Kay Howard

Detective/Sergeant Kay Howard
Det./Sgt. Katherine 'Kay' Howard
First appearance	January 31, 1993 (1x01, "Gone for Goode")
Last appearance	May 16, 1997 (5x22, Strangers and Other Partners") (HLOTS) February 13, 2000 Homicide: The Movie
Created by	Tom Fontana
Portrayed by	Melissa Leo
In-universe information
Nickname	Howie
Gender	Female
Title	Sergeant Detective
Occupation	Fugitive Squad Sergeant Homicide Sergeant (Formerly) Homicide Detective (Formerly)
Family	Wesley Howard (father) Carrie Howard (sister) Josh Howard (brother)
Nationality	American

Katherine "Kay" Howard is a fictional character in the American TV series Homicide: Life on the Street. She was played by actress Melissa Leo.^[1] In the first two seasons of the show her character was the only female detective or member of the main cast. However, NBC president Warren Littlefield felt that the lack of other female characters was alienating the audience, so Megan Russert was added to the show. It was stated in a special edition of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, the non-fiction book that the film was based on, that the character of Kay Howard was based on Baltimore Police detective Rich Garvey. Howard is also influenced by Detective Bertina Silver, referred to as 'Bert' by her colleagues, thought by many in the unit to be the exception to the 'Secretaries-with-guns' female officer stereotype. The end result of the real-life influences was that Howard combined Garvey's superb and persistent work and sky-high clearance rate and Silver's complete acceptance by the male-dominated Homicide unit (which was not the case with all real-life female cops, nor amongst female cops over the run of the series).