List of Bones Characters - Recurring Characters - The Grave Digger/Heather Taffet

The Grave Digger/Heather Taffet

Portrayed By Deirdre Lovejoy

United States Attorney Heather Taffet was the serial killer and kidnapper known as The Grave Digger (Season 2, 4, 5, and 6). As The Grave Digger she would often kidnap people and contact their families for ransom. If the family provided the funds she would tell them where the person was buried before the air in the grave ran out; if the funds were not provided the body would be discovered later dead. Not much is known about her. She led a very quiet life and was an FBI agent. She took over the Grave Digger case after the previous attorney assigned to it was killed. She was married at some point for a month in order to rent a storage locker under a false identity. She used the locker to hide her kidnapping equipment. In the episode "Aliens in a Spaceship", she kidnapped Brennan and Hodgins and held them for ransom. While the rest of the team succeeded in rescuing them, the Grave Digger's identity was never discovered.

Two seasons later, in "The Hero in the Hold", she kidnapped Booth in order to get evidence that Hodgins had stolen from the FBI. She killed Thomas Vega, who wrote a book on the Grave Digger, but Brennan deduces that Vega broke at least one of his killer's ribs during the fatal struggle. Brennan is suspicious when Taffet brings a warrant to retrieve Vega's body but cannot seem to lift her arm. Brennan confirms Taffet has a broken rib by hitting her in the right place. Jared Booth interrogates her to find out where she took his brother but she refuses to talk. He accesses a government database with secret, illegal files on every United States citizen (referred to as "'spring cleaning' – because everything is brought out and turned upside-down", by Hodgins). He uses this information to determine that she was married for one month before she had the marriage annulled. She used this information to rent a storage locker in Spring Hill. Jared sends an FBI task force to the locker. They find her three-million volt, modified stun gun, gloves, and boots. Hodgins tests the boots to find that there are paint chips in them that were used in US Navy vessels prior to 1961. Again, accessing the "spring cleaning" files, they find Taffet volunteered at an aquarium that had just sent out a US Navy vessel to be sunk to a reef. Brennan strikes Taffet with a briefcase, knocking her over. Brennan then leaves on a chopper arranged by Jared to go retrieve Booth. Although Jared is arrested for stealing the corpse of Thomas Vega so Brennan and the others could examine it, Seeley Booth is located in time.

In the fifth season episode "The Boy with the Answer", Taffet is tried and convicted for the kidnapping and murder of a 10-year-old boy. After the kidnapping equipment recovered from Taffet's storage locker in "The Hero in the Hold" is disallowed as illegally obtained, Booth, Bones, and Hodgins drop their own kidnapping charges so that the Jeffersonian scientists can focus on investigating the newly discovered body of the 10-year-old victim. Believing Taffet will not get convicted, Brennan's father Max tries to kill her with a sniper rifle, but Booth is able to stop him and Max is put in jail until the trial is over. Despite Taffet ably representing herself in court, DNA evidence showing that the boy bit Taffet during his abduction is enough to convict her. After the trial, she tells Brennan that "this isn't over".

In the Season 6 episode "The Bullet in the Brain", while being taken to court for a final appeal, Taffet is killed by renegade sniper Jacob Broadsky – a former mentor to Booth – who shoots Taffet in the head from a distant building after having been hired by James Kent, the father of Matthew and Ryan Kent, two of Taffet's victims.