Starr Manning (Kristen Alderson)

Starr Irene Manning is a fictional character on the ABC soap opera General Hospital. The character was originated on the now-canceled ABC soap opera One Life to Live in 1996, and has been played by actress Kristen Alderson since 1998. She is the daughter of Todd Manning and Blair Cramer; although she was raised from the age of eleven to adulthood by her uncle, Victor Lord, Jr., whom everyone (including him) thought was Todd Manning at the time.

Background and birth
Late in 1994, convicted rapist Todd Manning meets Blair Cramer, a socialite who has a history of being a gold digger. The two bond and have a one-night stand around Christmastime. Blair then finds out that Todd is the long-lost son of the presumed dead Victor Lord, and is set to inherit $27.8 million, a fact that Todd himself doesn't know. In February of 1995, Blair lies to Todd and tells him she's pregnant with his child, and the two are married. After they are married, Todd finds out he is the Lord heir and inherits the money, and buys tabloid newspaper The Intruder, which he renames The Sun. Although the marriage started out as a sham, Todd and Blair fall in love and she quickly becomes pregnant for real, but then miscarries. Soon afterward, they decide to try for another baby. However, Todd finds out that Blair had initially lied to him and was not actually pregnant when they got married. Todd has their marriage annulled based on fraud in August, but Blair finds out that she is pregnant again with Todd's child. The two remarry in November; but shortly thereafter, Todd is shot while in Ireland and presumed dead. Starr is born on January 8, 1996; then Todd returns to town a few months later, and meets his daughter for the first time.

Childhood
Starr has a history of working schemes with and without her father Todd, getting in trouble, and lying. She has run away from home, stolen money from Todd, and stolen credit cards from both her mother's ex-boyfriend Max Holden, and her cousin Cassie Callison. In 2003, Todd is once again presumed dead, and Blair sends Starr, now 11, and her baby brother Jack to live with Cassie in Atlanta. Starr steals Cassie's credit card and buys a plane ticket back home to Llanview, Pennsylvania. When she arrives, she meets a man going by the name of Walker Laurence, whom Starr later figures out is actually her father Todd, with a new face. It wouldn't be for another eight years, though, that they find out that he is not actually Todd; but his twin brother Victor, who has been brainwashed into thinking he's Todd. Not knowing that Walker believes he is actually Todd, Blair falls for him and the two are married. Starr, however, keeps Walker's secret and never tells her mother that he is Todd. When Blair finds out, she has their marriage annulled.

Blair then falsely accuses Todd of raping her and he's sent to prison. Starr decides to break him out. She and her friend Matthew Buchanan manage to find the prison van transporting Todd and flag it down. They get the door open and try to get Todd to escape. He refuses, but another prisoner does escape and takes Matthew hostage. Starr is sentenced to probation and community service at the hospital for her crime. While working at the hospital, Starr vandalizes hospital property. Blair later exonerates Todd, saying he did not rape her after all, and he's released.

Starr meets a boy named Travis O'Connell over the internet and starts chatting with him. She tricks Blair into taking her to New York to meet him, and once there, runs away with him. Later, Travis moves to Llanview. Todd and his nephew Kevin Buchanan, who's only eight months younger than Todd, reignite their life-long feud. Starr and Travis hack into the computer database of The Banner, the newspaper of Kevin's mother and Todd's sister Viki, and print malicious material about Kevin. Starr and Travis later share their first kiss, but their relationship ends when Travis has to go back to New York.

Teenage pregnancy
Starr later meets Cole Thornhart, the son of Marty Saybrooke, whom her father Todd had notoriously orchestrated and participated in the gang raped of in college; and Patrick Thornhart, whom her mother Blair had dated and had a stillborn son with when Starr was a baby. Cole is a star football player at the high school and begins using steroids. At a party, Cole is slipped drugs and becomes high, then attacks Starr. Todd forbids Starr from seeing Cole, but they refuse and attempt to run away together.

