Ethan planned to leave Laura as soon as the blackmail business was over. She tried to make him jealous by playing up to Mack Blake, but Ethan couldn't have cared less. Alone with Mack, Laura intimated that she was pregnant but planning to have an abortion. When Ethan caught wind of this, he rushed to the hospital and stopped her. Meanwhile, Laura continued blackmailing herself and retrieved whatever money Ethan was forced to leave for the "blackmailer." One of those times, she caught Gina snooping around. In an attempt to frame her, Laura planted the blackmail money in Gina's basement and Gina's earring at one of the drop-off sites. She also put marked bills in Gina's purse, but this only caused her brother Mack to be arrested. Upon receiving a new blackmail letter, Ethan decided to release Mack.

Gina suggested to Ethan that Laura was blackmailing herself. He set up a trap for his wife and watched as she retrieved the blackmail money. She was then caught trying to stash the money at Gina's house. Following a talk with Mack, Laura faced Ethan at his office. When he lashed out at her, she broke down and screamed that she couldn't lose the baby, too. However, when Ethan ordered a secret pregnancy test to be done on Laura, she found out and changed the results to read positive! As a result, Ethan decided to stay committed to Laura. To get pregnant for real, Laura played up to Michael and tried to seduce him. When he rejected her, she visited a fertility clinic to be artificially inseminated. Mack found out and urged Laura to tell Ethan the truth. She did, and he left her on the spot. Desperate, Laura tried to commit suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. Mack found her in time.

Laura driving Sasha's corpse over to Julia's house.

Planning Ethan's murder
After Laura caused a scene with Gina at a party, Ethan heard about it and talked to her psychiatrist on the phone, saying she was getting worse. Laura overheard, but her attempt to escape was thwarted by Ethan. He and Dr. Kranzler pressured her to be committed for three days and she eventually gave in, but only because it would give her the opportunity to murder Ethan without anyone suspecting her! One night, wrongly believing that Ethan was still seeing Gina, Laura sneaked out of the sanitarium and set Gina's house on fire. But since Ethan was still alive, Laura didn't waste time to try again. On the night of her second attempt, it was a rainy and she was disguised as a nurse. Not finding Ethan at home, Laura went to his office and stared through the window as a figure entered the room. She fired the gun, but the victim was Sasha Schmidt, not Ethan! Laura recovered from this shock soon enough to drive Sasha's corpse over to Julia's house, even though she was briefly stopped by a cop on the way there. She propped the corpse in Julia's bed with a giant stuffed bunny. When Julia found the body, she and her husband Mason Capwell hid it in their freezer to avoid being suspected of the murder. Laura's stay in the sanitarium was prolonged.

Laura's asylum roommate was a crazy woman named Annie, who claimed to have killed her husband. Laura drugged Annie whenever she sneaked out of the sanitarium, but it didn't take Annie long to become suspicious. She advised Laura not to shoot her husband because a gun would be too easily traced. Taking this advice, Laura instead tampered with the brakes on Ethan's car. Although he got into a terrible accident, he was in a coma and not dead. Furthermore, Laura's attempt to kill him at the hospital by injecting something in his IV was interrupted by an unsuspecting Gina. As Ethan's room was put under guard, Laura was questioned by Michael. She took this opportunity to poison his mind against Gina, indirectly blaming her for Ethan's brakes. Turning her attention to other matters, Laura spied on Mason and Julia as they moved Sasha's corpse to an empty tomb and contemplated the question of who killed her. Trying to cover herself, Laura went back to Ethan's office to find a coat button she had lost on the night of the murder. Mason caught her and got suspicious enough to pay a visit to the sanitarium. Then, Laura was as puzzled as Mason and Julia were when Sasha's body turned up missing!

As Ethan recovered at home, Laura poisoned his tea with oleander. He felt the tea tasted funny, however, and it was thrown away. Meanwhile, Laura was surprised when Annie received a visit at the sanitarium from her husband and realized that she had lied about killing him. She used this knowledge to her advantage, making a deal with Annie to kill each other's husbands so that neither of them would be suspected. As Annie did the dirty work, Laura double-crossed her by writing in Annie's diary about how she was planning to kill Ethan. In addition, Laura sewed the incriminating buttons from her raincoat onto Annie's. She instructed Annie to throw a radio in Ethan's bath, but the presence of his nurse Shannon Pressman thwarted Annie's attempt at electrocution. Laura eventually decided to get to Ethan by having Annie poison his brandy.

Although Shannon drank the poisoned brandy instead of Ethan, he found her in time and she survived. Mason and Julia, who had figured out that Laura was the killer, told Ethan about their suspicions. In order to lure Laura into a trap, Mason made her furious by telling her that Ethan was filing for divorce. Laura made a deal with Annie to blow up Ethan's house, but Annie was caught trying to do so. During a confrontation with Ethan, Mason and Julia at the Lair, Laura was fooled when Sasha's sister, Sydney Schmidt, pretended to be Sasha. Laura almost gave herself away by making a comment about Sasha being dead. She then tried to pin the crime on Annie by using the fake evidence (i.e. the diary) against her. A few days later, Cruz and Michael got a reluctant Laura to participate in a police lineup. It was then that the cop from the night of Sasha's murder identified her. Cruz placed Laura under arrest.

Departure
As Laura was transferred to prison, she was abducted by Annie and they went on the run together in disguise. They resorted to robbing a truck stop and video store on their way to Mexico and kidnapped Bunny Tagliatti. He was held hostage and lost his memory for a while, but was eventually able to alert Ethan. When Laura threatened Bunny with a knife, Annie interceded. Ethan and the police caught up with the trio, and Laura was arrested. A few days later, Ethan visited Laura in jail with divorce papers and said goodbye.

Page 3/3 Back