?
Weird, yeah, yeah. Unlikely, yeah.
Impossible, no.
How's it going?
White pickups checked: 1,307.
Only about 162,000 left to go.
Oh, just think
of the sense of accomplishment you'll have when you're done.
Right. How you doing?
Looking for connections between people,
you always find more than you expect, you know.
Yeah, most of it doesn't mean anything, though.
Two victims wore the same brand of jeans,
went to the same college.
I got one I want to take a look at.
These two victims used the same car wash?
I want to get a list of employees,
see if anybody has a record.
All right, I'll check with the local cops.
COLBY: Victims number two and number five,
Henry Rains and Cece Smith.
They're both patrons of the Valley Car Wash.
DON: Uh-huh.
Now, Rains got into a yelling match
with one of the workers there.
Two weeks later, he's killed by a rifle shot.
What was the fight about?
He accused the worker of taking money out of his car,
started getting loud with him,
so the car wash manager had to call the cops,
but Rains split before they got there.
So who did he accuse?
Calvin Oates.
Five years ago, he's thrown out of a bar.
Comes back, fires a handgun out the front window
from a moving car.
Car wash have links to any of the other victims?
Still working on it.
All right, it's thin, but go pick him up.
Manager special today: $11.95.
Wax, underbody, tire dressing.
What air freshener?
We let the FBI garage take care of all that, thank you.
Hey, we're looking for Calvin Oates.
Oh, man, I just had this suit cleaned.
(yells)
You, back up! Back up!
Give me the bat, give me the bat.
Thank you.
Next time, leave it to the professionals.
(groans)
You're fired.
COLBY: Come on.
Dude said I stole his money.
He started screaming, coming at me.
I didn't do nothing.
When the manager called the cops, he split.
So why'd you run?
I'm stupid.
(laughing): Yeah.
When cops show up, I get lost.
I didn't think they'd bother to chase me
'cause... I didn't do anything wrong.
Well, that guy must have made you furious.
He called you a thief
in front of your boss and your co-workers.
Don't start the psych crap.
I've been in anger management therapy
for three years.
I know when someone's pushing my buttons.
You got a lot of buttons, huh?
That therapy was
court-mandated as a condition of your parole.
Yes, and believe me, I am now the poster boy
for anger management.
That must be one ugly poster.
Yeah, time cards show him at work when Rains was shot, so...
You don't think he's the guy.
Either there isn't a guy...
And it's seven unrelated incidents.
(phone rings) ...or, if it's one guy,
he's definitely a lot smarter than this dude.
Hey.
All right.
We just got another one.
Well, there you go.
(indistinct radio communication)
Victim was a 28-year-old computer tech.
Died instantly.
The killer had to lug
this cinder block up to the top of the tunnel entrance,
time the drop to hit a car,
and avoid being seen by witnesses.
DAVID: That took work, planning.
I doubt it was vandals or some crime of impulse.
You think she was targeted or just unlucky?
DAVID: I think she never knew what hit her.
Hey.
Pythagorean theorem, law of cosines,
metrics. Equivalence principle.
Back to basics.
You know, I spent the weekend at Politzer's
and he completely disassembled
my 11-D supergravity theory.
So here I am in ten dimensions with two pea-brain solutions,
electrically and magnetically charged
respectively to the C-field...
You still sleeping in your office?
Yeah, sleeping, living.
Cuts down on the morning commute.
You must find a new place to live. No.
You can't live out of your office. No, I'm not going to be out there
choosing wall colors and toaster ovens.
Look, I just want to be thinking about gravity.
How do you expect to have company over?
What company?
Who? Oh, I don't know.
Who, I may-- who, what, M-Megan, maybe?
Oh, oh, oh, listen.
If you propose to start discussing my love life,
then I'm gonna find yours to be fair game.
Ah, point, point.
Point to Professor Fleinhardt.
Hey, so, speaking of Megan,
she comes by the house the other day,
wants to know if a sequence can be too random.