In 2008, Todd fears for his family's safety and decides to move them to Hawaii. Fearing they'd never see each other again, Starr and Cole sleep together for the first time. Todd walks in on them and beats Cole nearly to death before Blair stops it. Todd again forbids Starr from ever seeing Cole again, even though Starr assures him that they didn't have sex, which is a lie. Todd even withdraws Starr from school and decides to have her home schooled to keep her from seeing Cole. Later, Starr finds out she is pregnant, but doesn't tell anyone except her best friend Langston, whom her great-aunt Dorian is fostering. Todd then starts to trust Starr more and puts her back in school, making her promise she'll stay away from Cole, which she does for a while, partly because she doesn't want to tell him she is pregnant.

Starr decides to have an abortion because she never wants her father to find out about the pregnancy. She makes it all the way to the clinic and into the room where it is to be done; but when Cole asks Langston where Starr is, she gives him the address where he can find her. Still not knowing she is pregnant or that she is about to have an abortion, Cole goes to Starr, where he finally finds out the truth. He then convinces her to not go through with the abortion. Instead, Cole arranges for them to get fake IDs and they run away together to Virginia Beach to raise the baby.

Todd and Blair eventually track them down though. Todd goes after Cole, and in the struggle, Starr ends up falling down a flight of stairs. At the hospital, Blair is in the room when the doctor tells Starr that she and the baby are going to be just fine. Blair is shocked to find out her 16 year old daughter is pregnant, but agrees it's best not to tell Todd. By this point, Todd and Blair have broken up again, and Blair shuts Todd out of his children's lives again. She goes as far as getting a restraining order against him.

Starr decides to give her baby up for adoption, which Cole does not agree with. He even talks to an attorney about his legal rights and considers suing Starr for custody. Starr decides to let Marcie and Michael McBain, the brother of police detective John McBain, adopt her baby. In 2006, Todd had had a son with a woman named Margaret Cochran who had shot and kidnapped him, then tied him to a bed and raped him. The baby was kidnapped at birth and sold on the black market, and the McBains had ended up adopting him. When it was revealed that he was illegally adopted, Todd got his son back and renamed him Sam. Starr felt sorry for the McBains because they loved Tommy, as they had called their adopted son, and were heartbroken when they lost him to Todd. Starr feels that Marcie was a great mother and wants to give her a baby.

Todd finds out that Starr is pregnant when Cole tells him, knowing that Todd won't allow the McBains to adopt his grandchild. Todd hates the McBains because they had kept his son from him, and Marcie had kidnapped Sam when she didn't want to give him up. Cole tells Todd about the adoption plan, which infuriates Todd. There is no way he's going to let the people who kidnapped his son raise his grandchild. Todd comes up with a plan to kidnap the baby from the hospital and then run away and raise him or her. Cole's mother Marty is presumed dead, but is actually alive. Todd has been secretly holding an amnesiac Marty captive in his home. He has been lying to her and does not tell her that she has a son, or that he believes he's the man who raped her in college. She falls in love with him, and Todd tells her that his daughter, who's pregnant, has agreed to let him raise her baby. Todd asks Marty to go away with him and help him raise the baby, which she agrees to. Actually, Todd pays off Starr's obstetrician and her nurse to help him kidnap the baby and make Starr believe that the baby is dead.

Birth and "death"
A healthy baby girl, whom Marcie names Hope Manning McBain, is born onscreen on November 6, 2008. Marcie and Blair are in the delivery room with Starr; and none of them are allowed to see the baby, who's whisked away by medical staff. They are told that she is going to the NICU and that none of them can go with her. The baby is actually not going to the NICU, though. Instead, Todd has instructed the doctor to take her to her office, where he plans to abduct her. Todd secretly arrives at the hospital to put his plan into motion, but has a change of heart and decides not to kidnap his granddaughter. Therefore, the doctor goes to get Hope from her office to give to Starr and Marcie, but when she gets there, the baby in the bassinet is dead. The doctor's bewildered because Hope was born alive and well and was seemingly healthy when she left her in her office. To make matters even stranger, an autopsy shows that the cause of death is Rh disease, which almost never occurs in first pregnancies, so the doctor hadn't even tested for it. The doctor painstakingly tells Starr, Marcie, and Blair the news and that Rh disease usually doesn't even occur until the mother's third pregnancy. Starr gets a locket of the baby's hair, and the baby is buried.

