THE DECEASED: Marlo Ungerschterner
WHAT A WAY TO GO: In 2000, Stefano persuaded Rolf’s messy, alcoholic niece, Marlo, to allow the baby she was expecting to be adopted by Abe and Lexie, all the while plotting to switch her newborn with the tot Hope was poised to give birth to (because he thought he was its father, which proved not to be the case). Shortly after the delivery, Marlo descended upon the DiMera mansion and demanded the payment Stefano had promised her. Worried that Marlo’s abrasive behavior spelled trouble for them both, Rolf pleaded with her to adopt a better attitude. Their argument became more heated as Margo threatened to blow the whistle on the baby switch. Rolf trailed her up the stairs, warning her she was making a huge mistake, and grabbed her shoulder. “What are you doing?” she bellowed as she lost her footing and took a dive down the stairs. Stefano returned home just in time to see Rolf check Marlo’s pulse, find one — then snap her neck, killing her instantly.
THE DECEASED: Alex North
WHAT A WAY TO GO: While suffering from hysterical amnesia in 2005, Marlena was treated by memory specialist Dr. Alex North, who eventually revealed to her that he was her first husband. John was beside himself when Marlena decided to renew her relationship with Alex, unaware that he was using a mind-control talisman to manipulate her. In 2006, Marlena renewed her vows with Alex, who was plying her with memory-erasing drugs. John, increasingly convinced that Alex was a threat to Marlena (which he was; he planned to kill her), trailed them to Morgan Island, where they were honeymooning. There, he and Hope injected Marlena with a drug that countered the effects of Alex’s pharmaceutical. Alex brought Marlena to a remote cliff and prepared to off her with a gun, but John showed up in the nick of time and ripped the talisman off Marlena. As her memories of her love for John came rushing back, the men fought for control of Alex’s gun, and Alex wound up taking a fatal fall over the cliff.
THE DECEASED: Bart Beiderbecke
WHAT A WAY TO GO: The key to resolving the long-raging Brady/DiMera feud was revealed in 2007 to be just that: a key. Specifically, one that unlocked access to the terms allowing for peace between the contentious clans. Tony stormed into the DiMera mansion and plunged a syringe filled with morphine into Stefano, who had a vested interest in keeping the family feud going, then snatched the all-important key. Stefano managed to grab it back and toss it to loyal henchman Bart, then passed out. Tony took a sword off the wall and demanded that Bart hand it over — but instead, Bart swallowed the key. Andre sauntered in and challenged Tony to a duel. The look-alikes began to battle — but Andre accidentally wound up driving his sword right through Bart’s chest. As a mortally wounded Bart bled out, Tony fled. Stefano came to and pleaded with Bart to tell him the whereabouts of the key, but Bart died in his arms before uttering another word.
THE DECEASED: Andre DiMera
WHAT A WAY TO GO: In 2018, after years of personal tumult and a score of presumed deaths, Andre had found some measure of happiness via his marriage to Kate, but had reason to worry it would be fleeting, as he’d been secretly colluding with Vivian to seize control of DiMera — and she intended to double-cross him — while at the same time, John and Chad were closing in on identifying Andre as the mastermind of acts of sabotage against the company. On the night he fired Gabi from Gabi Chic, a horrified Abigail stumbled upon Andre’s dead body on the ground of his office, and when the police were summoned to the scene of the crime, they discovered the murder weapon: the martini shaker Anna had converted into an urn to hold the ashes of her then-presumed-dead beloved, Tony, which had been used to send Andre to eternity via blunt-force trauma. In May, Abigail — who had spent the past few months in the throes of dissociative identity disorder — recalled the devastating truth about Andre’s demise: She had gone to see Andre, and overheard him confessing his recent machinations to Tony’s urn. She confronted him and warned that she planned to expose him to Chad and Kate. Andre grabbed Abigail in an effort to block her from leaving, and during their struggle, she grabbed the lid of the urn and struck him, ending his life.