William Collins

### Occupation

Author/Writer, Paranormal Investigator, Paranormal Advisor to the Motion Picture Industry,

### Children

Patricia Collins, Victoria “Lainey” Collins, Madelyne Collins, Gabrielle Collins, Monica “Nikki” Collins, Lisa Collins (daughters)

### Relationships

Paula Anderson, Jenna Jackson, Sabrina Spellman, Tricia Hall, Ally McBeal, Helen Chapel,

*"I don't know…. what part of “I don’t understand.” do you not understand?." - William Collins*

**William Collins** is a native of Collinsport, Maine and a writer and author with a pursuit in paranormal research. A member of the affluent New England Collins family, he is often described as a recluse, but in public, he has shown both liberal and philanthropic traits and incredible empathy for others as well as tendencies for sarcasm and extreme logic.

Born in September 1972, he is the son of historian Barnabas Collins and novelist/socialite Angelique Collins and a part of an extensive family tree going back to the 1600s. Born with a debilitating illness linked to his father’s genetic family tree, he was closely supervised by the late prominent serologist Dr. Julia Hoffman, who worked diligently to keep him alive, but during his therapy, he was eventually abducted a few months later by an unidentified woman claiming to be the former Collinwood governess, Victoria Winters, Secretly holding him hostage in Rose Cottage on the estate, the Victoria imposter demanded two million dollars for his safe return. However, according to the family lore, Angelique was guided by the ghost of the real Victoria Winters and rescued her son, driving the imposter into the hands of the police.

Raised in Collinsport, Collins lived on the isolated estate of Collinsport with his sister, Sara Collins, and cousins, Jamison Collins and J.R. Loomis along with extended cousins, uncles and aunts. From the neighboring farms, he was friends with Joe Haskell II, Nick Schafer, Mathew Burton and Stephen Barnette, who with his cousins quickly became publicized as juvenile delinquents who explored empty homes, built temporary structures in the nearby woodlands and played games in the local cemetery. However, much of this chicanery came to an end when he was eight years old, and he was molested by a nanny named Gloria Becker, an incident he kept an embarrassed secret for several years.

For much of his youth, William was particularly close to his Uncle Quentin Collins, who told him much of the lore and ghost stories from the family history and who often took him and his cousins and friends on camping trips to the backwoods of Bangor on camping trips. He also had a childhood crush on his Aunt Carolyn Stoddard-Loomis, who was a former model. His aunt soon recommended he and his cousins attend summer camps at Camp Arawak in Argyle, New York where he met and became friends with Mike Seaver, Theo Huxtable, George Constanza and Joe Hackett among others including camp counselor Angus MacGyver, friendships that lasted for several years.

As a teenager, his aunt, Maggie Collins, stopped being his governess to run for town council, and he and his cousins started attending Collinsport High School, but while his sister and cousins excelled, he started becoming increasingly withdrawn and remote. A natural academic, he was heavily devoted to his writing and fiction and dabbled for a while in music, having been taught to play the piano and learning to play the guitar. Although he was friendly and cordial with a talent for comedy, he was never a strong student. Interested in the paranormal, he tagged along on weekends and summers investigating haunted sites with his Uncle David Collins, the founder of the Collinsport Ghost Society. Fascinated with ghosts due to the reputed hauntings at the Collinwood Estate, he took over the group after his uncle departed to develop several businesses. His paranormal adventures allowed him to make contact and develop several more friendships with Judge Harold T. Stone in New York, Sam Malone of Boston, Tim Taylor of Detroit, Patrick Jane in Los Angeles and Seeley Booth and Fox Mulder of Washington D. C. Attending Northwestern Maine University, he studied folklore and mythology as his major and theater as his minor. He also became friends with historian Ben Gates and mathematician Ian Malcolm.