What had actually happened is that Todd's niece Jessica Brennan had given birth to her third child, Chloe, alone at a cabin at the same time. Chloe was stillborn; and when Jessica, who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (or multiple personalities), noticed that her baby was dead, she had a relapse. Her alter Bess took over and drove to the hospital; then switched the two babies to protect Jessica from the anguish of losing her child, whose father had died before the baby was born.

Todd's trials and dealing with loss
Marty is then rescued by John McBain from Todd's house and Starr and Cole find out about Todd's plan to kidnap their baby. Starr accuses Todd of killing her baby, saying that if he hadn't instructed the doctor to take the baby to her office that the baby would have been getting proper medical care and might have survived. Todd is tried for a laundry list of crimes while holding Marty captive, but is found completely innocent. At hearing the verdict, Starr stands up in the court room and tells the judge about Todd's plan to kidnap her baby, who ended up dying. Todd is distraught over feeling responsible for his granddaughter's death and Marty, whom he's fallen in love and become obsessed with, rejecting him. At Marty's urging, Todd steps off the roof of a hotel in a suicide attempt, only to fall into the river below, where Blair and Todd's attorney Téa Delgado rescue him. Téa tells Starr of Todd's suicide attempt, and when she testifies at Todd's attempted kidnapping trial, she changes her story and says that Todd had not planned to kidnap her baby, exonerating him.

Cole and Starr both become distraught after this ordeal. Cole turns to drugs, while Starr turns to her teacher Schuyler Joplin, who happens to be the son of her obstetrician whom Todd hired to help kidnap Hope. Dr. Joplin had committed suicide because she felt responsible for Hope's death. On one occasion, Starr kisses Schuyler, just as Cole walks in and sees it. Schuyler gets suspended indefinitely for the incident, and Starr pines for him. One day, she goes over to his apartment and finds him wearing only a towel. He tells her to leave, but Starr starts taking her clothes off, trying to seduce him. Schuyler rejects her though, and Starr leaves, devastated.

Getting to the truth
Starr and Cole get back together, and months after the death of their daughter, clues start piling up that something was not right about Hope's death. Marcie finds out that Cole's blood type is actually compatible with Starr's, so there's no way that their baby died of Rh disease. They then have a DNA test done on the hair in Starr's locket, which is supposedly from their baby, and find out that it's not from their daughter. When Starr and Cole realize this, they decide to have Hope's body exhumed to get answers. After tests, it's confirmed that the baby in the grave is not their biological daughter. The funeral home tells them that no other babies were buried at the same time, so there's no way it could have been switched when buried. Starr and Cole are bewildered at what could have happened, and are hopeful that their daughter might be alive.

Meanwhile, Jessica's sister Natalie Buchanan and her fiance Jared Banks have suspicions of their own, that the baby Jessica calls Chloe is not actually her daughter. They piece together that Chloe might actually be Hope, and that Jessica's alter Bess switched them. They are able to secretly get DNA samples from Chloe and Jessica, and from Starr and Hope, via her hair in the locket Starr wears. They confirm what they suspected, that the baby girl Jessica is raising as Chloe Brennan, is actually Starr's daughter Hope McBain, and vice versa. Jessica does not remember switching the babies and does not know that Chloe is not actually her daughter. As time passes though, she starts remembering bits and pieces. Natalie and Jared decide to keep what they know secret to protect Jessica. They are afraid that one of her alters will come out again if she finds out the truth. However, they eventually tell Jessica and Natalie's parents Viki Lord and Clint Buchanan, and Jared's father Charlie Banks.

