| Minor Character: Las Vegas | |
 | |
| Name | Heather Kessler |
| Gender | Female |
| Family | Zoë Kessler (daughter; deceased) Allison (granddaughter; deceased) |
| City | Las Vegas |
| Occupation | Former Fetish Club Owner Sex Therapist |
| Pathology | Assailant |
| Status | Alive |
| Portrayed By | Melinda Clarke |
| First Appearance | Slaves of Las Vegas |
"Lady" Heather Kessler is a former fetish club owner in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. She has consulted the Las Vegas crime lab on more than one occasion and has been viewed by fans as a potential love interest of Grissom during the seasons before he became involved with Sara.
Biography
Not much is known about her life before Season Two. In The Good, The Bad, And The Dominatrix, we learn that Kessler is her marriage name. She left her husband, Jerome, after she became pregnant, and he only learned about his daughter when she died.
In her first appearance, Gil Grissom is immediately interested in her, as she seemed cultured and intelligent. It is obvious that she returns the feeling, and the two have shared many intimate moments together. Whether they have actually had sex is unknown—(although Grissom does mention, in the CSI episode 'Immortality', that "Lady Heather never slept with any of her clients or patients"; which from Sara's surprised reaction to said admission, seems quite telling.)
Lady Heather has assisted the CSI team on many occasions. In a Season Nine episode, Grissom was surprised to find that she is now a registered psychologist, specializing in sexual counseling. She assisted the team by pointing out that the murder they were investigating was sexual/fetish related.
In Pirates of the Third Reich, Heather's daughter, Zoe, was found murdered and she pursued her own search for the killer. Grissom caught her as she tried to flog him to death and stopped her from doing so. After her daughter got murdered, and she lost custody of her granddaughter to her ex-husband, she fell into deep depression and tried to kill herself by one of her clients, while setting up a college fund from the money she have been paid for the act. After this was unsuccessful, she only came to peace with her life when Grissom managed to convince Jerome to let Heather see her grandchild.
She also appeared in Unleashed, helping the team by regarding a murder that involves a sexual fetish for cats. By this point, Sara Sidle and Gil Grissom are married and Sara, who has despised Heather for being the only other woman Grissom has shown interest in, seems to brag about her relationship with Grissom. Meanwhile, as she is now a psychologist, she helps Raymond Langston try to overcome his personal demons regarding his hatred and fear of prolific serial killer Nate Haskell.
In the last episode it's revealed that her granddaughter has been invested and killed by a car while going to school. Initially, she was suspected for several suicide attacks—she lost everything she loved, the suicidal attackers were following deep orders against their will, and personal belongings of her were found at the scenes—, but Grissom, who returned to the lab after half a decade of absence, managed to clear her name. In reality, she was framed by one of her former special clients, who wanted to take revenge on Grissom, as he thought it was Gil who turned her from dominant to submissive.
Appearances
| CSI:Crime Scene Investigation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | # | |
| Season 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 1 | |
| Season 3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 1 | |
| Season 6 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 1 |
| Season 7 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | N/A | 1 |
| Season 9 | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | N/A | 1 |
| Season 11 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | N/A | 1 | ||
| Season 15 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | X | N/A | 2 | ||||
| Total | 8 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Trivia
- She is diabetic.
- She sold her business to try and gain custody of her granddaughter, but lost it and visitation rights to her ex-boyfriend, Jerome, who was Zoë's father. She later set up a trust fund for her.
