21 Saddest Character Deaths on ‘NCIS,’ Ranked
Investigating major crimes for the NCIS is a dangerous business. So is being a major character on a long-running military crime procedural.
Over NCIS’s 20 years on the air, more than a few agents have met their end in the pursuit of justice. Whether the cause was a hail of gunfire, the explosion of a terrorist’s bomb or a serial killer’s knife, the loss of each person on this list (which also includes beloved family members) was felt keenly by the NCIS team.
Here are 21 characters whose deaths broke our hearts and whose time on the hit series deserves to be remembered.
This is an excerpt from TV Guide Magazine’s NCIS: Special Collector’s Edition issue. For more inside scoop on the long-running CBS franchise, pick up a copy of the issue available on newsstands and for order online at NCISMagazine.com.
21. Agent Brent Langer (Jonathan LaPaglia)
After Shepard’s death, Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) took over as NCIS director, splitting up the team and putting Gibbs in charge of a whole new squad. That included Langer, to whom Gibbs had once been a mentor. The new lineup wouldn’t last very long: In their first appearance—the Season 6 premiere “Last Man Standing”—Gibbs learned someone had been leaking classified information. Langer got killed, further implicating him as the mole and shaking Gibbs’ confidence. But he’d soon discover that the real traitor was agent Michelle Lee (Liza Lapira), who had shot Langer to conceal her betrayal.
20. & 19. Agent Simon Cade (Matt Willig) & Agent Gayne Levin (Alimi Ballard)
A member of Special Agent EJ Barrett’s team, Cade (played by 6-foot-8 former NFL player Willig) was shot during their pursuit of the Port to Port Killer. He survived until the Season 9 opener, “Nature of the Beast,” when Jonathan Cole (Scott Wolf), a rogue operative in the covert ops unit Phantom Eight, falsely implicated Cade in the sale of top-secret information, pitting Cade and Barrett (Sarah Jane Morris) against DiNozzo. An ambush shooting left Cade dead, DiNozzo traumatized and Barrett on the run, while Cole absconded with a secret Phantom Eight microchip.
Mike Franks was hardly the only casualty from the Port to Port Killer’s long trail of destruction. The Season 8 “Swan Song” episode also saw the demise of Levin, another member of Barrett’s team and a former member of the Phantom Eight unit. Levin was gunned down in an ill-fated shoot-out after his team was tricked into confronting the serial murderer. Barrett would later remove a secret Phantom Eight microchip from Levin’s corpse. NCIS superfans may recall scratching their heads back in 2020 when Ballard reappeared as an entirely different character on an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles.
18. Navy Secretary Clayton Jarvis (Matt Craven)
After the Secretary of the Navy (Jude Ciccolella) resigned in the Season 8 “Pyramid” episode over the Port to Port Killer affair, Jarvis was appointed to the position. An old friend of Vance, Jarvis was the one who assigned DiNozzo to track down the information leaks that surrounded EJ Barrett’s team. Later, Jarvis was the target of a blackmail plot by a childhood friend seeking to maintain his contracts with the Navy. The team helped fake an assassination attempt on Jarvis to drive the blackmailer out of hiding. The next deadly situation he found himself in was all too real, however. In the Season 11 premiere “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” Jarvis was caught in the explosion of a bomb in D.C. meant for Gibbs, Ziva and Co., revealed to be the work of terrorist group the Brotherhood of Doubt.
17. Agent Christopher Pacci (Tim Kelleher)
Pacci was the first notable NCIS agent to die, all the way back in the Season 1 episode “Dead Man Talking.” One of Pacci’s cold cases heated up when he discovered that Lt. Cdr. Hamilton Voss had stolen $10 million, faked his death and was living as a woman named Amanda Reed (Jamie Luner). With team leader Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) handling other matters, Pacci was left to face Reed with no backup—and was shot and disemboweled. Gibbs avenged his friend but was haunted by what the outcome might have been had he said yes when Pacci requested help.
16. Shin Bet officer Adam Eshel (Damon Dayoub)
Eshel was an officer of the Israeli Secret Service, Shin Bet, and Ziva’s childhood friend. Before going into hiding after surviving a mortar attack, Ziva brought daughter Tali to Adam, who helped the girl find her way to her father. In the Season 17 episode “The North Pole,” men working for terrorist Sahar (Mouzam Makkar) captured and tortured Eshel in order to locate Ziva. Gibbs and Ziva arrived too late to help, but before dying of his injuries, Eshel worked with them to identify Sahar as Gibbs’ neighbor Sarah.
15. Former Director Thomas Morrow (Alan Dale)
When we first met the NCIS team in 2003, in the JAG backdoor pilot, former Navy rear admiral Morrow was the agency’s no-nonsense director. He’d continue in that role until the beginning of NCIS Season 3, when he was appointed to the post of senior division chief in the Department of Homeland Security. (He handed the director’s chair to Shepard.) Morrow survived injuries he sustained in Season 11’s Brotherhood of Doubt bombing, which killed Secretary of the Navy Jarvis, but was found dead in Season 13’s “Return to Sender,” the victim of a sniper suspected to be British spy Jacob Scott (Vince Nappo). In reality, we’d learn, it was the work of rogue CIA operative Trent Kort (David Dayan Fisher).
