Leigh Turner

Leigh Turner was one of the main characters on the ABC television series The Gates. Played by actress Janina Gavankar, she was introduced in the pilot episode of the series. Although credited in all thirteen episodes of the show, Leigh actually only appeared in ten episodes.

Biography
Leigh Turner was a police officer who worked in the idyllic, upper-class community known as The Gates in the state of Washington. Her partner was a young man named Marcus Jordan. Leight served as the designated on-site manager for the precinct's advanced security monitoring system. ("Breach")

In 2010, a former Chicago police detective named Nick Monohan became the new chief of police of The Gates. Leigh was led to believe that the former police chief, David Phelps, had retired and moved to Mexico.

She did a background check on Monohan and learned that he retired from the Chicago police department following a controversial shooting incident involving a suspected felon. Though she liked Nick, this information made her slightly suspicious of him.

Nick put Leigh and Marcus to work almost immediately. They began investigating a missing persons case involving a contractor from Franklin named Mark Woodbury. Nick had Leigh contact the D.A. in an effort to obtain a search warrant, but the district attorney (likely pressured by The Gates builder Frank Buckley) turned down the request. ("Pilot")

Shortly thereafter, Turner, Monohan and Jordan discovered the remains of the former police chief David Phelps. He had not retired to Mexico as they had been led to believe, but was in fact murdered. The Phelps murder took priority over their missing persons case and Nick had Leigh check the employee database to see if there was anyone who might have held a grudge against Phelps. Her research turned up the name Chad Taylor, a former police officer whom Phelps had fired for insubordination. They investigated Taylor and later found evidence linking him to a vehicle that Phelps had purchased three months prior to his death. They went to Taylor's home and Leigh found a handgun which matched the caliber of bullet used to murder the chief. Nick had Taylor arrested and Leigh handcuffed him and walked him out to the squad car. ("What Lies Beneath")

Leigh experienced a personal crisis soon after. A history teacher and computer science aficionado named Mister Abernathy had hacked into The Gates security systems, setting off a string of silent alarms across the community. He did this to distract the police from his own burglaries, which included robbing Leigh Turner's home. Abernathy stole an ornate, jewel-encrusted box from a display case - an item that was of great intrinsic value to Leigh. As she spent more time away from the contents of the box, she grew more irritable and began suffering physical symptoms including chronic nose bleeds. Physician Peg Mueller, one of the few people privy to Leigh's true relationship to the box, gave her something to help dull the pain. Once Abernathy was arrested, the police confiscated the items he had stolen. Leigh recovered the box, but she knew that Abernathy was now aware of her dark secret. She went to his home and shot him with a gun equipped with a silencer. She then returned to her house and put the box back into its display case. ("Breach")

When Marcus' girlfriend Teresa Goodwin turned up missing, Leigh attempted to help Marcus, but warned him that they could not legally pursue the matter until she had been declared missing for more than forty-eight hours. Marcus investigated the matter on his own, and Leigh helped him run a background check on Teresa. They learned that her real name was Amanda Wolcott and that she was from Chicago - Chief Monohan's home town. They eventually deduced that Amanda had a personal score to settle with Nick, but when she failed to return to The Gates, they let the matter drop. ("Repercussions")

Notes & Trivia

 * The character of was created by Grant Scharbo and Richard Hatem.