Dana Walsh


 * "I always knew there was something wrong with her. She was a little too perfect."
 * &mdash; Chloe O'Brian, "Day 8: 7:00am-8:00am"

Dana Walsh — known to some by her birth name Jenny Scott — was a senior data analyst at CTU New York. She was engaged to CTU's Director of Field Operations, Cole Ortiz. Dana was spying on CTU for the Russian government, which was supporting Samir Mehran and IRK operatives trying to assassinate Omar Hassan on Day 8.

Before Day 8
Dana used to go by the name Jenny Scott. She was involved in a car robbery murder as an accomplice to Kevin Wade. Kevin believed she had testified against him since she got out of jail before Kevin. However, she was released earlier because she had been tried as a juvenile. Eventually, she changed her name to Dana Walsh and landed a job at CTU New York. There she became close to Cole Ortiz and became engaged to him.

Day 8
After working with fellow CTU personnel to avert a terrorist crisis, Dana received a threatening call in which Kevin Wade referred her as Jenny from Rock Springs 5:29PM. Walsh was periodically harassed by Wade over the phone until he finally showed up at CTU. There, he interrogated and blackmailed her to give him a place to stay; if she refused, he would reveal troubling secrets about her past. She surrendered and gave him the keys to her apartment. When she arrived at her apartment at Kevin's demand, Kevin offered to leave her life if she got him and his partner Nick a large amount of money. She returned to CTU to program a keycard to an NYPD lockup where $100,000 was stashed as evidence. She passed the access card onto Kevin and told him she'd be his guide once he arrived at the warehouse. She gave Kevin instructions to break in, steal the money, and make a clean escape. However, Nick decided to stay and clear the entire lockup, trashing the place in the process. Soon, a cop came for a patrol and spotted the mess. Dana was shocked that Kevin and Nick hadn't left yet, and instructed them to sneak out carefully. However, Nick repeatedly struck the officer with a baseball bat, much to Dana's horror.

The two escaped and Dana was distraught and unable to focus on her CTU duties afterward. When she called Kevin to return her key to her apartment and to get out of her life, he refused. She began to worry about what Kevin wanted next. Later, she went to find Cole to tell him about her past. They were interrupted and Cole had to go back in the field. She then set out under the excuse that she was fixing a faulty relay at a CTU substation on 17th Street. She arrived at the strip club where Kevin and Nick were celebrating and spied on them leaving as she examined the gun in her hand.

At around 12:00am, Kevin and Nick took two strippers and exited the club with them in their van. Followed closely by Dana in her car, they drove to a secluded area of Eastwick Park, stopping by a pond. After the strippers left because Nick began harassing them, Dana put a silencer on her gun, exited her car, and prepared to shoot the two. Before she was noticed, however, Cole arrived and stopped her, demanding to know what was going on. Reluctantly, Dana told him about her past and the robbery she helped Kevin and Nick commit. After she finished, Cole confronted the two criminals with a gun, and they finally agreed to leave Dana alone. After he left, Nick stabbed Kevin, grabbed a gun, and prepared to shoot Cole from behind. Kevin, who was dying, crawled out of the vehicle and shouted a warning to Dana and Cole. As Nick shot, they jumped behind Cole's car and Cole fatally shot Nick in the chest with a shotgun. Dana rushed over to Kevin, who was dying in her arms apologizing for coming back into her life.

After Kevin died, Dana and Cole dumped the bodies on the water and agreed to strip the van.



Believing her troubles to be over, Dana returned to CTU, only to be confronted by Bill Prady, Kevin's parole officer. He was adamant about getting to what he believed was the truth behind Kevin's disappearance. After the EMP knocked out CTU, he went to Hastings, who put him in a holding cell. Dana came in to confront him one last time where he accused Dana of aiding Kevin in the robbery. Dana strangled him to death at approximately 4:58 am. She then hid his body in an air vent and called Samir Mehran, revealing herself as a mole.

When Samir and Tarin Faroush were trying to evade the authorities with the fuel rods, Dana called Samir and whispered instructions to him. She then deactivated the satellite coverage for 30 seconds, allowing the terrorists to escape. At one point during that conversation, Dana revealed that she doesn't work for Samir, but for another group that is helping him.