It's funny.
I... fail to see the humor in this.
Too random, you know, as in excessively random.
Yeah, I'm, I'm following you.
I will now ask you a series of questions
and I would like you to answer simply
in the affirmative or the negative.
Okay.
This discussion of randomness.
Was it somehow related to the freeway attacks?
Yes. Okay, might she be concerned
that all of the attacks have different MOs?
Yeah, but...
And given seven random attacks, all with different meth...
Eight now.
Okay, eight random attacks, all with different methods.
I mean, might'nt she just find
the improbability of all this just a little bit disconcerting?
Larry, you know, I can, I can roll a pair of dice eight times
and never get the same result twice,
and that would still fall within the realm of random.
Yeah... but something that doesn't repeat
is not by definition random.
Shuffle mode. Hmm?
Shuffle mode.
Why am I such an idiot?
I think I've found new attacks.
These are insurance claims?
Mm-hmm.
There's damage reports of objects striking cars.
Smart angle.
I have my moments, I think.
I was trying to find related incidents
that didn't result in any bodily injury.
COLBY: Objects used include a rock,
a large slab of marble, a lead weight,
a steel pipe.
No injuries, so no police report.
Megan.
Hey.
I am so sorry. What's the matter?
You were right, I was wrong.
About the freeway attacks?
Yeah. Remember shuffle mode?
Yeah, the patterns that aren't there.
Controlled by an algorithm
that creates a random order for the songs,
but the order isn't really random
because the algorithm won't ever repeat a song.
Just like the freeway attacks don't repeat. That's what I was saying!
So these attacks could be the act of one person...
Who's trying to make them look random.
Thank you.
Let me show you something.
All right, here are five new incidents.
CHARLIE: Five?
I didn't hear about that on the news.
Oh, these cases haven't been included before now.
Megan just found them. All right, now,
let's look at them chronologically with the others.
That's a fairly regular pattern, showing increasing frequency.
Thank you.
Okay, I'm going to call this one.
I am 99% sure.
The varied methods are an attempt
to avoid any discernible pattern...
Which is in itself a pattern.
Yes, but what the perpetrator can't hide
is the intensity of his need.
The compulsion is growing,
so the time between acts is getting shorter and shorter.
Classic serial killer.
We're looking at one guy.
You guys, check this out.
Just found that five of the 13 victims
were involved in serious injury accidents over the course
of the last two years. Oh, yeah?
Think that means anything?
I'm not sure if that would
hold true for any similar group or not.
Maybe call a CHP accident specialist.
And the department of insurance.
Five of 13-- that's less than half, man.
Yeah, I don't know if it's just coincidence or not.
Well, let's find out.
So, Professor, you think it's safe to drive, huh?
Even with this crazy person out there attacking cars?
People get killed in car accidents every day.
It's not like we worry about that when we get on the road.
Uh-huh, speak for yourself.
Look, if you're worried about the freeway killer,
you know, take the bus.
The bus does not go everywhere.
In case you missed it,
we live in Los Angeles, the city of the car.
You know, people in L.A. spend 100 hours a year in traffic.
100 hours.
That's four full days of waiting
for the car in front of you to move.
I'm getting road rage just thinking about it.
But, seriously, you are twice as likely to hit a royal flush
on your first hand of poker than you are of being
a victim of this freeway attacker.
Yeah, but I'm not afraid of hitting a royal flush.
I'll still be around to play the next hand.
You want me to behave irrationally and tell you
that, yes, I would prefer if my only living parent
stayed off the roads until we catch this guy, okay?
There, I said it. You happy?
No! I have to drive
to Culver City.
My mall project.
I don't know why I let you do this to me.
I should see it coming.
Yeah, but you never do.
Hey, look who's awake.
Hi.
Honey, this is
the FBI agent I told you about.
Anything new?
Well, what we're working with
is that in five of the attacks, the victims have been involved
in a serious car accident.
