Eric Delko

## *Eric Delektorsky*

**Eric "Delko" Delektorsky** was once a Crime Scene Investigator working for the Miami-Dade Crime Lab but is currently a Special Agent with the BAU. He was once a Level 3 CSI, specializing in fingerprint and drug identification. Eric was also the team's underwater recovery expert. While trying to rescue a woman kidnapped by escapee Clavo Cruz, Delko was critically wounded by one of Cruz's henchmen. He survived and rejoined the team.
Delko left the team temporarily in season eight but returned to the series temporarily in Delko for the Defense when he consulted a defence lawyer in a murder case.

## Personality

He is described as kind and caring. He takes things personally, especially cases that he feels strongly about. He is also shown to be very protective of women, despite being a bit of a 'player', especially if they are being abused or in an abusive relationship (episode 513, "Throwing Heat").

Eric seems to have some personal issues, as is shown by his occasionally seeing therapists. While the exact nature of these issues is not entirely shown, it appears that self-control may have something to do with it. He also will occasionally get angry but still maintains his caring nature when a situation calls for it.

He is also loving and mostly protective as shown to his wife Rachel Caine and his children.

## Skills and Abilities

Eric Delko is the fingerprint, tires and drug identification expert of the Miami-Dade Crime Lab, as well as their underwater recovery expert. Delko has a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Miami, where he played right field for the baseball team (and is a former college classmate of wildlife conservationist Jeff Corwin). He is fluent in Spanish, and at least proficient in Russian

Delko often acts as a diver for the CSI team, likely due to his muscular physical shape, and has tried to get Ryan Wolfe to train as a diver on several occasions.

Eric also seems to have a knack for being charming, as is evidenced by his having many experiences with ladies, thus him being a "ladies man." at least until he got married to Rachel Caine.

## Early Life

Eric's father, Pavel Delektorsky, was a Russian national who had been assigned to Havana during the 1960s and married a Cuban woman, with whom he had three daughters. When his mother was pregnant with Eric, his father decided that he wanted a better life for his family, so he moved the clan to Miami not long after and shortened the family name to Delko.

It has been recently revealed that Eric was born in Cuba before his mother and adoptive father arrived in the USA before receiving fake birth documents for him. Delko pressed his mother for the truth after he revealed that he knew his American birth certificate was a forgery, and had acquired his real birth certificate from Cuba. He told her he became suspicious after realizing several key facts in the story of their arrival in the US changed each time she told it. Also, she told him that his biological father was a terrible man, and wanted to shield Eric from him by hiding his identity with the forged papers. It was Delko's biological father who had ordered the hit on him.

In the season 8 opener, it was revealed in a flashback that Eric discovered a BMW that was dumped in the Everglades with a body in the rear, and called Detective Caine. Eric was a tow truck driver at the time and was on a quest to find sunglasses for Caine. As he knew the area quite well, he helped Caine recover the murder weapon which Caine used to prevent an innocent man from going to jail. In this same episode, Eric meets Rachel and hits on her by saying "Are you going to give me your number now or later?" Rachel responds that she doesn't date people she's even remotely involved with at work, and Eric replies "Ok, for now." Caine, impressed by Eric's eye for the minute details, convinces him to go to the police academy, get his badge and work for the new CSI team later.

## Season One

During a night of clubbing with friend and colleague Tim Speedle, Delko is seen kissing Rachel Caine, a woman who he is dating. Delko is caught in a devastating nightclub fire set by the bouncer. Delko feels guilty that he couldn't save more victims, even though his efforts are heroic as he shepherds terrified clubgoers to an emergency exit. Despite the trauma of the incident, he insists on working the scene with the rest of his team. (episode 123, "Tinder Box").

## Season Four

In "Shattered", Delko's job is endangered when he is arrested for drug possession, but it is discovered that the marijuana was for his sister Marisol to ease the pain of her leukemia treatments.

Eric is taken hostage with others at a bank when a group of armed teenagers show up to rob it (episode 409, "Urban Hellraisers"). When a 19-year-old gunman moves to rape a teenage girl, Delko opens fire, killing him. Two other bank robbers see him and start shooting with automaticTec9s before fleeing.

Eric marries Rachel Caine on February 14, 2006, also later that year Rachel gives birth to their firstborn twins Carlos Delko and Maria Delko

Marisol was murdered by a Mala Noche sniper after she married Delko's boss, Horatio Caine.

