NCIS (TV Series)
Handle with Care (2018)
Mark Harmon: Leroy Jethro Gibbs
Photos
Quotes
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Ellie Bishop : At least a dozen people copied the information onto Twitter, Facebook, and multiple other sites.
Timothy McGee : From there, it spread like wildfire.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Wait. Who wrote the first thing?
Timothy McGee : Well, it was a dummy account. Like most Web handles, it didn't connect to any name, address, or bank account.
Ellie Bishop : But we were able to trace the subnet of the IP address.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : I have no idea what that means.
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Navy Petty Officer Third Class Albert Dale : John Ross? Yeah, I-I know him.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : How?
Navy Petty Officer Third Class Albert Dale : The guy's basically Santa Claus for sailors. I mean, ev-everyone knows who he is.
Leon Vance : Did Petty Officer Sweeney ever mention that he talked to Ross before he received the care package?
Navy Petty Officer Third Class Albert Dale : I don't think so. I heard a rumor we aren't gonna be getting boxes anymore.
Leon Vance : We're working on it.
Navy Petty Officer Third Class Albert Dale : It's just that morale's been pretty low ever since Sweeney died. We could all use a little something from home.
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Timothy McGee : Care package sent to Sweeney was dropped in a blue mailbox less than a mile from John Ross' house in Franconia.
Leon Vance : But?
Timothy McGee : But the woman at the post office says that John Ross always dropped off packages in person.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Box was full of poison. Ross didn't want to be seen with it.
Timothy McGee : Yeah, I checked Ross' timeline. Mailman picked up the package on February 16, while Ross was in Chicago at a Marine Corps reunion.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Then he couldn't have sent the package.
Leon Vance : Well, someone sure wanted it to look like he did.
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Got to be exhausting, keeping your lies straight, pretending you care.
Whit Dexter : I could say the same to you.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : How do you even look in the mirror in the morning?
Whit Dexter : Usually with my eyes.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : What's Layla think about this?
Whit Dexter : Don't talk about my daughter.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Do you ever think what school must be like for her? She's got a dad like you. Hell of a burden to carry.
Whit Dexter : Don't talk about her, pal. A man's family is a line you do not cross.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Well, you've crossed that plenty. What's life gonna be for her when she hears her father is a murderer?
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Palmer finished the body that came in last night. I'll be down in Autopsy.
Ellie Bishop : Well, I thought Spain said he had heart failure.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : They did.
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Palmer.
[Jimmy nods to something behind him; turning around, he sees...]
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Duck. Well, good morning.
Donald Mallard : Good morning, Jethro. No doubt you're wondering why I'm here.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Well, I don't know. Maybe you missed us?
Donald Mallard : Well, true as that sentiment may be, the university is on spring break, and I'm here in town to handle the second of life's two certainties.
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : What do you got, Jimmy?
Jimmy Palmer : Well, Petty Officer Sweeney definitely died of a cardiac arrest.
Donald Mallard : But the real question is why.
Jimmy Palmer : 23 year old, active-duty sailor. He just had a physical last December, Gibbs. He passed with flying colors.
Donald Mallard : Not exactly the ideal candidate for heart failure.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Maybe he had help.
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Ellie Bishop : Petty Officer Second Class James Sweeney.
Timothy McGee : 23 years old, married, no kids.
Nick Torres : He owns a home in Virginia with his wife Emma.
Timothy McGee : Parents were killed in a car crash when he was sixteen years old.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Record?
Ellie Bishop : Spotless.
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : What about our suspect?
Nick Torres : Retired Marine Sergeant John Ross.
Ellie Bishop : He sends out care packages every day from his Legion Hall in Franconia, Virginia.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Every day?
Timothy McGee : Got him set up in interrogation whenever you're ready.
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : We sure that Sweeney's care package was sent by Ross?
Ellie Bishop : Contents are consistent with the packages he sent in the past.
Nick Torres : And not to mention his pictures.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : [looking closer at Ross' ribbon rack] That's the Prisoner of War Medal.
Timothy McGee : Yeah, Ross was held captive for five years in Iran after being taken during the raid on the U.S. Embassy. He was on duty as a Marine Security Guard.
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Petty Officer Second Class James Sweeney.