So we're checking on the others,
but, uh... no?
Jeff hasn't had so much as
a speeding ticket since we were married.
No, I... I'm careful.
I worry about the kids.
A couple years ago, I saw this...
bad accident where this little boy was hurt.
It was terrible.
Yeah, you say you saw this?
JEFF: Yeah.
An SUV ran through this light and smacked a sedan.
I tried to help out at the scene.
I gave a statement to the police.
Jeff Kinkirk was the only witness to an accident
that left a six-year-old boy badly injured.
Now, Kinkirk says he saw the boy's father run a red light.
Father said he didn't.
But both insurance companies went with Kinkirk's account.
Well, a lot of people witness accidents.
Yeah, but they don't all end up with gunshot wounds to the head.
It's such a strange motive for a series of attacks.
Yes, it is, because serial attacks
generally have a sado-sexual component to them.
The assailant needs to see the victim suffer.
But not this guy.
He wants to inflict serious damage,
but he's happy to do it from a distance.
And he's not that intent on
killing every victim. So how would
the profile break down?
Likely male, and meticulous and educated.
History of road rage, problems with anger.
Might have difficulty holding a job.
He identifies with the victims.
He feels a sense of injustice.
He's probably a victim of a violent crime himself.
Or someone close to him is.
Well, we could get a list of major injury accidents
and cross-check them against the victims.
DON: Yeah, we'll let Charlie run
whatever we come up with, and get a suspect list going, yeah?
Yeah, anything will help.
What do we have, five million drivers in L.A. County?
The optimization algorithm can be translated into software.
You know what?
I think Amita has it.
But there's stuff in here we can use.
How's it going with Amita? Huh?
Oh, good, good.
No, yeah, she's-- I mean,
we're both pretty busy right now.
You know, she's a professor now.
Yeah.
It's always tough, huh?
What's always tough?
The whole thing, you know?
It's just tough.
How you doing with Robin?
Yeah, well, it is what it is.
Yeah.
I know you don't like to talk about who you're seeing.
Hey, Charlie, if I have anything worthwhile to say,
believe me, you'd be at the top of my list.
You know who else doesn't like to talk about his love life?
Your boy Larry.
What do you know?
I know Megan thinks he's beautiful.
(mouths)
What does he say? It's difficult to decipher
through all the, you know, the cosmological metaphors.
But he does really seem to
really like her, you know?
Hey, here we go, I found it.
All right.
(chuckles) Okay.
(clears throat) Before we run Amita's program,
I need to draw up some parameters,
because there's a component we're neglecting.
What's that?
Traffic.
I mean, this guy's been attacking people
in broad daylight, on busy roads,
running the risk of being seen.
Right. No witnesses.
So he must be planning carefully.
He probably plans escape routes.
Yeah, possibly.
All right, so if we can
look at the traffic patterns in the vicinity
of the attacks, that'll give us
a chance to guess at those escape routes,
which will give us a more general idea
of where he goes afterward.
Right, 'cause he'd definitely want to avoid
traffic in each instance, right?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
No, traffic flows just like any other, you know,
dynamic fluid flow in a closed system.
You know, it's like the water in your house.
Water flows due to pressure and release.
What is the optimum length and width of the pipe?
What are the number of branches?
How many release points are there?
I mean, it's a little more complicated for traffic,
but partial differential equations can help us
calculate the optimum number of lanes, on- and off-ramps,
signal synchronization.
And I can use data from road sensors,
traffic cameras and satellite imagery.
I mean, hell, I can even factor in the street light algorithms
used by the D.O.T.
This is fairly high-level math.
So ten out of 13 have been involved
in some sort of serious injury accident.
Six are directly involved.
There's a lawyer for an insurance company,
two accident witnesses and a tow truck driver.
And we're still trying to connect the last three.
Yeah, unfortunately, this guy works to a schedule,
and, you know, he's due now.
(sighs)
Oh, look!
