Megan Hathaway

A list of notable characters from the NBC soap opera ''Days of Our Lives'' that significantly impacted storylines and debuted between January 1, 1980, and the end of 1989, in order of first appearance.

DJ Craig

Donald Craig Jr., known as "DJ" and "Donnie", is the firstborn child of Marlena Evans, whom she has with her first onscreen husband, Don Craig. Marlena and Don meet and fall in love in 1976, and they marry on March 5, 1979. DJ's birth is portrayed onscreen in the episode of February 26, 1980, Donnie is premature, and dies three months later from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The couple separate when they cannot come to terms with their baby's death.

Journalist Dorathy Gass called the storyline "shocking". She noted the value of soaps relaying issues and situations that occur in real-life and helping spreading awareness to audiences, but also said the storyline "may have been far too sensitive to bring up in the first place – leaving many fans devastated and heartbroken over the baby and entire situation".

Jessica Blake Fallon

Jessica Blake Fallon was portrayed by Jean Bruce Scott from April 30, 1980. Scott departed from the series on November 9, 1982. In August 2012, it was announced that Scott would return to the show after nearly a thirty-year absence, airing on August 31 until September 6, 2012.

The character of Jessica is the daughter of Marie Horton and Alex Marshall, granddaughter of Tom and Alice Horton and mother of recent character, Nick Fallon. As a result of abuse at the hands of her adoptive parents Jessica suffers from dissociative identity disorder; one of her alters, Angelique, terrorized her mother while the other one, Angel, became involved with Jake Kositchek, who would later be known as the Salem Strangler, a serial killer. Angel and Jake ran off to Las Vegas to elope, but Jessica came to and called Alex. Marie and Alex rushed to Vegas and stopped the wedding just in the nick of time. Jessica fell apart and was hospitalized.

In 1982, after recovering from her mental health problems, Jessica broke off her relationship with Jake and became engaged to Joshua Fallon. Joshua and Jessica married and eventually left Salem. Offscreen, they had a son named Nick who came to Salem without his parents in 2006.

In 2012, Jessica came to Salem to see Nick, who was in prison for murder and was getting paroled. Nick was put on probation and chose to serve out his probation in Salem, so Jessica left Salem alone. In 2014, Jessica received horrible news that Nick had been murdered, and Julie Olson Williams delivered Nick's body to her and Joshua, so they could bury him. Nick's murderer, Gabi Hernandez, accepted a plea deal and Jessica agreed to it, not wanting the heartache of a trial.

Jake Kositchek

Jake Kositchek was played by Jack Coleman from June 10, 1981, until June 1, 1982, when the character was written out of the show. After ''Days'', Coleman would later be known as the second actor to play Steven Carrington in the ABC prime time soap opera ''Dynasty'' and as Noah Bennet in the NBC science-fiction drama series ''Heroes'' and its spin-off '' Heroes Reborn''.

Jake was the younger brother of Chris Kositchek (Josh Taylor), shortly after coming to town he fell in love with Angel, the alternate personality of Jessica Blake Fallon (Jean Bruce Scott). Jake was also briefly involved with Jessica's cousin, Hope Williams (Tammy Taylor). When Jake and "Angel" got engaged and planned to elope in Las Vegas, Jessica's parents Marie Horton (Lanna Saunders) and Alex Marshall (Quinn Redeker) learned of the elopement after Hope discovered Jessica's illness. Marie and Alex arrived in the nick of time to see Jessica reemerge and the wedding be interrupted. Jake was heartbroken after being rejected by Jessica who was going through psychiatric treatment under Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall). Jessica's rejection became the catalyst for Jake's mental breakdown, leading him to become the Salem Strangler, a serial killer who strangled many women to death including Mary Anderson (Melinda O. Fee) and Marlena's twin Samantha Evans (Andrea Hall), who was killed in a case of mistaken identity.