Despite his reclusive lifestyle and affable personality, Collins was forever embittered by his lack of female companionship. In high school, he had several infatuations but no serious steady commitments. He was in love with Tricia Hall, a blonde cheerleader who used him to make her real boyfriend jealous, but Jenna Jackson, an attractive African-American girl, took it upon herself to protect him. His Aunt Maggie tried fixing him up with a girl named Paula Anderson, who left Collinsport for a singing career, and Angelique tried fixing him up with Sabrina Spellman, the niece of an acquaintance. His cousin, Amanda Collins, also had an unrequited infatuation with him for years, but his sense of propriety was too overwhelming to encourage a romance. During his paranormal adventures, he briefly dated Helen Chapel, a friend of Joe Hackett in Nantucket, and Ally McBeal, a Boston lawyer he met through a common acquaintance.

After Angelique published a fictionalized version of her romance with Barnabas (a novel converted to a TV miniseries with Ben Cross and Joanna Going and a movie with Johnny Depp in 2012), William started publishing horror novels based loosely on his research of the paranormal. His first book, “The Inheritance,” was a mediocre success, but his following novels, “Splintered,” “Fractured” and “Snowbound,” struggled to find audiences. After he met Stephen King, “Splintered” was adapted into a movie which got his work widespread success and a reputation as a horror movie consultant in Hollywood. By now, his relationship with Ally had drifted, and he became reacquainted with Elizabeth Danvers, an old classmate from high school returning to Collinsport as a doctor. He allowed her to stay with him in his cliffside home in Collinsport which he had been using to store the bulk of his collection of books, antiques and furniture. While living together, William and Lizzie had twin daughters, Patricia "Tricia" Amanda Collins and Victoria "Lainey" Elaine Collins on June 2, 1994. When she became pregnant again, their parents encouraged them to “make it legal” and get married. Several months later, Lizzie had Madelyne "Maddie" Samantha Collins and Gabrielle "Gabby" Charlotte Collins on December 14, 1995. Despite swearing they had all the children they wanted, Lizzie inexplicably pregnant again a year later and had Monica "Nikki" Hillary Collins and Lisa Reagan Collins on July 27, 1997. A few years later, Lizzie confessed to William that she had had a crush on him in high school and getting together with him was not an accident.

Much to Lizzie's distress, William continued to travel the world investigating haunted houses and dabbling in cryptozoology, having once nearly drowned at Loch Ness and even getting lost in the Pacific Northwest for a week looking for the obscure hominid known as Bigfoot. He had an active role in preserving the former Vannacutt Sanitarium in California and in on-going investigations at the Hotel Overlook in Colorado. Unable to join Dr. Joyce Reardon's final analysis of Rose Red in Washington, he has donated money to the historical society trying to stop its demolition. Including Vannacutt Sanitarium, his favorite locations include the Belasco House in Caribou Falls, Maine, forty miles from Collinsport, Whipstaff down the coast from Collinsport in Friendship, Maine, the Gracey House in Louisiana and of course, Collinwood itself, Wherever he went, he became a friend or benefactor to the people he met, buying structures to save out of historical preservation or contributing charitably to help others in misfortune. At some point, he met Robert J. Hogan, the owner of the Universal Science Institute, and became an agent for the thinktank, sharing his research for their massive knowledge database and getting sent on scientific investigations into the paranormal.

Around 1995, William encountered reporter Melissa Strickland asking for research on vampires. She continued hitting him up on research for various paranormal and cryptid cases afterward, and in 1998, he was invited by D. B. Moore to Thornewood Hall near Ashford Falls, New York to witness in person a bizarre Parallel Time phenomenon that for some unidentified reason allowed the Woods Family to meet alternate timeline versions of his family, particularly, his father, Barnabas Collins and the former governess Victoria Winters. He also met an alternate time counterpart version of himself who had married Ally; the two of them briefly sharing details on their parallel lives.

From his counterpart, Collins learned there were aspects about his parent’s lives he knew nothing about, particularly about how they met, their true ages and connections to other people in his life. He also learned that they both had latent but undeveloped skills in clairvoyance, psychometry and an inclination to mystical energy through his relationship to his mother; hence, his empathy for others. His sister reportedly has the same skills, but before the other William Collins could elaborate, the phenomenon ended, leaving Collins with more questions than answers.

Since then, William has been busy writing new novels, sometimes with multiple writing projects at a time, between paranormal investigations. Much like his own childhood, his daughters have become publicly known as teenage nuisances getting into public mischief and high school rivalries.