14. Translator Qasim Naasir (Rafi Silver)
Naasir debuted in Season 12 as a translator aiding Marines in Afghanistan. Originally under suspicion because his brother Rasheed (Gabeen Khan) was a Taliban operative, Qasim quickly proved himself an ally. He next appeared in Season 14, working with NCIS and dating Special Agent Ellie Bishop (Emily Wickersham). In “Willoughby,” terrorist Kai Chen (Bruce Locke) orchestrated an attack that killed Qasim, sending Bishop on a quest for revenge. Tragically, a flashback reveals that Qasim had proposed and Bishop was planning to say yes on the night he died.
13. Agent Michelle Lee (Liza Lapira)
Was Lee a hero or a villain? Gibbs’ answer to Vance: “both.” Lee joined the MCRT between Seasons 3 and 4 during Gibbs’ brief retirement before being transferred to the legal department. In Season 6, she was outed as the mole in NCIS after taking the lives of two agents. In the episode “Dagger,” we learned that Lee had been forced into stealing secrets by mastermind the Weatherman (David Eigenberg), who’d kidnapped her sister Amanda (Tiffany Espensen). Once Amanda was freed from a pressure plate–activated bomb, Lee died heroically, giving Gibbs silent permission to shoot through her in order to take down the true culprit.
12. Breena Palmer (Michelle Pierce)
A mortician, Breena appeared throughout the series as medical examiner Jimmy Palmer’s fiancée and then wife. In Season 9, Breena and Jimmy (Brian Dietzen) actually got hitched on the spot so Jimmy could return to help the team take down Harper Dearing (Richard Schiff). They named their daughter Victoria Elizabeth after her “Grand-Ducky’s” mother. We learned in Season 18’s “The First Day” that Breena had passed away from COVID-19 in December 2020, when lockdowns prevented Jimmy from being at her bedside or even holding a proper memorial.
11. MI6 Officer Clayton Reeves (Duane Henry)
MI6 intelligence operative Reeves left an indelible mark in his relatively short time on NCIS. After working with DiNozzo overseas, he came to the States, where he was the one to finally take down rogue CIA agent Trent Kort. Reeves teamed with Bishop in secret to catch terrorist Kai Chen and, in Season 15’s “Two Steps Back,” died heroically protecting Abby (Pauley Perrette) from a gunman. Abby escorted Clayton’s body back to London, and the NCIS gang started a charity for the homeless—a cause near to Clayton’s heart—in his honor.
10. Agent Ned Dorneget (Matt Jones)
Dorneget was introduced in Season 9 as a probationary agent often assigned (begrudgingly) to the evidence locker. “Dorney” endured more than one prank from DiNozzo on his way to becoming a special agent in NCIS Cyber Operations. In Season 12’s “The Lost Boys,” he helped the MCRT track down a terrorist cell known as the Calling that was recruiting children. He saved dozens of people when they attacked a hotel in Cairo, losing his life in an explosion. Ned’s mother, CIA officer Joanna Teague (Mimi Rogers), would help the team find her son’s killers.
9. Diane Sterling (Melinda McGraw)
Gibbs’ first ex-wife, Diane, had a thing for men in uniform. The former IRS auditor was also once married to DHS Special Agent Victor Sterling (Tom Gallop) and FBI Special Agent Tobias Fornell (Joe Spano), with whom she had a daughter. Diane had gotten more than her fair share after divorcing Gibbs, walking away with his money and his grandfather’s watch. He wasn’t pleased when she reappeared in his life in Season 9 as an IRS criminal investigator. While visiting Gibbs at a crime scene in Season 12’s “Check,” she was struck in the head by a sniper’s bullet in an assassination identical to Ari Haswari’s slaying of Todd 10 seasons earlier. The perpetrator? Terrorist Sergei Mishnev (Alex Veadov)—Haswari’s half brother—who was seeking revenge on Gibbs via a series of copycat killings. Fornell would later avenge Diane by taking down Mishnev.
8. Jackie Vance (Paula Newsome)
The same drive-by shooting that killed Mossad director Eli David (Michael Nouri)— Ziva’s father—in Season 10’s “Shabbat Shalom” also claimed the life of Vance’s wife, Paula. Hosting Ziva (Cote de Pablo) and Eli for dinner, the Vances were preparing for peace talks with Iran when shots meant for Eli also struck Jackie. She was taken to the hospital but died in surgery. Jackie was survived by husband Leon and children Kayla and Jared. After her death, Jackie’s biological father, Lamar Addison (Ben Vereen), came calling, and we learned that he had abandoned his family when Jackie was young.
