Leland Palmer is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. He also appears in the prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. He is portrayed in all his appearances by Ray Wise. Leland is an attorney, with his primary client being local businessman Ben Horne (Richard Beymer). He is well-known and respected in the town of Twin Peaks. Together with his wife Sarah (Grace Zabriskie) and his daughter Laura (Sheryl Lee), his family seems to be perfect. When Laura is murdered, however, Leland's psychological foundations begin to crumble, and it is gradually revealed that extreme dysfunction, including incest, lies beneath the Palmer family's idyllic surface. Appearances Twin Peaks In the pilot episode of the series, Leland is called into the morgue to identify Laura's body. The grief pushes him over the edge; he throws himself into the grave at Laura's funeral and has to be dragged out, and for the next few weeks he manically asks people - even complete strangers - to dance with him as Laura had, all while sobbing hysterically. When Jacques Renault (Walter Olkewicz) is arrested as a suspect in Laura's murder, Leland murders him by suffocating him with a pillow. After killing Jacques, Leland's hair turns white overnight. Leland is arrested, but released on a personal recognizance bond pending trial due to personal assurances made by Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean) that he does not pose any danger to the community. Leland's behavior at times appears abnormal - manically happy at times, exhibited by singing the 1940s popular nonsense song "Mairzy Doats", before crashing into grief. The arrival of his niece-in-law Madeline "Maddy" Ferguson, who looks almost exactly like Laura (both roles are played by Sheryl Lee), is of great help to him in learning how to deal with his daughter's death. It is eventually revealed that, as a boy, Leland met a strange neighbor who turned out to be a demonic entity named BOB (Frank Silva), who would possess him throughout his life. It is also implied that BOB molested him as a child. It is difficult to tell when and if Leland is truly in control of himself and when he is being possessed by BOB. It is implied that Leland killed Renault on his own – not under BOB's control – and that Leland is lost from that point: he is no