The Salem Strangler storyline was the very first serial killer storyline in the soap's history, and the supposed murder of Marlena at the hands of the killer resulted in one of the first fan campaigns ever.

Eugene Bradford

Eugene Bradford was played by John de Lancie from 1982 to 1986 and again in 1989 to 1990. Also known as Gene and Euge, he went by the pseudonym ''Bettina Lovecraft'' while working as a ''Salem Today'' columnist.

Eugene was a distant relative of the DiMera family through a prior marriage, and referred to Tony DiMera as a cousin. Prior to marrying Calliope Jones on December 31, 1985, Eugene had been married four other times. Eugene's first two wives were murdered, while his third marriage to Marlena Evans was actually a cover-up (Eugene pretended to be married to Marlena when she was pregnant with Roman Brady's twins; at this time Roman was believed to be dead) and not legal. He later served as the namesake for Roman and Marlena's daughter Samantha Gene (Sami Brady).

Throughout the show, Eugene was portrayed as having psychic premonitions, and on a number of occasions they were useful in helping Salem Police and the ISA. In the last episode in which he appeared, he created a time machine type device and used the device. Upon activation, there was a big explosion and Eugene disappeared. He has not been seen on Days since. In 2006, Calliope returned as the fashion designer hired to make Mimi Lockhart's wedding dress, and she stated that she and Eugene remain happily married.

Daphne DiMera

Daphne DiMera is a fictional character on the NBC soap opera ''Days of Our Lives''. She was played by Madlyn Rhue from 1982 to 1984.

Daphne was the common law wife of Stefano DiMera, who fled from him while pregnant with her son, Antony. She raised Tony in Australia.

When Daphne learned that Tony was in love with Renée DuMonde, whom he believed to be his half-sister, she told him that he was not Stefano's son after all, but belonged to a man named Enrico. This led to a brief romantic reunion between Tony and Renée, but Renée was soon murdered. Years later, it would be discovered that Tony was actually Stefano's biological son (it was never revealed if Daphne believed he was Enrico's or if she lied). After numerous retcons (which included revealing John Black was Tony's half-brother via Daphne and that Tony had been replaced by his surgically altered identical cousin Andre for almost two decades), it was revealed that John was not Daphne's son after all but rather the son of Stefano's father Santo DiMera and Colleen Brady, the sister of Shawn Brady. The real Tony has since commented that Enrico the gardener is his actual father.

Daphne died in 1984 when a plane carrying a number of Salemites crashed in Haiti.

Daphne's real surname is unknown. She was always referred to as a DiMera, because her marriage was a common law marriage to Stefano. She is the aunt of Lawrence Alamain via her sister, Philomena.

Ilya Petrov

Ilya Petrov was portrayed by Kai Wulff from 1983 to 1986 and for a few episodes in 1991. With the exception of Bart and Rolf, Petrov is the most well known henchman of Stefano. In comparison to Bart, he mostly succeeded and completed his assignments. Petrov assisted Stefano in a few of his many schemes. When Stefano kidnapped Marlena Evans & Liz Chandler in early 1983, Petrov was the one who kept an eye of them so they wouldn't escape. He then had small assignments in Stefano's devilish Salem Slasher plot. When Stefano had to escape after some failures of both himself and André DiMera, Petrov was already in the car. But Roman and Abe were ready as well and chased them. After struggling to shake off the police, and a drunk Alex Marshall caused some problem, the car drove off a bridge and fell down into a river. Alex was found but neither Petrov or Stefano.

A few months later, Stefano was seen very much alive looking for the three prisms, and soon Petrov was seen taking orders from Stefano. He kidnapped Hope Williams for Stefano in an attempt to faster lure Roman into Stefano's trap. He also got instructions from Stefano on how to activate the volcano. After locking up a noisy Shane Donovan, he fulfilled his orders and activated the volcano successfully.

