The hit forensic crime drama continues its eighth season. In tonight’s episode, which features special music performances from singer-songwriter Jewel and country star Shooter Jennings, the team investigates after a cowboy is found dead at a rodeo and his girlfriend is killed in a hit-and-run.

The world of bull-riding is a lucrative business –the winner of tonight’s contest stands to win a million dollars. But it also proves a dangerous game when popular rider Cody Latshaw is thrown to the ground and gets a hoof to the jaw for his troubles.

Much to the whooping crowd’s delight, the cowboy gets up again –but later that night, he is found dead in the ring. At the autopsy, Dr Robbins examines X-rays which reveal that Cody had walked away from his fall with a hairline fracture to one of his vertebrae. This made him, in Catherine’s words, “a walking time-bomb”: any sufficient trauma could have finished the job by snapping the vertebra in question and severing Cody’s spinal column. A rope used in bull-riding was found near Cody’s body, and fibres from his clothes match those found on his bull’s hooves. Could the rider have been tempted back to the ring for a second attempt at conquering the bull and then fallen to his death, or was someone else to blame for the fatal blow?

Meanwhile, Nick and Greg have been called to a hit-and-run accident which claimed the life of Tiffany Rigdon, a local woman with a history of solicitation offences. The CSIs are surprised to find out that she had been dating none other than Cody Latshaw –and that the vehicle that hit her was Cody’s own truck. Inside the motel room in which the pair were staying, the CSIs find a love letter written by Cody... and a ‘Dear John’ note from Tiffany saying that she was marrying another man. “Broken bones, he gets up and rides again...” says Nick. “Broken heart and he’s a killer,” finishes Catherine. Did Cody run down his girlfriend in a jealous rage?

When Cody’s truck is processed, the CSIs find a piece of equipment used to encourage semen production in bulls. They wonder if Cody had been involved in illegally collecting valuable bull semen to sell on to breeders –a highly profitable racket.

Nick thinks that Cody may have been working the scam with someone else, and that Tiffany was killed when she found out about it.

In an attempt to uncover the identity of Cody’s partner, the CSIs check his phone records but find nothing out of the ordinary. Tiffany’s records, however, tell a different story. They show repeated calls from Erik Hong, a pimp who goes by the name of ‘Precious Ricky’. He called Tiffany repeatedly on the night she died –but stopped after 2am, “like he knew she was already dead,” says Nick. Precious Ricky admits hassling Tiffany after hearing that she wanted to quit prostitution because she was getting married, but denies killing her. But Ricky is soon chalked up as the third victim in this complex case when he is found dead in a country-music bar, shot at close range.

As they probe the deaths of Cody, Tiffany and now Ricky, the CSIs begin to realise that nothing is what it seems. How are an apparent accidental death, a hit-and-run fatality, a ‘sperm-rustling’ racket and a barroom shooting connected?

Tuesday 18th March at 9pm on five