The seventh-season episode "Living Legend" established that Willows was 16 years old (portrayed by Amy Scott) in 1975, the year the movie Jaws was released, which places her year of birth in either 1958 or 1959. She had occasional contact with her biological father, casino owner Sam Braun, but knew him only as a family friend. Sam Braun nicknamed her "Muggs". She did not learn he had fathered her until she was an adult and compared his DNA sample with her own as part of a murder investigation in the episode "Inside the Box". Willows herself worked for a time as a dancer/stripper and briefly had a cocaine habit, dropping it before pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Medical Technology from UNLV. Like the other characters on CSI, she has a wide knowledge of odd facts that help in their investigations of crime scenes.