Detective Beckett theorised that there had been a struggle, and the killer forced Jay to open his safe, before shooting him. The safe contained 100,000 dollars secured in a bag.
Beckett spoke to Jay’s butler, Reginald Easley, who discovered the body. He said he had no idea there was a gun in the safe, but that there was a dye-pack in the money bag, set to go off after 3 minutes. The butler had last seen the victim leaving his apartment at 5pm the previous night, because he had made plans with his wife. It appears the victim and his wife had separated due to some issue relating to the money he won.
Next, Detective Beckett and Consultant Richard Castle spoke to the victim’s wife, Noreen Hixton, and teenage daughter Nicole, who said the first few months after winning the lottery had been wonderful, with Jay taking them on trips to Rome and Paris, but soon their neighbours and friends started treating them differently, so they moved from Florida to New York in order to start over. But Jay could not stop spending the money, which led to him and his wife separating. Then their daughter got hooked on drugs which was the turning point for Jay, who helped his daughter to get clean and then decided to use his money for good. He started helping out at the Bowery Soup Kitchen.
When asked about the previous night’s date, the victim’s wife told Beckett that Jay had called to cancel at the last minute, saying something had come up that they needed to deal with together. He had called from the soup kitchen at 8pm, where they were supposed to meet.
Later, on the way to the soup kitchen, Castle tells Beckett he thinks the butler did it because it would make a good mystery story. Beckett waves off his theory and goes into the kitchen to speak with the manager Jim Van Eps, who tells them Jay was a very generous man, always handing out bills to the needy, and even after the manager told him to stop, he still snuck money to the homeless, because it was an obsession to him-he felt guilty about having so much money.
When Beckett asks about any suspicious behaviour yesterday, the manager tells them Jay left the kitchen at about 6pm with a strange man.
Back at the station, the team discover that Jay’s prints are all over the murder weapon and bullets, which suggest he loaded the gun himself. Detective Esposito arrives with the stolen money bag in hand, which he says was found in an alley behind the victim’s building. The bag is empty, the dye pack had gone off and there were prints on the bag belonging to one Todd Shipley, a maintenance worker in Hixton’s apartment.
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| Blue dye fingerprints on the victim's money bag |
Detective Ryan brings in Todd, who is covered in blue dye. He is the major suspect at this stage, but he denies the murder charge, saying he found the bag on the ground and happened to open it the same time the dye-pack timer went off. He says he got off work and was getting a soda from the grocery store, when he saw someone running out of the alley, but it was too dark to identify who clearly. He also tells the detectives he saw the victim coming home at 11pm, sweating because he had been walking. Jay told Todd that someone had taken his car.
Detective Esposito confirms Todd’s alibi with the owner of the grocery store and tells the team that the car is indeed missing. They track down the car and discover a new suspect, Shawn York, who fits the description of the man seen leaving the soup kitchen with Jay at 6pm. Shawn has a criminal record but he denies the murder charge, saying that he did not steal the car; Jay gave it to him. His alibi is confirmed by a ticket booth at a cinema, where he went to watch a movie around the time of Jay’s murder.
The team are left with a giant hole in the story, as they have no idea what Jay was doing between the time he left the soup kitchen and the time he got home at 11pm. Castle gets an idea to check Jay’s credit charges but nothing comes up. Ryan discovers a camera in the victim’s car belonging to Jay and containing surveillance photos from last week of a mysterious man the team soon think Jay was following.
The team use the GPS on Jay’s phone to discover he called his wife at 8pm from an area around Lexington. After cross-checking with the victim’s financials, they discover Jay made two payments of ten thousand dollars to a fake company called ‘Meech Industries,’ run by scam artist Logan Meech. When Logan is questioned, he denies killing Jay, even though Jay did visit him last night to buy a gun for protection, which happens to be the same kind as the murder weapon. Logan tells the detectives Jay bought the gun because he was scared his past would come back and get him.
Detective Ryan and Esposito find two sets of fingerprints at the crime scene belonging to a Ty and Greg Page, two men with criminal records from the victim’s hometown of Florida. The two men were held in jail for robbing the victim a month after he won the jackpot, but were released last week. The team track Greg’s car to a recording studio where the brothers tell the team Jay called them up to help his daughter who had gotten back into drugs again after she had gotten clean. The daughter was under the control of her dealer, a man known as Oz (real name Marvin Osminkowski) and the Page brothers went to take care of him.