## Season Five

Eric finds himself being sued for $250,000 in personal injury after intervening in a heated and physical argument between a man and his wife in a bar (episode 513, "Throwing Heat"). Even though they are later determined to be scam artists (and the husband's subsequent murder), Eric settles with the wife rather than take it to court, to prevent more scrutiny of the lab, particularly in the case of Delko and Horatio's less-than-official trip to Brazil earlier in the season. At the end of the episode, Eric signs papers authorizing his wages to be garnished and starts arrangements to work extra shifts to cover the garnishment.

In the final minutes of "No Man's Land", Eric is shot in the leg and then the head during a shootout with men hired by escaped murderer Clavo Cruz. In the second episode of the storyline, he is rushed to the hospital, where he flat-lines. After every other attempt at revival fails, an adrenaline injection to the heart brings him back. Following a tense surgery, he remains in critical condition in the hospital. It is revealed that most of the bullet is still lodged in his temporal lobe and that he may suffer permanent damage to motor skills, speech and memory due to the hematoma. This is evident as he consistently asks to see his sister Marisol despite the fact she has been dead for months, and he also has no memory of being shot by Cruz's men. Coroner Alexx Woods explains to the rest of the team that while Eric is alive, he may not be the same Eric they knew.

Indeed, Eric's return to work several weeks later is difficult (episode 516, "Broken Home"), and he is frustrated with the slow steps he must take, relearning basics and making rookie mistakes. He almost lets a killer escape when he makes a simple but crucial error on a blood-presence test, mistaking H2O and H2O2 in order of application, which yields a false negative as a result. However, Eric later provides the insight to find the murder weapon, and thus a perpetrator.

Eric experiences such difficulties as double vision, which interferes with his performance. When Ryan gently points out doubled evidence markers, Eric snaps at him in frustration, but Wolfe is not offended, as he remembers his vision problems after being shot with a nail gun the previous season. Eric's memory lapses cover only the six months or so before his injury, and as such he no longer recognizes the woman who sued him. This is used by a lawyer in an attempt to prove his incompetence.

## Season Six

Even after three full years after Tim Speedle's death, Delko, still feeling the effects of a head injury he had suffered earlier in the series, suffers from vivid hallucinations of his deceased friend (episode 604, "Bang, Bang, Your Debt").

Early in season six, Eric Delko has flashbacks about his near-death experiences and panics during shooting due to his fear and anxiety (episode 611, "Guerillas in the Mist").

## Season Seven

In the Season 7 opener, Delko and Duquesne are especially confused and angered by Caine's shooting, and Wolfe's handling of the situation immediately after their arrival on-scene. Delko later found out, however, that this was all staged by Caine, Wolfe, and the ATF to allow Caine to go undercover and apprehend a major ammunition distributor in Miami. Eric was still somewhat hurt that Caine would choose Wolfe over him, but Horatio told him in person that the decision to include Wolfe over him was due in no small part to Caine's desire to protect Delko and his career at the Lab should the undercover operation prove unsuccessful.

In the season 7 finale, he attempts to help his Cuban father escape from the grips of the Russian Mob. However, the CSIs arrive on the scene and Calleigh shoots at the car he is helping his father escape in before she realizes that Delko is the driver. When they reach it after it crashes, it is covered in blood, which his father claims is Eric's. In the next episode, it is revealed he is alive and is wandering in the Everglades.

## Season Eight

Eric left the CSI team for personal reasons (episode 805, "Bad Seed"). Horatio left a note on his windshield saying, "I'll always be here. H."

A few episodes later, Delko returns as a special guest star, to become an expert witness for the defense against his former team (episode 811, "Delko for the Defense"). At the beginning of the episode, it was revealed that he was in Puerto Rico. He then tells Calleigh that he missed living in Miami and decided to come back. In the middle of the episode, Calleigh tells him that the district attorney is looking for a forensics expert and Delko tells her that he will think about whether or not he wants to get his job back. At the end of the episode, Delko discusses things with the D.A. and may be asked to return to the CSI team (music prevents the viewers from hearing the conversation).

Eric and Rachel embrace in a passionate kiss in bed, before being interrupted by a phone call from the D.A. to whom Eric says he hasn't spoken to for a week (episode 814, "In the Wind"). He works with the CSI team on a fifteen-year-old double homicide case. Around the end of the episode, as Eric is getting ready to go to the gym, Rachel talks with him about what they did that night together.