It's CalSci's live-in cosmologist.
Listen, don't laugh.
I think that couch of mine has finally fused my vertebrae.
What's going on, Larry?
Is there something you want to talk about?
No.
I find any discussion of my inner feelings
to be potentially catastrophic.
It's like a star--
burns up all of its own fuel
and then finally collapses in on top of itself.
I was just trying to be supportive here, Larry,
not destroy a solar system.
CHARLIE: Who needs a caffeine fix?
LARRY: Hey, you know what RГ©nyi said?
He said a mathematician is a machine
that turns coffee into theorems.
(Charlie chuckles)
Thank you for getting on this so fast.
Hey, I don't want to be shot or struck by a brick while driving
any more than the next person.
You know, I guess there's nothing to be done
about meteors-- well, just yet.
CHARLIE: No, Larry, even the FBI
can't stop meteors.
No, not yet, but someday.
We'll have plasma cannons,
steam rockets.
Anything interesting?
Well, I loaded the data into the modeling software.
It should produce a clear graphic
of the flow of traffic after the attacks.
I'll put it up on the LCD. Great.
Also, I compressed time, so that 30 minutes
plays in 30 seconds.
And what's this?
It's a traffic anomaly-- a street adjacent to the freeway.
Pull it up.
(beeping)
Huh.
CHARLIE: Look at that flow.
Optimized in one direction,
all the cross streets are backing up.
Pull up another one.
(beeping)
Yeah, there it is again, wow.
And this timecode
is telling us that this is
after the shooting attack.
It's like someone opened up
an escape valve for traffic coming off the freeway.
It's more like an escape route.
(horn honking)
MAN: Come on! Get out of the way!
(horn blaring)
WOMAN: Move out of the way, lady!
(siren whoops)
(low, indistinct radio communication)
Ma'am?
(tapping)
Ma'am, roll down your window.
MEGAN: Kathryn Krager.
She's 46 years old, she has two teenage children.
She works for the City of Bellhaven.
Notify the family?
CHP's at the house now, actually.
All right, we got to see
if she fits the traffic accident scenario, right?
This is the second gunshot wound
at close range.
That's new.
All the other ones were different forms of attack.
What? Different guy?
No, I think it's the same guy,
he's just not afraid to repeat himself now.
Yeah, he thinks we can't catch him.
And he might be right.
Come on, you know we can get this guy.
All right, if you say so.
And how about the next one on deck?
What's going on with you?
Nothing.
No record the victim was ever in a traffic accident.
That was Krager's boss--
the city manager for Bellhaven.
Said that two years ago, a neighborhood submitted
a petition for a light at a blind intersection,
and Krager was in charge
of overseeing the traffic budget,
and she turned down the petition.
So she wasn't actually involved in an accident herself.
Somebody might blame her for causing one.
Right.
So an accident happened six months after Krager denied
a request to have a traffic light put at this intersection.
Three people in two vehicles.
One person survived: Brennon Sommers.
His wife, the driver of the other vehicle died at the scene.
And Sommers suffered a head injury.
Anger and impulse control problems.
He's lost his job, he's living on disability.
He's been arrested twice
since the accident, although the charges
were dropped both times.
Well, I can see where he might blame Krager
for not putting in the stoplight, right?
COLBY: Yeah, but she wasn't the first victim.
I mean, why kill other people first?
MEGAN: Well, maybe his first victim
set him off some other way, and then once he got going,
he went back for Krager.
Brennon Sommers!
COLBY: Put your hands up
and walk over this way.
What is this about?
Put your hands up and walk over this way.
Get your hands up! Turn around right now!
What?! What?!
I was an architect.
And now...
I can't concentrate.
I can't read for more than a minute at a time.
And that's Kathryn Krager's fault?
Who?!
Who is that?!
I think you know.
I mean, you wrote a letter to the L.A. Times,
because Bellhaven wouldn't put in a traffic light.
She was behind the decision.