In late 1985-early 1986, Petrov was seen in Miami, representing Stefano in a three-way wager with Victor Kiriakis and corrupt ISA chief George Nickerson, with the stakes being "the Purse (provided by Victor, which turned out to be clues to the locations of (1) a set of stolen U.S. Treasury engravings which were hidden in 1979 in Stockholm, and (2) a priceless Mayan treasure that could only be located during a specific astronomical event in 1991), The Power (provided by the ISA, a codebook with information that ostensibly gave the holder total immunity from every intelligence and law enforcement network in the world), and the Pawn (a "most formidable and dangerous man" controlled by Stefano, at the time believed to be the missing-and-presumed-dead Roman Brady, but later retconned into the separate character of John Black)."

In 2015, John Black embarked on an ISA-assisted quest to unravel the mysteries of his heretofore unknown past, including his parentage, once and for all. This coincided with the show's 50th anniversary. An important scene showed John viewing an ISA computer file on Petrov, which expanded his story to reveal that he was a Cold War-era Soviet agent who defected to the West, and became at one point a teacher at a private school in Vermont called Winterthorne around the time he became one of Stefano's henchmen. Winterthorne was later revealed to be a "front" for a secret training facility for assassins, run by a Far Eastern organization called the Phantom Alliance, which turned out to have been founded in the 1950s by John's real father, Timothy Robecheaux aka "Yo Ling". Petrov was revealed to have been Yo Ling's accomplice, and temporarily "defected" to Stefano's organization. In this storyline, it was suggested that Petrov eventually returned to the Phantom Alliance's fold.

Trista Evans Bradford

Trista Evans Bradford was played by Barbara Crampton from March 4, 1983. Crampton only lasted in the role for seven months; she departed from the series on October 24, 1983, when the character was killed off during the Salem Slasher storyline. Crampton later returned as Trista in flashbacks from February 14 to March 9, 1984.

Pete Jannings

Pete Jannings is a fictional character on the NBC daytime television soap opera Days of Our Lives. The character was played by Michael Leon from July 5, 1983, to December 23, 1986.

Pete was a Vipers gang member who came to Salem and was connected to the attempted rapes of Gwen Davies and Sandy Horton. Later that same night after Melissa Horton (Lisa Trusel) caught Pete stealing food from Shenanigans, he kidnapped her with the intent to leave Salem, but a snow storm stranded them at the old Horton farm. Pete confided many things to Melissa and she sympathized with her kidnapper. When the police arrived, Pete was arrested. Melissa did not press charges and Pete was soon released. Eventually, Pete and Melissa started secretly dating, During a gang rumble, Pete accidentally shot Melissa's adoptive father, Mickey Horton, ( John Clarke) causing Pete to run from the law and abruptly flee Salem. Pete found Melissa at a summer camp outside of Salem and they began dating again. They returned to Salem and their relationship became public knowledge, Eventually, On February 14, Valentine's Day, in a double ceremony with Melissa's adoptive patents, Mickey and Maggie Horton ( John Clarke and Suzanne Rogers), Pete and Melissa were married. Unfortunately, Melissa's affair with Lars Englund brought an end to their marriage and Pete left Salem,

Larry Welch

Larry Welch, played by Andrew Hyatt Masset from July 11 to October 21, 1983, on a recurring status and November 1, 1983, to December 9, 1985, and again from October 15, 2002, to March 11, 2003, on contract status, then back to recurring from June 10 to July 23, 2003, and finally a guest appearance on June 8, 2016, as well as a guest appearance in the second season of '' Days of Our Lives: Beyond Salem'' on July 13, 2022. Welch was a constant obstacle in Bo and Hope's supercouple love story. Larry blackmailed Hope into marrying him but on the day of the wedding Bo rode in on his motorcycle and kidnapped Hope from the wedding. In 1985, Larry killed Stefano's daughter, Megan, and dumped her body in a hot tub; Hope was the prime suspect. Victor Kiriakis learned the truth and forced Larry to take the fall for the crime syndica