Vital Statistics

Original Air Date: 31st January 2006
Production Code: 2T6912
Writer: Eugenie Ross-Leming, Brad Buckner
Director: Paul Shapiro

Official Episode Description

Dean is contacted by his first love Cassie, an African-America girl, who asks him to come to Mississippi to investigate a string of racially motivated murders. Each murder is linked to a mysterious truck that seems to have no driver and leave no tracks. Sam is stunned to see this new side of his brother as Dean struggles to come to grips with the residual feelings he has for Cassie.

Summary

When her father is killed in a car accident, Cassie Robinson calls Dean for help. They had a relationship once and she knows what Dean does. She believes that this is his kind of job.

She explains that her father had been seeing a black truck follwing him and then vanishing. She suspects that this truck ran him off the road, killing him. His best friend Clayton died in exactly the same way a few days earlier. Another family friend, Jimmy, who works with Cassie at the newspaper, is also killed in a road accident on the same stretch of Route 6.

While investigating the deaths, Dean and Cassie pick their relationship back up where they left off. There is obviously a lot of affection and possibly even love between them.

The deaths seem to be connected to Cassie's family, so Dean and Sam ask her mother if she has any additional information. Finally, Mrs Robinson breaks down in tears, revealing that she knows everything about the killings. The owner of the truck was a wealthy local man named Cyrus Dorian who she used to date until she dumped him for another man, Martin Robinson. Disgusted that a white woman would dump him for a black man, Cyrus took revenge by killing several black men in the area. Not content with this, he finally made a play for Martin, but it backfired and Martin ended up killing Cyrus.

Horrified by what he had done, he called his friends, Clayton and Jimmy to help put the body in the truck and push it into the swamp, where the spirit of Cyrus lay peacefully for years. When his old house was demolished, it woke his spirit and he started his killing again.

Towing up the truck from the swamp, Dean and Sam burn the body, hoping to destroy the spirit, but it seems that the spirit wasso tied to the truck that the truck has a mind of it's own. Dean drives off, hoping to make the ghost ruck chase him and buy Sam some time to destroy the actual truck. On the phone, Sam directs Dean to a specific place and tells him to let the truck come to him. Not happy about the plan, Dean agrees and as soon as the truck gets close, it vanishes. Sam explains that Dean is parked on the remains of a church that Cyrus burnt down. Hallowed ground remains that way and a spirit cannot pass.

After a fond farewell to Cassie, Dean and Sam leave.

Notes

• Dean and Cassie met in Athens, Ohio, where she was at college.
• Sam and Jess had been together for a year and a half when she died.

Cultural References

• None used

Lore

• Phantom Vehicles
• Spirits

Places

• Cape Girardeau, Missouri

Characters

Other Pages

• Aliases
• Music
• Quotes

Promo Pictures