I blamed the city, yeah,
but I never knew who made the decision.
And you do get into a lot of fights.
Maybe because people don't treat you fairly?
No, because I have anger and impulse problems.
It comes with the frontal lobe damage.
I'm trying to deal with it.
By seeking out people who hurt you?
No! Nothing like that!
I'm in group therapy, that's all.
I used to be a nice, easy-going guy.
Hard to believe, huh?
Doctor says he couldn't lift a cinderblock
or fire a weapon accurately.
Found no firearms, no evidence at his house
linked to any of the crimes.
He's close but not our guy.
Close? What do you mean?
Somebody like him, you know?
More capable or angrier.
Hey, you guys, Charlie's got something he wants to show us.
Hey, Chuck, what do you got?
Hey, I've got probable escape routes
gathered straight from traffic data.
Now, these red routes
have the highest level of probability.
Yellow routes, next highest.
Blue routes, least likely.
DON: Okay, good.
Why don't you guys go check 'em out.
You know, see if you can find a witness, right?
All right.
Here you go.
Field trip. Love it.
You drive, I'll navigate.
I remember it was the day of the shooting.
I'd just heard the report on the radio;
couple minutes later, this truck blows by.
What made you notice the truck-- was it speeding?
MAN: No, that's not unusual.
No, it was that, uh,
I see this pickup, you know, coming up fast,
and then the light goes red.
Wait, wait, did you say pickup?
Yeah, yeah, white pickup truck.
MAN: The light's red, like I said,
and he didn't slow down,
so I figured he was gonna run it,
and then it goes green again, after only a couple seconds.
You're sure about that.
It's my job to watch the light.
Can you describe the truck--
maybe you got a look at the driver.
Mm... it was a late-model, American make, I think.
White, like I said.
I couldn't see the driver, though.
It was just a white dude with sunglasses.
Okay. Anything else?
Maybe there was something on the dash, possibly.
Well, there was, now that you mention it.
I couldn't see what it was, though.
All right, thank you.
Infamous white pickup.
Sounds like the one
Jeff Kinkirk's son said he saw
just before he watched his father get shot.
Yeah, the crossing guard's story
about that light changing--
you thinking what I'm thinking?
Yeah-- that our killer somehow figured out
how to tamper with the lights?
Yeah.
Hey, you.
Yeah, aren't you supposed to be
at the string-theory symposium at USC?
Now, how do you know I'm not there?
One of those kinds of days, is it?
Oh, well, aren't they all?
Larry... is everything all right?
Everything?
Well, I'm not sure that I can account for the state
off all matter, but...
You know exactly what I'm talking about.
Stop trying to Fleinhardt your way around answering me.
What is it, exactly, that you want to know?
If sleeping in your office
and missing an event important to your field of study
constitutes something that I need to...
be concerned about.
Well, as I previously explained,
I'm sleeping in my office
because I don't wish the distraction
of finding and furnishing a residence.
Fine. Fair enough. The symposium?
I'm hoping to be unavailable,
due to a pressing social engagement.
You're choosing dinner with Megan over string theory.
The two are not incompatible.
But thank you.
For what? For looking after me.
It's so good to know
that if I ever stray from the rational plane,
you will be there to accost me.
(phone ringing) Any... anytime.
Hello.
Oh, this modern age.
We think the freeway killer uses a device like this.
It emits a pulse of infrared light,
causes traffic lights to change.
They're legal only for emergency vehicles.
All right, well, that explains
he's getting through traffic, then.
Disrupting traffic lights
should leave a record in the system-- times and places.
There's cameras all over Los Angeles--
on buildings, at intersections, at ATM machines.
Okay, so we can check the locations and the times
against the Web cam logs...
Use them to get a photo.
What do you think are the chances of that, though?
More cameras, better odds.
What do you say, guys?
Hey. All right, so here's what we got.
We've been through hundreds of Web cams at intersections
indicated by Charlie's analysis of traffic light disruptions.