7. Mossad Director Eli David (Michael Nouri)
As the director of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, David was uncompromising in his defense of Israel. His single-minded focus came at his children’s expense, radicalizing son Ari Haswari and putting daughter Ziva in the crosshairs on more than one occasion. In Season 10’s “Shabbat Shalom,” David traveled to the United States on a mission of peace—both with his daughter and with Iran. While eating dinner with no protection detail, David fell victim to a drive-by shooting orchestrated by anti-peace Mossad operatives.
6. Former Director Mike Franks (Muse Watson)
Franks taught Gibbs everything he knows, including his trademark head slap! A former director of NCIS precursor the NIS, Franks was “probie” Gibbs’ mentor and partner. Retired in Mexico, Mike was called in by Shepard in Season 3 to help jog an amnesiac Gibbs’ memory. Later, he’d be the only survivor of the shoot-out that claimed Shepard’s life and would help the MCRT bring down the Reynosa drug cartel. But even the most hardened veterans can’t live forever, and Franks gave up the ghost in Season 8’s “Swan Song” while trying to apprehend the notorious serial murderer known as the Port to Port Killer (Kerr Smith). Mike fought to the last in a dramatic battle in the rain, ultimately meeting his end after being stabbed. But even in death, Franks had more wisdom to impart, appearing in Gibbs’ imagination to deliver sage counsel.
5. Jackson Gibbs (Ralph Waite)
We first met Gibbs’ estranged father in Season 6. Apparently, military service ran in the family: Jackson had served as an Air Force pilot during World War II. The details of the difficult father-son relationship slowly unfurled. Both Jackson and Gibbs’ mother, Ann (Clare Carey), had affairs, and Gibbs blamed his dad when she left. But time heals all wounds, and Jackson would eventually begin to repair things with his son, just as he had repaired the old car that was Leroy’s dream as a teenager. Leroy would eventually call the elder Gibbs “Dad” instead of “Jack,” and he was shattered when Vance informed him that his father had suffered a fatal stroke in the Season 11 finale, “Honor Thy Father.” The episode aired three months after Waite passed away from natural causes at the age of 85.
4. Emily Fornell (Payton Spencer, Juliette Angelo)
Fornell’s daughter Emily was just a kid (played by Spencer) when we met her in Season 4. She suffered trauma after trauma over the years: her kidnapping, her mother Diane’s murder, her father’s near-death at Kort’s hands and Tobias’ later struggle with alcoholism. It all proved to be too much, and Emily (now played by Angelo, above) turned to drugs to cope. She got clean but had relapsed by Season 18’s “Winter Chill,” when she died of an opiate overdose.
3. Special Agent Paula Cassidy (Jessica Steen)
Cassidy first appeared in Season 1 as an interrogator at Guantanamo Bay. After Todd’s death, Cassidy was briefly transferred to the Major Case Response Team, where she struck up a relationship with Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) before being reassigned to lead a team at the Pentagon. When an explosion claimed the lives of her entire team, Paula was wracked with guilt. So when her time came, in Season 4’s “Grace Period,” she didn’t hesitate to make the ultimate sacrifice, tackling a suicide bomber to save her fellow agents.
2. Director Jennifer Shepard (Lauren Holly)
Introduced in Season 3 as NCIS’s new (and first female) boss, Shepard often butted heads with Gibbs, despite the fact that the two had shared a romance while undercover in Europe. Shepard harbored a single-minded vendetta against arms dealer La Grenouille (Armand Assante), who she (incorrectly) believed had murdered her father. When La Grenouille turned up dead, Gibbs suspected Shepard’s involvement. Meanwhile, hitwoman Svetlana Chernitskaya (Kathleen Gati), who Jenny had failed to kill years earlier, had her own grudge to settle. It all came to a head in the Season 5 finale, “Judgment Day (Part II).” Gibbs finally had proof that Shepard was responsible for La Grenouille’s murder, but before he could confront her, she took a fatal bullet in a shoot-out with hitmen Chernitskaya sent. She was dead, but to preserve Jenny’s legacy, Gibbs burned down her house and told the press she had died of smoke inhalation, covering up the entire tawdry tale of revenge.
1. Special Agent Caitlin Todd (Sasha Alexander)
NCIS proved that not even cast regulars were safe when Todd was killed in the Season 2 finale, “Twilight.” The former Secret Service agent’s assassination by terrorist and Mossad double agent Ari Haswari (Rudolf Martin) in the last seconds of the episode was the series’ biggest shock to date, especially since she’d survived another bullet unharmed just seconds earlier. Alexander told TVGuide.com back in 2012 that it had been her decision to leave the show. “People don’t realize that on a network show, you make 24 episodes a year—that’s 10 and a half months a year, 17 hours a day. It’s hardcore.” The hours must have been better on cable: Alexander went on to star for seven seasons as medical examiner Maura Isles on the TNT crime drama Rizzoli & Isles.
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