Esme's Litany Of General Hospital Crimes Explained

Trust fund teen Esme Prince (Avery Pohl) has not let anything stop her from achieving her goals on "General Hospital." She came to Port Charles in 2021 and has done many evil things in a short time period. When her then-boyfriend Spencer Cassadine (Nikolas Chavez) hatched a revenge scheme, Esme wasn't just on Spencer's cheering squad, she was a willing participant. Spencer felt that his stepmother Ava Jerome (Maura West) had betrayed him after Nikolas supposedly died in 2016, when she sided with Nikolas' presumed killer Valentin Cassadine (James Patrick Stuart), per Soap Opera Spy. When Spencer learned that his father was actually alive and had faked his death for several years, he was outraged.

Nikolas reunited with Ava, and an angry Spencer set out to break them up. Esme had latched onto Spencer when they were in boarding school together, feeling lonely because her adoptive parents had died and she had no one else. She mentioned having a nanny but claimed to have lost touch with her. Not knowing who her birth parents were, Esme felt Spencer was the closest thing she had to family. According to Soaps in Depth, she dove head first into Spencer's plan, going above and beyond in some cases, much to his dismay.

Let's take a look at all of Esme's wrongdoings so far.

As TV Season Spoilers reported, Spencer Cassadine returned to Port Charles from boarding school and secretly started stalking Ava Jerome as part of his plot to break up her marriage to his father. He sent various creepy messages to her in different forms. Esme wasn't too far behind him and had been lurking around the hospital pretending to be a nurse. She eavesdropped on several conversations, including one between Ava and Nikolas, where they discussed their plan to out Spencer as the stalker by tricking him, per Soaps in Depth.

Eventually, things got out of control when Ava's car was torched. To make matters worse, the hospital badge of Ava's dead daughter, Kiki Jerome (Hayley Erin), was found near the destroyed vehicle. Ava was rattled by this and feared for her life (via Soap Central). According to Soap Opera Network, Esme was then revealed to be Spencer's girlfriend. She confided in him that she was the one who set Ava's car on fire. Because Nikolas and Ava suspected that Spencer was the stalker, Esme's rationale was that burning the car while he was with them would take the spotlight off of him. Spencer, however, was none too pleased with his accomplice's work, feeling that her methods were too extreme. He simply wanted to break up his father and stepmother, not put anyone in real danger.

Before Esme arrived in Port Charles on "General Hospital," Spencer Cassadine met Trina Robinson (then Sydney Mikayla) while he was in the midst of setting up another stalker prank for Ava Jerome. He told her his name was Victor, and sparks flew between the two. However, Trina wasn't too happy when she discovered he'd been lying about his identity, per Soaps in Depth. Still, she couldn't deny she was attracted to him. As Esme started to get to know Spencer's friends, she could see the chemistry between him and Trina.

Per Soap Spoiler, Esme was so jealous of their attraction that she set out to ruin the girl. At an art show that Trina had coordinated, Esme put her plan into motion. When Trina went into a back storeroom, Esme planned to wedge the door shut to trap her so the show would end in disaster. However, her timing was off, and she accidentally locked Gladys Corbin (Bonnie Burroughs) and a pregnant Sasha Gilmore (Sofia Mattsson) instead. According to Soaps, while trapped in the storeroom, Sasha's water broke, and she went into labor. Her then-boyfriend, Brando Corbin (Johnny Wactor), arrived to find the door had been kept shut with a piece of wood and freed the two ladies just in time to get Sasha to the hospital. However, their baby was ultimately born brain-dead and did not survive.

Although Esme Prince had no idea that she'd inadvertently set in motion a series of events that would cause Sasha Gilmore and Brando Corbin to lose their baby, she continued to rack up a list of crimes. According to Soap Central, she stole a prescription pad from Dr. Kevin Collins (Jon Lindstrom) during her next scheme and illegally prescribed herself Tramadol, an opioid used as a painkiller. It wasn't revealed until later that she also purchased a black-market phone from a bartender named Oz Haggerty (Max Faugno).

Esme convinced Spencer and his friends, Cameron Webber (William Lipton), Josslyn Jacks (Eden McCoy), and Trina Robinson, to go on a weekend getaway to a cabin. There, while they were playing a drinking game, the teens enjoyed some hot toddies. When no one was looking, Esme spiked Trina's drink with the Tramadol, causing the girl to appear severely drunk and embarrass herself. Esme also secretly hid the illegal phone in Cam and Joss' room, as she knew they were planning to have sex for the first time. She set the phone to surreptitiously record their tryst, per Soap Dirt.

This was only the beginning of Esme's plot to take down Trina and her friends.

Esme Prince finally unleashed her despicable plan on Trina Robinson (now Tabyana Ali). According to Soaps, while Trina, Cameron Webber, and Josslyn Jacks were in school, Esme used her illegal phone to share the revenge porn video she took of Joss and Cam's first time with everyone in the school. She then took the black-market phone, a match for Trina's, and clandestinely dropped it in the girl's purse. When the police investigated the matter, the phone was found in Trina's possession, and she was accused of distributing the video. Trina went on trial for the crime, and it looked like she would be serving jail time, per Soap Opera Spy.

Meanwhile, we learned that Esme's father was serial killer Ryan Chamberlain (Jon Lindstrom). It turned out that Ryan had been giving his daughter her marching orders from prison, where he'd been faking locked-in syndrome (via Michael Fairman TV). The goal was to break up Nikolas Cassadine and Ava Jerome, the object of Ryan's obsession, and he told Esme to stay on the mission. Esme stole a keycard to sneak in and visit him (via Soap Central). As the authorities started realizing Esme was the culprit, she went to Oz Haggerty's place and overdosed him with drugs to cover her tracks. However, the police found Oz in time, and he was able to tell the court that Esme had bought the phone from him. As a result, Trina was exonerated (via TV Season Spoilers). 

But that didn't stop Esme from continuing her misdeeds.

While Trina Robinson's trial unfolded on "General Hospital," the nefarious Esme Prince seduced her boyfriend's father, Nikolas Cassadine, and slept with him. A livid Ava Jerome confronted Esme at the Cassadine mansion, Windermere, and the two fought. The altercation took them outside, and Esme accidentally fell off the castle's parapet. After searching for her to no avail, Nikolas and Ava presumed Esme was dead.

Esme eventually returned to Windermere, having survived the fall, much to Nikolas' shock. To add to the surprise, she announced that she was pregnant with Nikolas' baby. Per Soap Central, Esme tried blackmailing him into getting her a lawyer for the crimes she would end up facing. However, Nikolas had other ideas and locked her in a tower with the intent of keeping her there until she had the baby. At that point, he planned to send Esme off to his family's island in Greece, where she would live out the rest of her days. After being imprisoned for a while, Esme figured a way out. She lit a fire, and when Nikolas came to put it out, she escaped. He chased her, but Esme climbed back onto the parapet and let herself fall off, yet again (via Soaps Spoilers).

Meanwhile, a killer using a poison-laced hook has been terrorizing the city. For a time, fans theorized that Esme was the Hook, but as Soaps in Depth reported, Esme has now turned up at General Hospital with amnesia. 

Fans will have to tune in to see how the rest of Esme's story pans out.