Jordan Cavanaugh
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Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh is a fictional character on the NBC crime drama Crossing Jordan (and occasionally Las Vegas), portrayed by Jill Hennessy.
Cavanaugh is a deputy chief medical examiner in the Boston Police Department's coroner's office under Dr. Garret Macy (played by Miguel Ferrer). A graduate of both Boston University and Tufts University School of Medicine, she also works closely with the Boston PD, using her skills as a profiler to help them investigate crimes. She uses both her medical expertise and her unique ability to empathize with both victims and murderers to solve cases.
This ability is rooted in childhood trauma, however; Cavanaugh's mother was murdered when she was eleven years old, and the murderer was never apprehended. After her mother's death, she was raised by her father, Max (played by Ken Howard), a retired police officer. He tried to cope with the loss by enlisting her in trying to solve the crime; he showed her crime scene photos, and enacted unsolved murders with her in order to profile the victims and criminals. This helped develop her keen investigative skills, but also nurtured a consuming obsession with avenging her mother. She was fixated with finding the killer until well into adulthood, even as her father and her friends urged her to let it go. She once came incredibly close to discovering the murderer's identity, but the man she thought was guilty was killed before she could get a confession out of him. Since then, she has been trying to put her mother's death behind her.
She has close, trusting friendships with her colleagues at the coroner's office, especially Macy, whom she considers a friend and mentor.
Cavanaugh is notoriously gunshy about forming committed romantic attachments, preferring casual, sexual relationships with no strings attached. She has recently had her complacency in this department shaken, however, by the burgeoning attraction shared between her and Woody Hoyt (played by Jerry O'Connell), a police detective who works closely with the coroner's office. Cavanaugh resists the idea of dating Hoyt, but has occasionally let her true feelings slip out; when Hoyt was shot and seriously wounded by a suspect, for example, she broke down and confessed that she was in love with him. This time, however, Hoyt rejected her, seeing her declaration of love as motivated merely by pity and fear of losing a friend. Their relationship is currently in a state of flux.
Recently she tried to adopt a young girl named Kayla Dawson (played by Tay Blessey) whose father was murdered; she almost gained custody until it was revealed that the Kayla's mother (thought to be dead) was still alive and looking for her. Having bonded very well with Kayla, Cavanaugh briefly resumed the attempt to gain custody. Realizing she didn't have much of a chance, she let the mother have custody of Kayla under the condition that they stay in Boston so she can still be close to her.
