Richard Heller

Richard Heller was the son of Secretary of Defense James Heller and the brother of Audrey Raines. He lived alone in Van Nuys.

Before Day 4
The week prior to Day 4's kidnappings and subsequent terrorist events, Richard had met a couple, Mandy and Gary, at a bar. After taking them to his home and getting high, he and Gary had sex while Mandy set up a tap on his cell phone. The tap allowed Habib Marwan to listen in on all of Richard's calls and from them gain the information on the Secretary of Defense's whereabouts. Mandy also called Marwan using Richard's phone to connect the dots between him and Marwan.

Day 4
Richard was planning on taking part in an anti-military and anti-corporate protest and was speaking at the event. Secretary of Defense James Heller went to speak with his son to try to talk him out of it in order to avoid embarassment to President John Keeler, but was unsuccessful.

Secretary Heller and Richard's sister, Audrey Raines, were kidnapped and taken hostage while visiting Richard's house. He hid inside a closet and was later apprehended by a team led by Curtis Manning. During the course of the investigation into the kidnapping of his father and sister, Heller was subjected to intense interrogation up to and including non-invasive torture for a period of approximately three hours at CTU Los Angeles. Richard was going to be interrogated more intensely by Eric Richards, but he was stopped by Curtis Manning.

Later in the day, however, after the capture of terrorist mastermind Habib Marwan, it was discovered that a phone call had been made from Heller's cell phone to one in Marwan's possession. Heller was brought back in for questioning. Though intending to conduct the second interrogation himself, Jack Bauer yielded to Audrey's pleading to allow her to question her brother. After observing the unsuccessful questioning for several minutes, James Heller entered the room and pressed for answers from his son. Richard finally agreed to tell everything he knew, though not before claiming he didn't intend to do anything wrong.

Richard was reluctant to divulge the information about Gary and Mandy due to a principled objection to CTU's invasive methods and a personal discomfort with revealing his homosexuality to his family. However, Richard's expectations in his father's disappointment was misplaced: Secretary Heller was not disappointed with how Richard chose to live his life, only that Richard's earlier silence had cost time and lives.

Memorable quotes

 * Richard Heller: You don't have any leverage over me anymore. You haven't since I stopped taking your money.


 * Richard Heller: I'm gonna speak at that rally, Dad.  And it's not because I hate you.  It's because it's something I believe in.
 * James Heller: Did it ever occur to you that these people are using you?  Don't you realize they're letting you speak for one reason and one reason only?  Because you are my son!
 * Richard Heller: Well, I wish I weren't.


 * Richard Heller: This is beyond belief! I cannot be back here! Audrey, you gotta get me outta here, these guys broke into my house, this is so illegal!


 * Richard Heller: Go to hell. I didn't do anything wrong. I don't have to tell you anything.

Background information and notes

 * Richard is one of the show's few smokers.
 * Richard's cell phone number that CTU traces back to Marwan is (323) 555-3210.
 * During the absence between filming 1:00pm-2:00pm and 4:00am-5:00am, Logan Marshall-Green had cut his hair and had to be fitted with a wig for the filming of the later episode.
 * It is unknown whether Richard's mother was Susan Heller or Alicia, the name given to Audrey Raines' mother. On Day 4 6:00pm-7:00pm Susan was confirmed to be the deceased wife of James Heller yet only Alicia is confirmed to be Audrey's mother during Day 6 1:00am-2:00am.