Meanwhile, Powell Lord III, psychotic second cousin of both Starr and Jessica, kidnaps Todd, Marty, Blair, and Téa. Powell had gone to college with Todd, before he knew he was his cousin, and had been part of Marty's gang rape. Powell had been reluctant to participate in the rape, but cooperated at Todd's urging. He, along with Todd and the other man involved, Zach Rosen, was convicted; and then Powell went crazy. He keeps Todd strapped to a bed and Marty to a chair in a room in the same fraternity house where the rape happened years before, while he has Blair and Téa elsewhere in the frat house. Powell's accomplice, Rebecca Lewis, finds out that Jessica's baby is actually Starr and Cole's baby, making her both Todd and Marty's granddaughter. Rebecca kidnaps her and takes her to Powell. Todd doesn't understand why Powell has his sister Viki's granddaughter Chloe there; but Powell explains that she's not his sister's granddaughter, she's his granddaughter. Marty is able to convince Powell to give the baby to her, then John McBain rescues them, killing Powell. Todd and Marty take the baby to the hospital, while John rescues Blair and Téa.

"Bess" kidnaps "Chloe"
At the hospital, Todd and Marty meet up with Viki and Clint, who are there because Jessica had been brought in when she had a breakdown after remembering switching the babies, which she doesn't disclose to anyone. Both Todd and Marty and Viki and Clint realize that the others know that Chloe is actually Hope. They decide not to tell Jessica right away, not knowing that she has remembered. Jessica turns into her alter Bess again though, and kidnaps the baby. Todd then tells Blair the truth.

Starr reads on the internet that there's an Amber Alert out for Jessica and Chloe and wonders why no one told her that her cousins were missing. She also doesn't understand why it's being considered a kidnapping since Chloe is Jessica's own daughter. Blair decides it's time to tell her the truth and gathers Todd, Marty, and Cole at the house to tell them. Meanwhile, John McBain goes to his brother Michael and his wife Marcie to tell them the truth.

Happy reunion
Jessica and Chloe are eventually found and brought back to Llanview. Jessica is herself again and realizes she has to give the baby up. Todd and Blair go to get the baby from Jessica and bring her to Starr and Cole. Then, Michael and Marcie come and take Hope from Starr and Cole. Starr and Cole have both changed their minds about giving Hope up, but neither will admit it to the other. Starr doesn't want to go back on her promise to Marcie, and Cole doesn't want to go against Starr, who he thinks is still okay with the adoption. Eventually, Marcie realizes that Starr wants her baby back and she and Michael decide to return Hope to Starr and Cole. Marcie hands Hope back over to Starr on June 15, 2009. Starr then changes the baby's name from Hope Manning McBain to Hope Manning-Thornhart. Coincidentally, Todd remarks that, at seven months, Hope is the same age that Starr was when Todd first met her.

Near marriage to Cole
As Marcie was giving Hope back to Starr, Cole was getting arrested for drugs that the police found on him. Cole, however, was actually trying to get rid of the drugs, which had been put unwillingly into his pocket. The day after Starr gets Hope back, Cole comes to see Starr. He's overjoyed that they are going to keep Hope, but has to confess to Starr that he has been sentenced to up to two years in prison.

Not wanting to go to prison without making a commitment to Starr and Hope, Cole gets down on one knee and proposes to Starr, just as Todd walks in. Starr is only 17, and cannot legally get married without parental consent. They're ready for Todd to fly off the handle, but he instead shockingly agrees to give his consent for them to marry, with little argument. Todd then goes to Blair and tells her that Cole proposed to Starr and he gave his permission. Blair doesn't believe him; that's completely uncharacteristic of Todd. She goes to Starr to ask her about it. Starr confirms that what Todd told her is true, he has agreed to sign the consent paper.

Blair, however, is the one who's opposed to the marriage. It takes a lot of arguing to convince her to sign the paper Starr presents her with. She finally does sign it, against her better judgement. After Blair signs it, it's Todd's turn. But seeing as Blair has actually signed the paper, Todd now shows his true colors and refuses to sign it. Then Téa comes in with a tape recording of Todd badmouthing and threatening Cole, and it's clear that he really isn't okay with them getting married. After a lot of fighting though, Todd eventually signs the paper.

