Roger Collins was the younger brother of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and father to young David Collins. When David was ten-years-old, Roger hired a tutor from Boston named Maggie Evans to stay at the family mansion known as Collinwood to work as a governess to David. Roger felt that Maggie was a competent instructor, but found her ability to manage David's prankish behavior to be woefully inadequate. He partially expected Maggie to act as a surrogate mother for him. Maggie's presence at Collinwood allowed Roger the ability to ignore his son even more so than usual.
While Elizabeth was in charge of maintaining the family business, Roger took a more ancillary command and projected his authority upon the working staff at Collinwood. He particularly disliked the stable-hand, Willie Loomis. One evening in June of 1970, David turned up missing and Roger instructed Willie to search the grounds for him. Willie detested Roger and told him to look for his own son. Enraged, Roger promptly fired Willie and told him that he could pick up his final paycheck in the morning.
Soon after, Roger suffered the greatest tragedy of his life. A mysterious killer had viciously murdered his attractive niece Carolyn. Roger was a pallbearer at Carolyn's funeral and the experience actually drew David and he closer together.
Before long, the nature of Carolyn's death became known. Professor T. Eliot Stokes informed Roger that a vampire was responsible for Carolyn's death. Roger was insulted that his friend would suggest something so comically inane, but he soon learned the truth as he discovered that his own cousin, Barnabas Collin was the vampire terrorizing Collinsport.
Several nights later, Professor Stokes contacted Roger and arranged to meet him at the chapel monastery on St. Eustace Island so that they could track down and destroy the vampire. When he arrived however, he discovered Barnabas Collins waiting for him. Barnabas bit Roger, turning him into one of the undead.
A friend of the family named Jeff Clark found Roger's body slumped in an easy chair in the ruins of the chapel. Roger sprung from the chair, ready to make Jeff his first victim, but the frightened young man ended Roger's undead existence by shoving a sharpened piece of wood into his heart..
Notes[]
- Louis Edmonds also played the role of Roger Collins on the ABC television series Dark Shadows.