The CSI: Miami Character Everyone Forgets Stana Katic Played
Warning: spoilers for CSI: Miami below
Stana Katic has been acting for more than 20 years and has 40 credits on her resume (via IMDB). She's most well-known for playing the co-lead on "Castle," Detective Kate Beckett, the homicide cop reluctantly paired up with a mystery novelist, Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), to solve crimes together. "Castle" ran on ABC for eight seasons from 2009 to 2016.
After "Castle," Katic starred in the Amazon Prime series "Absentia." In it, she plays an FBI special agent named Emily Byrne, who goes missing and is declared dead. Six years later she's discovered in a cabin in the woods with no memory of her abductor. It premiered in 2017 and concluded after its third season in 2020.
Before playing Beckett and Byrne, Katic had several supporting roles in movies and TV shows. Two years before "Castle," she appeared in an episode of "CSI: Miami."
Stana Katic played Rita Sullivan on the 2007 episode Deep Freeze
In "Deep Freeze," Katic's character is Rita Sullivan. She's the secret romantic partner of the character who gets murdered in this episode, Doug McClain (Dale Midkiff).
In the episode, Doug McClain is a football player who gets mysteriously stabbed to death. After suspecting a local obituary writer and Doug's ex-wife Elissa (Dina Meyer) of the murder, Horatio and Alexx Horatio Caine (David Caruso) and Alexx Woods (Khandi Alexander) discover that Rita was having an affair with him. The affair resulted in a son, Caleb, who recently died of a kidney disease.
Under questioning, Rita admits that she had approached Doug to do a paternity test to see if he was a match for Caleb, and when he refused, she stabbed him.
Then, in another twist, the crime scene investigators learn that Rita's stab didn't actually kill Doug. He died when someone pulled out the knife. Fingerprint analysis reveals Elissa as the culprit.