LAURA KOVE

Real Name: Laura Kove

Occupation: Paranormal Researcher, Computer Graphic Engineer

Known Relatives: mother, father, brother (names unrevealed, deceased)

Base of Operations: Baltimore, Maryland

First Appearance: Ghost Watcher (2003/2005)

History: Laura Kove was an attractive computer graphic engineer living in the town of Glenburnie, a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland when she warranted the unwanted attention of a stalker named Malcolm Dixon. Dixon, however, was a bit more than a mere stalker and actually an active serial killer outside the knowledge of the police and local authorities. Laura's family rallied by her side and revealed his activity to the police, who then turned him loose without having the evidence to put him in jail. In retaliation, Dixon killed Laura's family for revenge and succeeded in abducting Laura for his own perverse whims. He took her to a barn on his parent's property in nearby Westminster where he had concealed the bodies of his earlier victims, and tortured Laura mercilessly, cutting up her face in the process. She escaped and fled for help, but Malcolm seemingly vanished, his whereabouts unknown. 

The ordeal had left Laura a complete mental and emotional wreck and she became agoraphobic, retreating to the seeming safety and solace of her apartment, working through her computer and ordering by phone all she required. A year after Dixon had vanished, Laura began having experiences she was not alone. Things moved and she began having sensations of another person near her at night wanting to do her harm. Realizing she might have a ghost, she contacted Elizabeth Dean, a would-be ghost expert who sold high-priced detection equipment from behind the facade of a phony ghost research website. Laura's best friend, Nikki Brandt, didn't trust Elizabeth but implored her to help Laura. It was only after considerable research and evidence of the supernatural that Elizabeth finally believed Laura's claims. She deduced that the ghost haunting Laura was that of Malcolm Dixon as had Nikki who finally confessed to have had killed the year before in order to protect Laura. Unsure what to do, Elizabeth accompanied Nikki back to Dixon's family farm to see if his body was still there. What happened over the next few days is open to interpretation, but terrorized by his ghost, Elizabeth had a seeming heart attack in the basement of the Dixon farmhouse and Nikki escaped. Seemingly strengthened by Elizabeth's spirit, Laura finally moved out of her apartment and moved into Elizabeth's home to carry on her previous Ghost Watcher website into a more reputable direction.

Stronger and more sure of herself, Laura began investigating other reported haunted houses, but her experiences were never more terrifying than what she had already endured. She began dating a bartender named Glenn Stanley who followed her on cases and dyed her hair dark. Finally, she encountered a case with hesitant parallels to her past. A girl named Tracy Caine was being haunted by the ghost of serial killer Darius Blake, who she had encountered in a car accident that had claimed her mother. Although she was able to help Tracy, Glenn was killed when a small commuter plane crashed through the Baltimore community of Mount Washington, taking almost two hundred lives. The incident took an emotional toll on Laura, but she survived realizing that her strength gave Tracy the will to endure.