The next day, the ceremony begins, they say their vows, and just as the justice of the peace is pronouncing them husband and wife, John McBain comes in. He announces that he has gotten Cole's prison sentence lifted and he only has to do community service. Starr and Cole talk and decide not to get married, which Todd is overjoyed at and lets be known.

Kidnapping and Cole goes to prison
In 2010, Téa is told she's dying. She and Todd had been married twice before years ago, and had "remarried" in 2009, only to find out that Téa was already legally married and their marriage was invalid. Téa finally gets a divorce and she and Todd remarry. Téa soon goes away to a hospice alone to die, and Todd is left at home with Danielle, their 16 year old daughter Téa had kept secret most of her life. Before Téa had left, she had Elijah Clarke, a fellow attorney, draw up her will. Elijah, however, is also the brother of Ross Rayburn, Téa's ex-husband and the man who raised Danielle as his own. Unbeknownst to everyone, Elijah actually had Téa sign a will that stated Ross gets custody of Danielle, not Todd as Téa actually wanted.

Later, Todd and Danielle are told that Téa died and realize in the will that Ross gets custody of Danielle. Todd takes him to court to fight for custody of his daughter, but ultimately loses. Danielle doesn't want to live with Ross, she wants to stay with Todd, so Starr and her friend James Ford help her sneak out of Todd's house and run away.

Starr and Danielle go back to Starr's apartment and find Elijah there, who has killed Hope's babysitter. Elijah then kidnaps Starr, Danielle, and Hope. Elijah has been shot, so the girls convince him to stop at a clinic to get help. While Danielle goes in for supplies, Starr and Hope stay in the car with Elijah. Elijah passes out though, and Starr escapes with her daughter.

Starr calls Cole to tell them where they were, but crazed Hannah O'Connor, who is obsessed with Cole, answers his phone. Starr and Hope wait for Cole at the clinic, but when Hannah comes instead, she kidnaps them. She then locks them in an attic, and brings James Ford there at gunpoint as well. She forces Starr and James to dig their own graves while she holds a gun on them and Hope. They eventually are able to knock Hannah out and escape though.

Starr and Hope return to Cole, only to find out that Elijah had held Danielle and Téa, who is actually alive, hostage in a warehouse. Danielle got out, but Blair had gone in to find Starr and Hope, who she thought were inside. John McBain and Todd then went in as well looking for them, and Elijah exploded the warehouse with them inside. When the warehouse exploded, Cole shot and killed Elijah, thinking he had killed Starr and Hope in the explosion. Cole pleads guilty and is sentenced to ten years in prison. Before he leaves for prison, Cole breaks up with Starr and urges her not to wait for him.

The real Todd returns
In June of 2011, Starr overhears her little brother Sam talking to someone out by their pool. When she asks him to whom he was speaking, he replies that it was a homeless man with a line on his face, and motions as to what it looked like. Starr takes it to mean the line is a scar, and how Sam motioned, it resembles the scar her father Todd used to have before his plastic surgery years before. A dead man shows up on their property, and Sam tells John McBain that his friend killed him because the man had tried to kill him, Sam. John shows Sam a picture of Todd Manning with his old face, and Sam positively identifies the picture as the man he calls his friend.

The man with Todd's old face claims to be the real Todd Manning, saying that the man who has called himself Todd Manning for the past eight years is an imposter. He says that he has been held captive and tortured for the last eight years. Starr and everyone else is reluctant to believe him, even though the man calls Starr "Shorty," the nickname her dad calls her, and knows personal details about her life.

John performs a DNA test on both men calling themselves Todd Manning against the real Todd Manning's DNA the police have on file from Marty's rape years before, and everyone is stunned when both DNA tests come back as positive matches. They can't understand how that's possible, and Starr states that the only way it could be possible is if they are identical twins. Even if they are identical twins though, that doesn't explain why they have the same memories and why they both honestly think they are Todd Manning.

