Sara Sidle (portrayed by Jorja Fox)

Sidle was born on September 16th, 1971 in Tamales Bay, an hour and a half outside San Francisco. Her father was abusive, battering both his wife and children, until Sidle's schizophrenic mother, Laura, killed him in 1984. Afterward, she spent time in the foster care system, which didn't keep her from graduating high school as valedictorian at age 16. She attained a scholarship and attended Harvard, moving on to graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, she started a work-study position at the San Francisco Coroner’s office, where she would also audit lectures to keep up with new developments; it was at one of these that she met Gil Grissom.
Some time later, while she was working in San Francisco, Grissom called her because he was in need of someone outside the Las Vegas team. Sidle then went to Las Vegas and helped resolve some internal affairs problems within the CSIs while also providing a replacement to Holly Gribbs who had been shot. Some episodes later she became a permanent member of the Las Vegas crime scene investigators night shift as a CSI Level 3 at the LVPD Criminalistics Bureau, specialising in materials and element analysis. In season eight, Sidle briefly changed from the night shift to the swing shift. In the season 10 premiere, it is revealed Sara is now married to Grissom.


Perhaps because of her traumatic childhood, Sidle has demonstrated compassion and empathy for victims of domestic violence, and fury against their abusers. She also has a soft spot for animals, and became a vegetarian after she saw Grissom conduct an experiment on a dead pig. She has also shown a tendency to become very aggressive when under pressure or annoyed, especially in cases involving abused women - such as her arguments with Catherine and Ecklie, and engaging in a heated argument with a man suspected of murdering his wife.


Sara Sidle's romantic relationships have been largely unsuccessful. During the first seasons, coroner David Phillips, laboratory technician Greg Sanders, and fellow CSI Nick Stokes occasionally flirted with her, but nothing more than friendship resulted from those flirtations.
Since CSI's first season there were hints that both Sara Sidle and Gil Grissom were interested in each other romantically; in fact, the show's producers initially introduced Sara Sidle as a future love interest for Grissom. However, during the show's first three seasons Grissom flirted with other female characters, and when she asked him out to dinner he rejected her, saying that he didn't know what to do about what was going on between them.

Once, Sara was suspended for insubordination and told Grissom about her tormented childhood. He refused to fire her and has her working with him in almost every episode from season six and season seven.
It was not until the sixth season finale that it is revealed that Grissom and Sidle have worked through whatever issues they had and are, in fact, a couple. In season eight it was revealed they have been intimately involved for two years.