Karen Jameson

Karen Jameson is a character on Times of Passion.

Karen was first introduced as a love interest for Michael Erwin. After a bad break-up, he drifted into alcohol and drug abuse and was eventually rescued by Karen, a drug counselor. She became his sober companion and the pair fell in love and began a relationship. Karen became pregnant after a while, but lost her child when she fell down the stairs after a fight with Michael. The pair broke up soon after.

She later had an affair with Oliver van Steen and left town with him after he served as a prime witness against drug lord Jacob Wingfield. Eventually, Karen left Oliver and returned to Port Winston,where she worked with recovering addicts and AIDS patients. In 1989, her and Alexa Wilder were kidnapped by Karen's ex-boyfriend Philip Garvey, who raped Karen in the process, impregnating her. Still mourning her lost child with Michael, Karen decided to keep the baby, whom she named Alexander, after her best friend Alexa. She later began working with AIDS patients and gay homeless teenagers, where she befriended an activist couple, Clark and Eddie. Over the next years, Karen built up the LGBT/homeless shelter and worked in drug research and rehab. She later dated and married Ralph King, who was driven by the wish for a mutual son. However, Karen was diagnosed with ovary cancer and after extensive surgery and chemotherapy not able to conceive children, which ultimately broke her marriage to Ralph. She eventually began an affair with Eddie in 1991, who - without his or her knowing - had previously contracted HIV in a one-night stand.

When Christine Lehman ran for mayor in 1988, Karen protested violently against her anti-LGBT stance, but eventually broke down and realized she had contracted HIV from Eddie and eventually succumbed to AIDS in 1992, but not before making Alexa promise to raise her son and give him a good life.

Shortly after her death, the AIDS clinic at the county hospital was named after her and to this day carries the name ''Karen Jameson Clinic. ''