Days of Our Lives shows Stephanie Johnson‘s (Abigail Klein) life is in danger soon when a bad guy blast from her past returns. Owen Kent (Wes Ramsey) is back to Salem soon. And it looks like he might be the one who has been stalking her, not the one we’ve been led to believe is doing it, though.
We’re going to talk about Stephanie’s stalker situation because her worst nightmare, Owen Kent, is back for her. We have a lot to unpack.
Days of Our Lives: Stephanie’s Life Upended
Stephanie finally found a solid, loving relationship with reformed playboy Alex Kiriakis (Robert Scott Wilson). We saw Stephanie and Alex start dating again on Valentine’s Day 2025. And they moved in together in the fall of 2025. But as you may know, Stephanie hasn’t always been so lucky with men. Jeremy Horton‘s (Trevor Donovan) return recently clearly demonstrates what a problematic romantic past she’s had. Stephanie told Alex recently about when Jeremy held her head underwater in a hot tub. And that was just one of many aggressive, abusive behaviors—more verbal abuse than physical abuse, but it wasn’t a good thing.
DOOL: Jeremy Horton and a History of Bad Romance
Now, Alex and Stephanie suspect that Jeremy is up to no good. Alex decided that it was Jeremy who outed Stephanie as Anastasia Sans, but that wasn’t true; that was EJ DiMera (Dan Feuerriegel). Then, Alex and Stephanie came up with a really insane notion. They decided that Jeremy somehow hacked or manipulated the Salem singles dating app to intentionally get with Jada Hunter (Elia Cantu), who is Stephanie’s (Abigail Klein) best friend. That’s another thing that they really think Jeremy did that he didn’t do. He was annoyed when Jada abruptly ended their date after Jeremy admitted that he had once dated Stephanie. But even so, as annoyed as he was, the only thing Jeremy did was toss a little pumpkin to the ground—not the work of a serious villain, right?
Alex and Stephanie also blamed Jeremy for leaving the pumpkin catapult unmanned. The teacher strolled away for a moment from the science station, and that’s when Rachel Black and Thomas DiMera got a hold of the equipment and hurled a pumpkin. They hit Alex rather than Chad DiMera (Billy Flynn) because Alex got in the middle. But somebody was in the square dressed up a lot like Jeremy in black gloves, holding a knife. And Days wants us to think it’s Jeremy. It’s not. That mystery person barely missed stabbing Alex. And of course, we’re all led to think it was Jeremy, but that looks very doubtful.
A Rocky Road to Love: Stephanie and Alex’s Tumultuous Past on Days of Our Lives
Let’s backtrack for a moment. If you remember, this is Stephanie’s second shot at love with Alex. The first time, he wasn’t such a good guy. They were dating in 2022, right after Stephanie came back to Salem and worked for Titan. There was a whole weird dynamic there with Philip Kiriakis (John-Paul Lavoisier) and Alex. Then Alex had fallen head over heels for Stephanie after sleeping with most of Salem. But once he saw her, he said it was love at first sight.
She dumped Alex hard because the first time they made love, he had been so jealous of Chad that he turned off Stephanie’s phone. That wouldn’t usually matter, but Stephanie’s mom, Kayla Brady (Mary Beth Evans), was in the hospital gravely sick. And she supposedly died. Stephanie missed being there because of Alex turning off her phone. Thankfully, Kayla wasn’t really dead, just presumed dead, as happens often in Salem. And Stephanie eventually forgave Alex.
Stephanie’s Past with Chad on Days
After Stephanie broke things off with Alex, she ended up getting with Chad. Stephanie even moved in with Chad and the kids, but things were moving too fast. And then he couldn’t commit to her. So, she dumped Chad especially, because he plotted to fire her ex-boyfriend, Everett Lynch (Blake Berris). Chad’s focus on the past was unhealthy. And it wasn’t fair to Stephanie that he couldn’t commit, but he was still in the grieving process. Then, she turned her focus onto her ex, Everett, who Stephanie thought died years ago. It turns out he was married to Jada. And Stephanie was the other woman. There was a whole thing about him ghosting and then being hit by a car and in a coma. It was very soapy.
