Natalie Dalton (NCIS)

Natalie Dalton (Alexandra Lydon) is the main hidden villainess in the NCIS episode "Skeletons".
== Background ==
Little is known about Dalton in her character and personal life. She's a woman who inherited a butcher shop from her grandfather and the girlfriend of Len Grady, a jack-of-all-trades salesman who moonlights as a serial killer, and whom she assisting in covering up his crimes by disposing of the victims' bodies.
== Skeletons ==
The episode opens with two men attempting to open a tomb in a military mausoleum during a ceremonial service for a fallen soldier. The moment they undo the latches, the tomb bursts, sending the two men flying back by the marble cover shooting out, leading to a reveal of decomposing, murky flesh and various old bones. NCIS is called in to investigate on suspicion of a bomb being placed in the tomb. The coroners, Duck and Palmer, sorting out all the bones of the skeletons, find they're all incomplete and suspect the corpses were butchered and the remaining bones stashed elsewhere, leading to a mass murder theory. Determining another tomb must hold the missing body parts, they single out the crypt of Dalton's grandfather, asking her to come in for her signature. Feigning innocence, she tells Tony, who's asked to be the one to do it to charm her, that she learned form her grandfather while working at his shop to never sing a document without a lawyer's educated okay, and that every minute she's spending there she loses money on her business. When Tony says he can get a federal warrant, she eagerly says he should just do that so she can get back to work, much to Tony's surprise and embarrassment. Tony then reports back to Gibbs, who gets the warrant, leading to them, with Lt. Col. Hollis Mann, opening her crypt a finding there's the final missing bones to piece together the five skeletons. With the remaining pieces, they identify the victims and their causes of death: Gloria Grady, a demented elder who was reported missing by her son, Len Grady, who was bludgeoned; Todd Louison, a young man who went missing soon after, who was determined to have been shot; Kelly Camarda; a prostitute who was strangled; Wade Carlin, a young man reported missing by his fiance, who was stabbed; and Marilyn Torrance, a middle-aged woman, whose death, unlike the others who were murdered, was undetermined at the time. The team went to Len Grady's home to bring the news about his mother, finding his workshop as well as expertly cut pork loins, suspecting him immediately, these suspicions further strengthened when they saw him at the house and caught and arrested him while we was trying to run. When confronted with the murders, he scoffed with relief and deny responsibility. During their investigation into Grady as the killer, they tracked his legal contacts, which lead all the way to the Dalton family butcher shop. When asked about why she's in his contacts, she says the two are dating and inquires what's going on. When asked more questions about their relationship for the investigation, she asks where Grady is. When told he's in custody on the five murders, she scoffs, laughs, and says that's impossible, cutting herself off in the middle of saying Grady would never hurt anyone, feigning shock when she repeats back the number of murders he's suspected of. She by their insistence brings them back to her work area, not finding anything in the freezer, but finding human blood on the motorized saw and spatters of it inside a storage container where the dismembered corpses were held, all the while denying their suspicions in faux disbelief. When she sees the container's blood spatters, she makes herself gag and runs off to vomit. She's later seen in interrogation, talking about how she met him and taught him her trade, watering her eyes with showy tears all the way through. Grady, on the other side of the window, tearfully shows guilt for his actions and denies her involvement before screaming through the window, to her surprise, how sorry he is. he then sequentially confesses to all the murders, even revealing Marilyn Torrance was drowned in her swimming pool. The team then deduces the reason why he moved the victims' body parts from the container to the mausoleum is because he needed the space after he killed again. He refuses to say where, but suspecting Natalie's involvement, she's let go, but Gibbs and Mann follow her truck, nearly losing her, just before finding her in a parking lot, where, when they open the back doors, they see she's butchering a man who's already dead. Mann disgusted and Gibbs steely while they aim their guns, Natalie just looks at them, frozen in surprised silence knowing she's finally been caught. She's then arrested and imprisoned for the murders off-screen after the episode's end.
Category:2000s
Category:Brunette
Category:Live Action Villainess