The truth finally comes out when John, Téa's brother Tomás Delgado, and police officer Brody Lovett locate Todd Manning's mother, Irene Manning, in Louisiana. Everyone thought Irene had died in the 1970s, but in actuality, she hadn't. She had been running a rogue CIA operation. The men bring Irene back to Llanview and she confesses the whole truth to both Todds and Todd's sister Viki on August 17, 2011.

Irene tells them that she had actually given birth to identical twin boys. She gave Todd to her cousin Peter Manning and his wife to raise; while she secretly kept his twin, Victor Lord, Jr., and raised him herself. In 2003, she wanted the son she had raised to get the inheritance Todd had gotten from their father. So, she had Todd kidnapped. She brainwashed Victor into believing he was his twin and filled his head with all of Todd's memories.

She gave Victor plastic surgery against his will so that he would look like Walker Laurence, the brother of Mitch Laurence, who had been causing problems for Todd. She saw this as a way of getting Mitch out of the way so that Victor could work his way into Todd's life. Her planned worked for eight years, until Todd escaped and came back to town.

The real Todd goes straight to Starr and tells her what Irene said. Starr is dumbfounded, but overjoyed. Todd then meets his granddaughter Hope for the first time and quickly bonds with her. Victor doesn't want to believe the truth, he even has trouble comprehending it. He has lived for the past eight years believing he's Todd Manning, and now he finds out he's not. He lies to his wife Téa and Todd's kids Starr, Danielle, and Jack, telling him that he's the real Todd Manning. He plans on taking all of them, along with Sam and Hope to Hawaii, but Starr tells everyone that he's lying. She says that the other man is the real Todd Manning.

Victor tells his wife that he wishes he were Todd Manning, and he worries that the kids won't love him anymore. All three of them though, tell him that they still love him. Jack and Danielle even continue to call him "dad." Victor then worries that Téa will leave him, but she professes her continued love for him and says she'll never leave him. On August 30, Victor is shot in the chest by an unseen assailant. Téa finds him on their living room floor, and he seemingly dies in her arms on August 31.

Victor's "murder" mystery
Jack lies to the police and tells them that he saw Todd at the scene of the crime. Todd is arrested and put in the cell right across from that of his mother, Irene. Irene is later released, but Todd gets a note from her saying she's going to kill everyone he loves. When Starr comes to see Todd in lockup, he convinces her to break him out of jail.

Starr orchestrates his breakout, having him fake a heart attack. When the guards go to check on him, she grabs one of their guns and has Todd gag and handcuff them. They go to Victor's house, where much of their family is; and Todd sees that they are okay, so he goes to find Irene. Irene shoots Todd in the shoulder, then he hears an explosion. Irene tells him that it was a bomb she had set at Victor's house. Believing that she had killed his family, Todd shoots and kills his mother. They are not dead, however, and Starr is arrested for breaking Todd out of jail. She stays in jail for a while, while Todd is still on the lose.

Todd is later exonerated when Jack confesses that he had lied when he said he saw Todd at Victor's house that night. The investigation continues for months, although Todd actually remembers that he really did kill his brother and had blocked it out. He thinks that Irene had made him do it.

Cole returns and move to LA
On New Year's Eve 2011, there's a blackout. Just after midnight on New Year's Day 2012, Starr is stunned when Cole shows up at her door, wearing his prison jumpsuit. He tells her that there was a major jailbreak when the power went out and he went straight there to see her and Hope. He says he plans to leave to go live with his parents, who are living elsewhere. Starr reluctantly hides Cole, and when Sam finds him, he covers with the police when they came looking.

When Starr and Cole return to the house, they find Hannah O'Connor, who has also escaped from prison. She's holding Sam and has Todd at gunpoint. When she sees Cole, she tells him that she came to look for him, that she wants to be with him. Cole tells her what she wants to hear and she puts Sam down. Then Todd grabs Sam and runs out of the room with him to safety. Cole winds up shot, and is rushed to the hospital while Todd holds Hannah at gunpoint until the police come to get her.