John Ross : I-I never saw him before.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Well, you sent him a box.
John Ross : I get a list from the Navy every week. I mean, you know, I try, but my memory's not what it used to be.
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : You make these?
John Ross : Listen, can you just tell me what's going on?
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Yes or no?
John Ross : Yeah, they're my mother's recipe.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : The ones sent to Petty Officer Sweeney were laced with cyanide. It's got your name on the return address on the label. It's got your cookies inside, and two photographs of you.
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John Ross : Nah, this is crazy. I don't know how poison could have gotten into one of my... how could poison get in one of my boxes?
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : You tell me.
John Ross : I have no idea!
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : How well do you know your friends at the Legion Hall?
John Ross : They're patriots, every single one of them. They're no way any of 'em could have done something like this.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Anyone who could have put their cookies inside your box?
John Ross : We all pack our own boxes. They're all personalized.
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : I know about you, Sergeant. I know what you've been through. But you got to give me something.
John Ross : This isn't right! I have to get out of this room! You can't keep me in this room! I have to get out of this room! You hear me? I have to get out of this room!
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Hey. Where are we? Street surveillance on the mailbox?
Nick Torres : No luck. Small town. No cameras nearby.
Timothy McGee : We're still gathering a list of veterans who helped pack boxes at Legion Hall.
Nick Torres : And so far, no connection to the victim.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Gotta connect to somebody somewhere.
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Timothy McGee : About three months ago, a podcast host named Whit Dexter had John Ross on his show.
Ellie Bishop : An unwitting Ross assumed the interview was about the care packages.
Timothy McGee : Dexter pushes insane theories he knows are false in order to gain listeners and advertisers.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Yeah. I know who he is.
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Is there a connection to the victim?
Timothy McGee : After Ross leaves, Dexter lays out Ross' history of violence and aggression.
Ellie Bishop : He promised his listeners something big would soon be revealed to prove that Ross is a government thug.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : What, a box of poisoned cookies?
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Whit Dexter : All right, you see this, folks? See this? NCIS chumming it up with John Ross, the real murderer. Yeah, this thug attacks me. Typical tyrannical government. And I have to...
[Gibbs grabs his phone]
Whit Dexter : Wh... hey. Whoa, I'm the victim here.
Timothy McGee : [Gibbs hands the phone to him] Yeah.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : [grabbing Dexter and leading him out] Got something to say? Come on, let's make a statement.
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Whit Dexter : Listen, I'm an entertainer. Most of what I say isn't true. This whole Ross thing, it's all over the Internet. But I didn't put it there.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : You said on air you were gonna expose him.
Whit Dexter : Yeah, I was gonna make something up.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : You released that information yourself, and you knew your listeners were gonna jump all over Ross.
Whit Dexter : Oh, no, no, no, no. See, that's the beautiful thing about getting into the minds of these people. They're ravenous. I mean, thousands of them posted it long before I ever knew about it. I just have the biggest voice.
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Somebody, give me something.
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Clayton Reeves : He wasn't lying when he said the information about John Ross and the poisoned cookies was all over the Internet before he reported it.
Ellie Bishop : We've been trying to find the original source, but...
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : There are no "buts", Bishop.
Timothy McGee : Boss, we've been looking, but it's like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Clayton Reeves : More like hay mountain.
Ellie Bishop : We'd need to comb through the entire Internet to find the first post describing the murder that all the others piggybacked on.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : [frustrated] There's a dead sailor. There's a vet being framed. God. Find the source.
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Timothy McGee : How'd it go?
Ellie Bishop : Had nothing to do with James Sweeney's inheritance.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Wife wanted out of the marriage for a while. She paired up with the brother once the husband was deployed.
Ellie Bishop : They decided to kill James and impress Clyde's hero, Whit Dexter, at the same time by framing Ross.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : Two birds, one care package.
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Leroy Jethro Gibbs : You all right, Jack?
Jack Sloane : Yeah. I'm, uh... perfect. So, um, John is still living a life where he can't even talk to his own daughter. He says he doesn't even know where to find her.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs : You don't believe him.
Jack Sloane : I think he knows exactly where she is.
Timothy McGee : [overhearing] How old do you think she'd be?