Who Is The Gravedigger On Bones? The Serial Killer’s Identity, Explained

Throughout Hart Hanson’s Fox procedural “Bones,” the main cast of characters who work at the Jeffersonian Institute get attacked by vicious killers and murders a lot. No, really, it happens a lot, to the point where it’s one of the bigger things on “Bones” that doesn’t make sense — but I digress. Aside from the Gormogon, the Puppeteer, the Deity, and Mark Kovac, who are some of the most grotesque villains seen on the series, there’s one particularly frightening villain who shows up as early as season 2 of “Bones” — specifically, the Gravedigger, who buries victims alive for generous ransoms (and may or may not even set them free if the money is delivered). Also, a lot of her victims are children, which is particularly messed up.

So, who’s behind the horrific crimes committed by the person known only as the Gravedigger until season 4, when the predator slips up and accidentally reveals their identity to Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel)? That would be United States Attorney Heather Taffet, played by Deirdre Lovejoy, who worked for the FBI — similar to the show’s co-lead Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz), an agent who collaborates with Temperance and the Jeffersonian — as a lawyer and took over the Gravedigger’s case after the agent previously assigned to it was killed. (Frankly, it’s safe to assume Heather did something to that lawyer in order to take the case, thereby preventing anyone else from trying or solving it.) But what does Heather Taffet do as the Gravedigger on “Bones,” what eventually brings her down, and what role does she play in one of the show’s very best episodes?

Heather Taffet’s first on-screen attack as the Gravedigger happens in the season 2 episode “Aliens in a Spaceship” — more on that shortly — but later on in season 4, she has a run-in with Temperance Brennan that unmasks her as the criminal mastermind. In the episode “The Hero in the Hold,” Heather kidnaps Seeley Booth and holds him ransom (by burying him alive, of course), shortly after some of the Jeffersonian’s evidence regarding the Gravedigger mysteriously goes missing. Without much time to spare, Temperance and her team gather the evidence they still have — courtesy of Jack Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) — and do some “digging,” so to speak, ultimately realizing that kidnapping and ransom expert Thomas Vega (Marco Sanchez), who wrote a book on the Gravedigger’s crimes, is dead inside his car, apparently murdered.

Taffet eventually shows up in person at the Jeffersonian to demand that the team give her custody of Vega’s body, but she doesn’t realize something vitally important: Temperance knows that Thomas broke his attacker’s ribs before his death thanks to some forensic analysis. Temperance hits Taffet in her ribs, proving that one of hers is broken, at which point she’s unmasked as the Gravedigger. Taffet isn’t tried for her crimes until the season 5 episode “The Boy With the Answer,” where, after a harrowing trial, she’s convicted for kidnapping and killing a young boy, and in season 6, she meets a grisly end. While meeting with the Jeffersonian’s FBI psychologist Lance Sweets (John Francis Daley), Taffet is shot and killed by a sniper, who turns out to be the father of two of her child victims.

The Gravedigger is definitely one of the most terrifying villains on “Bones,” and one of her most vicious kidnappings is actually a series highlight. In the season 2 episode “Aliens in a Spaceship,” Temperance is digging a little too far into the Gravedigger’s crimes when she and Jack Hodgins are abducted (Heather Taffet is gunning for Temperance, and Jack happens to see the kidnapping go down, dooming him in the process). When Temperance and Hodgins wake up in a car together, they realize that they’ve been buried alive, and as the team at the Jeffersonian tries to free them from their grave — rather than paying the unusually high ransom, which is quite steep thanks to Jack’s family money — Jack and Temperance try and work together to escape the car.

Naturally, because Jack and Temperance are geniuses, they manage to hotwire the car and use its battery to power her phone, firing off a text to Booth. (Temperance also performs surgery on Jack’s leg without anesthesia in a particularly gruesome sequence.) Between the Jeffersonian team and Temperance and Jack’s own ingenuinity, they end up free from the car, much to everyone’s relief — and even though the episode is definitely harrowing, it’s also one of the best in the show’s history, even if it forced Emily Deschanel to really stretch her imagination as an actor.

“Bones” is streaming on Hulu now.