He and Horatio go to Los Angeles, California to help defend CSI Jesse Cardoza from a murder case that was committed by a porn producer (episode 816, "L.A.").

After hearing the news that Calleigh was in the hospital, he rushes there along with Natalia and Ryan. While Calleigh was fighting for their life, Eric was beside her and gets the evidence of the case from her (episode 820, "Backfire").

Eric witnesses the murder of State Attorney Rebecca Nevins while arguing with Calleigh (episode 823, "Time Bomb"). Calleigh then sees Eric driving past after telling her he's busy. Calleigh follows him. Eric's honesty is later questioned when Calleigh, Walter, and Natalia confront him and ask him about his involvement with Nevins. Calleigh questions whether Eric was wearing a wire when they were "at home, together", implying they live together. Eric and Calleigh follow the GPS tracking device recovered from Rebecca's body, which Eric reactivates, to Ryan's home. A fed-up Ryan loudly confronts Eric and mocks Eric's investigation of Walter hitting "a dead end" (from a previous episode). Eric finds stolen diamonds and Ryan gets escorted back to the police station, where he is questioned by Stetler, and shortly hauled off to jail. But Eric finds new evidence that places Stetler as a suspect, giving Ryan the pleasure of arresting Stetler and thanking Eric for having his back.

In the Season 8 finale, Eric announces to Horatio that he has been re-instated by the Miami-Dade Police Department, and received his detective shield to validate his return. He is once again a CSI. At the end of the episode, though he is concerned for all of his colleagues, it's his friend Calleigh who is his priority as he enters the crime lab from the elevator and sees everyone down. The screen goes black after Eric goes down while calling for help from the hallway with Calleigh in his arms.

## Season Nine

In the Season 9 premiere, he is shown trying to carry Calleigh out of the crime lab, but he starts to pass out as he gets near the elevator. Seconds later, Horatio and his wife Rachel walk into the crime lab and Eric tells him to shoot the window for oxygen. After Horatio does so, everyone wakes up.

In "Manhunt" Eric and Horatio chase down Memmo Fierro, the hitman who shot Marisol and then blocked the ambulance. In a hostage situation, Eric has a clear shot at Memmo but does not wish to shoot him in front of his young daughter and lets him go.

## Relationships

Eric has been in a relationship with Rachel Caine since 1994 and married her on February 14, 2006.

He has a close friendship with colleague Calleigh Duquesne; they care very greatly for each other - Calleigh along with Eric's wife Rachel Caine is the one by his side when Eric is in the hospital, gravely injured (episode 515, "Man Down") - Calleigh and Eric have a brother/sister bond.

Delko also maintained a friendship with fellow CSI Tim Speedle, who is killed in a shootout when his firearm jams because of poor maintenance (episode 301, "Lost Son"). It had been Speedle that 'welcomed' a rookie Delko to the lab with a friendly hazing (episode 308, "Speed Kills"). Eric is at first deeply resentful of Speedle's replacement, Ryan Wolfe, especially when some of Speedle's previous cases come under review (episode 306, "Hell Night"; episode 323, "Whacked"). For some time, there is a measure of verbal sniping between the two. At one time, Ryan is called into a crime scene on his day off when Delko does not come and is injured when a suspect shoots him in the eye with a nail gun. Unsurprisingly, Ryan is upset with Eric, but in the end, they work out their differences (episode 408, "Nailed"). Eventually, Delko comes to accept Ryan's presence, and they become strong co-workers and friends.

Delko became Horatio Caine's son-in-law when Eric married his daughter Rachel Caine and brother-in-law when his sister Marisol married Horatio, but their family bond was tragically severed when Marisol succumbed to the gunshot wound she suffered at the hands of a Mala Noche sniper. They uncover the member who ordered the hit, Antonio Riaz, and pursued him to Brazil. Riaz was killed with his knife after refusing to surrender.

* Pavel Delko is Eric's stepfather.
* Carmen Delko is Eric's mother.
* Alexander Sharova is Eric's father.
* Rachel Caine is Eric's wife.
* Calleigh Duquesne is Eric's close friend.
* Horatio Caine is Eric's father-in-law.
* Kyle Caine is Eric's brother-in-law.