 Vanessa in 1992 | |
| Vanessa Prosser | |
| Portrayed by | Laura Allen |
| Episode | Late Returns |
| Status | Deceased (1992) |
Vanessa Prosser was the main victim in "Late Returns". She was a beautiful, lively, strong-willed, and smart 20-year-old woman who worked for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign against George Bush in 1992.
Vanessa seemed to have the perfect life: loving parents in PJ and Carol Prosser, lots of friends, and the looks and personality that other women would die for. However, she also had some troubles: her ex-boyfriend/fiancé Aaron Dutra, who had been stalking Vanessa around the time of her death in retaliation for their breakup; conflict in her new relationship with David Lake, the handsome campaign coordinator; and her best friend Beth Reardon’s secret crush on her (though this wasn’t as big of a problem as the other two).
David pushed Vanessa down a flight of stairs while she was confronting him over the truth about his bizarre resistance in their romance. Vanessa ended up hitting her head on a metal bar, and since she was a hemophiliac, she bled out instantly. It turned out David harbored a dark secret of being sexually abused and controlled by his sister, Abbey Lake, and Vanessa unintentionally triggered him by touching him intimately while trying to convince him they could still work through it. Since her death, he had been very remorseful for killing the woman he loved.
Vanessa was also unaware of the secrets in her family, specifically that her biological father was Darren Kleeman, who would be killed himself in 2004 when he tried to solve her murder. In the epilogue, Lilly Rush imagines seeing a very disappointed Vanessa after Abbey was arrested for both murders.