We got this traffic Web cam from La Brea and the 10 freeway,
at 15 minutes after attack number nine.
COLBY: And three seconds before he drove through that light,
it was hit with an infrared pulse.
No license visible,
no way to identify the truck or the driver.
And this? What's this?
Oh, that's some sort of decal.
Pulling together a lot of string
that the crossing guard witness saw the killer...
That the guy in this photo is the one who changed the light.
Maybe you're right-- I mean, maybe that's our guy.
TECH: We're getting something.
I'll flip it around and print it out.
Looks like "HTSU."
"Head Trauma Survivors United."
Yeah?
Yeah-- Brennon Sommers, the guy we suspected,
I think he's part of their Northridge chapter.
There's something on the bottom
of the decal that's not quite legible.
Well, it could be Northridge.
Now that would not be random chance.
COLBY: So far, we have eight current
and former members who we can link to freeway attack victims.
Ran the members through DMV.
Two have white pickups, one's a 74-year-old lady,
the other is Mitchell McKenzie.
38, he's a home contractor.
McKenzie was in a motorcycle accident a year ago.
He suffered a head trauma.
Two months after he joined the support group,
the freeway attacks started.
Well, that must be it, right?
That must be how he's choosing, is through the support group.
His accident was a hit and run,
So he's got no target for all the rage.
He could be acting on behalf of the other victims.
That's not the kind of support anybody expected.
Mitchell's close to many people in the group.
It's common for trauma victims
to feel like nobody understands what they've been through,
except other victims.
And, Dr. Bird, do you discuss
the freeway attacks in your group?
It's come up in meetings.
I remember I made a note about it.
What was your note?
Mitchell talks a lot at meetings,
has an opinion on everything.
But on the topic of the freeway attacks...
he's been quiet.
Thank you.
Excuse me.
Eppes.
Don, I think McKenzie could be the guy.
We just got a hit on his credit card.
A gas station in Long Beach.
So I got David, Colby and LAPD on their way.
(siren approaching)
(glass shattering)
Come on, man!
(tires screeching)
(indistinct radio transmission)
(yells)
Come on!
(sirens blaring)
Get out of the way!
Get the hell out of the way.
Get your hands on the wheel!
You! This way! Get your hands on the wheel!
(indistinct shouting)
I'm only trying to do what's right!
Innocent people hurt and killed!
And those responsible just walk away!
Somebody has to pay.
That's all I do. I make things right.
What are you sitting in the dark for?
Just thinking.
Thank God you caught that guy, huh?
Five deaths, six people injured.
And tomorrow I got
12 new cases.
Yeah, you're having a lot of tough ones lately.
Maybe you should think of taking some time off.
Yeah, don't I wish.
Donny, it's not good for you to get this way.
Oh, Dad, what are you talking about? This is the way I am.
No, no, Listen to me. Donny...
Look, it's just, you know, sometimes...
(door opens)
Hello.
Hey, Don.
Glad you're here.
Found something interesting that I want you to look at.
Oh, yeah? What's that?
You know how I thought
that all the freeway attacks were a random series?
Yeah.
They weren't. They weren't.
Because, yeah, McKenzie was behind all of them,
but he didn't actually start the sequence.
What are you talking about?
A hit and run driver started the sequence
when he hit McKenzie.
The head injury the McKenzie sustained
left him unable to control his impulses, control his rage...
Oh, come on, Charlie, the man is still responsible
for his actions.
Yeah, of course.
Except that the guy that hit McKenzie was never apprehended.
He totally got away with it.
What, is this his accident report? Yeah, Megan called
the CHP for me, and I just...
I thought it was something you might want to look at.
Yeah, I think I see where you're headed.
What? We got his tire treads,
paint and metal...
Yeah, there's tons of information.
I mean, I can help you with this.
DON: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, Charlie. This is good.
There's enough information.
You got a pen? Yeah.
We can narrow down the suspect list.