When President Allison Taylor refused to surrender IRK President Omar Hassan to Samir and his men, Samir called Dana and told her he planned to detonate the nuclear device in Manhattan. Dana looked concerned and tried to convince him that he should wait, because the radiological device is his leverage. However, her cover was blown when Jack retrieved Tarin Faroush's phone off of his dead body and Chloe was able to access the phone records off of the memory card. When Dana realized that her cover was blown, she fled CTU Headquarters, killing two guards and escaping to the parking lot in the midst of a shoot-out. Because of the red alert on her, Cole rushed out to the parking garage, where he shot out her tires, causing Dana's car to slam into another vehicle. She was detained by CTU and taken into custody after a tense moment with Cole, but demanded to speak only with Jack Bauer.

When questioned by Jack, she offered the location of Hassan on four conditions: federal immunity, government protection from the IRK, compensation from money lost because of her cover being blown, and that Jack lead the rescue operation, because her deal goes out the window if Hassan dies. She refused to disclose any information about the party who offered to pay her for her espionage, which disturbed Jack. Shortly later, she briefed CTU about the terrorist safehouse, an apartment complex on Holland Avenue, occupied by Samir's remaining six terrorists. However, Hassan was discovered dead half an hour later, effectively voiding her immunity agreement.

Soon after 9:00am, Jack went to the courthouse where Sergei Bazhaev was being held. Jack told Bazhaev to give up the people who killed Renee, but Bazhaev said that it was the Russian Government behind the day's events, not Red Square. Jack wanted to know how and Bazhaev told him it was through their source on the inside, Dana. Jack went to CTU to question Dana. Jack began to question her and told her that Renee was killed. Shocked by this Dana said that she was truly sorry. Jack, furious by this, banged Dana's head on the table an began slapping her repeatedly. Dana said that she could give Jack the hitter, but she wanted her immunity back. Jack told her that if she was lying that he would find her no matter where she tried to hide. When President Taylor arrived at CTU, she said there wasn't enough evidence to give Dana immunity, so Dana remained in custody.

Shortly after 10:00am, Charles Logan approached President Taylor and announced that Dana was no longer safe at CTU, since Jack Bauer would be attempting to interrogate her at all costs. He suggested that she be taken to a safe house by a private security firm that he had already contacted, and President Taylor agreed. When Mark Bledsoe arrived at CTU to take Dana, he contacted Jason Pillar and said that after his people interrogated Dana, it would be best to kill her so she would be out of the way. Pillar agreed to let Logan know. Dana was then transported to the safe house, after desperately begging Chloe O'Brian to help her. Shortly before 11:00am, Dana is forced into a room filled with torture devices. Dana is then strapped to a table, with her torturers preparing to waterboard her.

Ten minutes later, Jack and Cole rescue Dana and take her to where she is storing the secret video file. Dana escapes from Cole with the file, leaving Cole unconscious. At the end of the eleventh hour, Jack recovers the secret file acquired by Dana. Dana asks what she can do for him and Jack replies, "nothing." Jack then murders her in cold blood with one shot to the chest and then one more after she is on the ground.

Memorable quotes

 * Dana Walsh: My name's not Dana Walsh...it's Jenny Scott.


 * Dana Walsh: Cole... Cole, what about us?
 * Cole Ortiz: I don't know.


 * Dana Walsh: Tick tock, Mr. Bauer, you are running out of time.

Background information and notes

 * In an interview, Katee Sackhoff revealed that to remember all the technical algorithims, she taped the difficult phrases to her computer screen to read when filming.
 * Several of Dana's actions in Season 8 parallel those of Nina Myers in Season 1, up to and including Nina's betrayal of Jack with Dana's betrayal of Cole.
 * Dana Walsh has appeared in 18 episodes of the show, so far, with more appearances than any one of the main villains of prior seasons, including Habib Marwan (16) and Abu Fayed (15). Other secondary villains to share this distinction are Charles Logan and Nina Myers.
 * Dana was the third female to be killed on screen by Jack Bauer. The others being Nina Myers and Nicole.