Lindsey Willows

Lindsey Willows (played first by actress Madison McReynolds and now by actress Kay Panabaker) is a secondary fictional character on the CBS television program CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. She is the teenage daughter of CSI Catherine Willows (played by actress Marg Helgenberger) and her deceased ex-husband Eddie Willows (Timothy Carhart). Lindsey's first appearance was in the pilot episode. Primarily, the character's function is to highlight the difficulties faced by Catherine Willows in being a single mother while holding down a demanding law-enforcement job and trying to maintain a social life. Lindsey's appearances have typically been in episodes where she was used as a pawn by Eddie, before that character's death, or afterward proving to be a rebellious (but not implausibly so) teenager. One episode featured Lindsey getting caught fighting at school; another after she was detained for hitchhiking. This latter incident prompted a scene where Catherine takes Lindsey to a morgue to show her the corpse of an adult female assault victim, to impress upon her the risks in her behavior. In more recent episodes, Lindsey has been enrolled in a private school, the fictional Butterfield Academy. Lindsey was abducted and briefly held captive by enemies of her maternal grandfather, Sam Braun, in the seventh season episode "Built To Kill".

Madison McReynolds played Lindsey from season 1 to season 5; Kay Panabaker took over the role in the season 6 finale "Way To Go", and continued to play the role up until 2007, at the end of season 7. Panabaker continued to portray Lindsey Willows in season 9 in the episode "Let It Bleed".