Everett had dissociative identity disorder and thought he was both Bobby Stein (Blake Berris) (who was married to Jada and Everett who was dating. Poor Everett wound up poisoned by crazy Connie Viniski (Julie Dove) because he knew too much about the fact she killed Li Shin (Remington Hoffman). Stephanie was beside herself with grief and actually thought that Everett had killed himself. It was yet another bad romance for Stephanie.
The Stalker Strikes: Poisoned Sodas and Creepy Fan Mail on DOOL
Right now, though, she’s in a great place with Alex, but he is worried about the creepy fan mail that Stephanie is getting. One of the anonymous letters freaked Alex out so much that he passed it over to her dad, Steve Johnson (Stephen Nichols), for a second look. Even though Patch thought Alex was overreacting, Steve agreed to look into it. Little did they know that a creeper in black gloves also drugged Alex’s soda from a recent food delivery. He may be the guy who’s writing some of these very creepy letters. Luckily, Alex didn’t finish the soda, but even so, it must have been a pretty strong toxin because the next day he still felt kind of weird and groggy. And he blamed it on bad takeout food.
Wes Ramsey Returns
It is confirmed in official Days of Our Lives Comings and Goings News that Owen Kent returns to Salem with an agenda. And he is back soon. It’s also confirmed that Wes Ramsey is reprising the role he played back in 2009. At that time, he did almost 20 episodes as Owen. I do suspect he’s the one stalking Stephanie that we’ve seen in the black gloves and that he’s the one who poisoned Alex’s soda. Owen is likely sending those creepy letters and is the guy stalking Stephanie when she checks into the hotel on her book tour this week.
It looks like Owen tried to poison Alex after he missed stabbing him on Halloween and was only able to slice his coat. We also know Stephanie is kidnapped, as shown in the winter promo. While Steve’s out searching for missing Stephanie he grabs a guy in a black hoodie, assuming it’s Jeremy who snatched her. Imagine Steve’s surprise when it’s Owen Kent instead. Some people are going to owe Jeremy an apology after this because it looks like he really is a changed man. I kind of doubt that he’ll get an apology considering the whole hot tub incident, but still, I think he’d like it known for the record he wasn’t doing what he was accused of.
Who is Owen Kent? A Look at the Villain’s Obsessive Past on Days
When Owen was on Days of Our Lives years and years ago, he was a gardener and an informant for the DiMeras and was hired to kidnap Stephanie as part of an ongoing DiMera versus Kiriakis feud. Back then, Owen had a huge crush on Stephanie. Owen wound up arrested after Stephanie was rescued by her then-boyfriend, Philip, Melanie Jonas. And Brady Black (Eric Martsolf), who was also helping to find her. But then the truck that was taking Owen to prison was hijacked. And he escaped. That whole ordeal left Stephanie traumatized. And she dumped Philip after he refused to cut ties with his dad, Victor Kiriakis (John Aniston), who had a hand in the whole mess.
When Life Imitates Art on Days of Our Lives: Will a Real-Life Kidnapping Boost Book Sales?
Now with Stephanie’s success as a naughty book author and her picture plastered all over, of course, we’ve got Owen back. Looks like he crawled out from under his rock, still hot for Stephanie and willing to kill her boyfriend, Alex, to get to her. If you remember, kooky Susan Banks (Stacy Haiduk) warned Stephanie that her new murder mystery novel would come true.
This week, Kate Roberts (Lauren Koslow) and Maggie Horton Kiriakis (Suzanne Rogers) were talking about the sales of Stephanie’s new book falling short of expectations. But if Owen kidnaps Stephanie and her life turns into a real-life murder mystery, I bet that’ll skyrocket sales. At least that’s a silver lining.