Cole nearly dies, and Todd ends up faking his death. He even prints in his paper The Sun that Cole has died. In actuality, Todd sends Cole to live with his parents.

Later, Starr is offered a recording opportunity in Los Angeles. She tearfully says goodbye to her family, takes Hope, and moves to LA. In Los Angeles, Starr visits Langston and her boyfriend Markko, who had moved there previously. She confesses that Cole is actually alive, but that she will probably never see him again. Then, there's a knock at the door, and it's Cole. Todd has sent Cole to be with Starr and Hope.

One Life to Live wrap-up
In the final months of One Life to Live, Téa finds out that she's pregnant with Victor's baby. She has trouble coming to grips with the fact that she'll have to raise his baby without him, and leans on John as a friend for help and support. Todd and Blair reconnect and finally get close again, while Todd bonds with Victor's only child Sam. The police finally get proof that Todd really did kill Victor; and while Todd and Blair are finally making love, John McBain and team barge in on them to arrest Todd for Victor's murder. However, Victor is revealed to be alive and being held captive by Allison Perkins, who had escaped from prison in the breakout on New Year's Eve.

Arrival and tragedy
Starr arrives in Port Charles with her boyfriend Cole and their daughter Hope when their plane from Los Angeles to Llanview is diverted there because of weather. They were planning to go back home due to Starr's father Todd's ordeal with the Victor Lord, Jr. murder case. They drive around looking for a place to stay, and Cole tells Starr stories about Port Charles, including The Cassadines and Luke and Laura. The entire time, Hope is sleeping in the backseat.

Meanwhile, Anthony Zacchara is speeding the opposite direction down the same road with someone, seemingly Sonny Corinthos, following after him. Someone shoots out Anthony's tires, causing him to swerve into oncoming traffic, hitting Starr and Cole's car. The car comes to rest along the guard rail, and Starr is able to get out, but Cole and Hope are trapped inside. Michael Corinthos arrives and finds Starr on the side of the road and promises to save her daughter and boyfriend, but he is unable to. The car goes over the cliff and explodes on impact, killing Cole and Hope.

Starr loses consciousness and Michael takes her to General Hospital. He feels responsible for her and guilty that he couldn't save Cole and Hope. He vows to find who caused the crash. Later, Starr tells Todd that Anthony had told her that Sonny was the one who shot out his tires, and Todd vows to take care of the situation.

Later, Starr checks herself out of the hospital and leaves with Michael to go to the courthouse after she learns Sonny is being arraigned. When they get there, Todd is holding a gun on Sonny, threatening to kill him. John McBain comes in and arrests Todd for jumping bail and takes him back to Llanview to stand trial for Victor's murder.

Michael Corinthos
Starr returns to Port Charles for Sonny's trial for the murder of Hope and Cole. She goes to Michael's apartment, and he offers to let her sleep on his couch, which she accepts. Sonny comes over and tells Michael to stay away from Starr. Michael assures his father that he will, but Starr is actually hiding around the corner listening as Michael lies to his father. Michael and Starr begin to get closer, as he comforts her when she breaks down at the thought of her boyfriend and daughter being dead.

After Sonny is acquitted, Starr tells Michael that she is leaving Port Charles, but instead she goes to see Johnny Zacchara, who buys her recording contract. Starr later steals Johnny's gun, kidnaps Sonny at gunpoint, and takes him to the spot where Hope and Cole died. She points the gun at Sonny and threatens to kill him when Michael arrives and convinces Starr to put the gun down. Michael then has Starr arrested for attempted murder.

Starr's former stepmother Téa Delgado and her father Todd come to town to help her with the charges. Todd overhears Kate Howard telling her attorney Alexis Davis that her alter Connie was responsible for shooting out Anthony's tires and causing the wreck that killed Hope and Cole. Todd then blackmails Sonny, saying he won't turn Kate in or print malicious material about her in his tabloid if he gets Michael to recant his statement about the attempted murder. Ultimately, Michael recants and Starr is released from jail.