THE AGENT WHO INSPIRED CBS' "NCIS: NEW ORLEANS" TAKES VIEWERS INSIDE A CROSS-COUNTRY SEARCH FOR THE MURDERER OF A YOUNG WOMAN IN SAN DIEGO IN "48 HOURS: NCIS: TO CATCH A KILLER"

Friday, May 12, 10:00 PM, ET/PT

D'Wayne Swear, a former NCIS agent who inspired CBS Entertainment's NCIS: NEW ORLEANS takes viewers inside the real-life cross-country search for the killer of a young woman in San Diego, in 48 HOURS: NCIS: "To Catch a Killer" to be broadcast Friday, May 12 (10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Marilyn Allen was found face down in shallow waters at the Camp Pendleton Marine Base in San Diego, Calif., in 1992. At the time, NCIS agents had little to go on. There was no DNA evidence and no witnesses. The case eventually went cold for five years, and the file passed from agent to agent. Indeed, Swear, then in the New Orleans office of the NCIS, dubbed the case Operation Jambalaya because of the various agencies involved.

They knew the victim, who was estranged from her husband, was from Ohio but had moved to San Diego.

"It just stays unresolved. It was really a no hoper, so to speak," says Swear, now a technical advisor on NCIS: NEW ORLEANS and the inspiration for the character portrayed by Scott Bakula on the CBS series.

Investigators got a break when a woman named Seanice Etienne reported to police that her boyfriend, Roosevelt Gipson, had, shockingly, admitted to her that he had strangled a woman and dumped her body in a lake. He was a former Marine who left the service to be near his family in Baton Rouge, La.

But could the agents get him to confess to them he killed Allen?

Narrated by NCIS series star Rocky Carroll, 48 HOURS: NCIS is a six-part documentary series from the award-winning team at 48 HOURS that gives viewers unprecedented access to some of the biggest cases handled by the real Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The series explores the kinds of difficult cases that have inspired CBS Entertainment's successful primetime series NCIS, the #1 drama on television, NCIS: LOS ANGELES and NCIS: NEW ORLEANS.

Also in this episode, a team of NCIS agents in Virginia investigate the murder of Meghan Landowski, a 16-year-old ballerina who was the stepdaughter of a Navy sailor. A few months before she was killed, she revealed that she had been inappropriately touched by her father's friend, who was also in the Navy. Given that history, investigators thought that a man named Robert Hicke was a likely suspect. But when DNA evidence cleared Hicke, the case was turned upside down and investigators were on the trail of a killer who wasn't on anyone's radar.

48 HOURS: NCIS: "To Catch a Killer" is produced by Anthony Venditti and Alec Sirken. Jud Johnson, Phil Tangel and Marcus Balsam are the editors. Paul LaRosa is the senior coordinating producer. Anthony Batson is the senior broadcast producer. Susan Zirinsky is the senior executive producer.

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