Castle - Season 4 Episode 3 - Head Case, Recap

Alexis is devastated to learn that despite having already picked her classes, bought t-shirts and badly wanting to go there she has been rejected by Stanford University. 

Team Beckett's newest case involves a body-less crime scene with so much blood Lanie is sure that the person must have died. 

There was a van seen leaving the vicinity of the murder area about 20 minutes after gunshots were heard.  They trace the van to a warehouse registered under the name of PW Storage. 

In the warehouse they find containment units that house frozen people inside.  They hear movement in another room and go in to find technicians loading a body into a vacuumed container.  The technicians explain that they work for a cryonics company called Passageway.  All of their clients have contracts with them to preserve them after they die.  The clients are outfitted with biowatches that have pulse monitors and GPS systems built in.  When someone's pulse stops the technicians go retrieve the body.  The bodies must be frozen as quickly as possible, which is why they took the shooting victim that morning without bothering to inform the police.

Dr. Harry Weiss comes in and introduces himself as the CEO of Passageway.  He identifies the victim as Lester Hamilton, a biology professor at Hudson University and also an old friend.  Lester was doing cutting edge research on developing life extension techniques.  The lawyer that Dr. Weiss has brought with him informs Beckett that if the NYPD tries to take Hamilton's body, Passageway will file a lawsuit. 

Because of murky case laws the D.A. tells Beckett they won't issue a warrant.