Bud Mason

*"What are you going to do about this, smart guy?" - Bud Mason*

**William "Bud" Mason** is a a local criminal, thief and malcontent in Ashford Falls with criminal records in New York City, Albany, Troy and Schenectady. Not much is known about his past, but he is known to be a compulsive liar best known for his rivalry with Ty Hedison and friendships with Dash Andrews and Louis Riley.

It is known that Mason was born or at least partially raised in Brooklyn, New York where he attended Erasmus High School with David Truman, who he pressured into breaking into a classroom for stealing test answers. Although he escaped punishment for that juvenile delinquency, he later ended up at the Edmonds School for Boys for a later unrevealed slight. At the reform school, he took an immediate slight to dispossessed heir Ty Hedison, beginning a feud that lasted several years. During a fight, Mason started a fire that he used to cover up his escape and that of several other delinquents. Although Ty was blamed for the fire because of his previous incendiary activities, Mason managed to flee north to Albany, where he started his criminal career specializing in burglary and robbery.

At some point, Mason turned informant to police detective Dash Andrews in Albany over the murder of businessman Hugh Martindale, which was believed to be an inside job. When Mason revealed information that Martindale's wife had a lover, Andrews placed fake evidence in her car to implicate her in the murder, but the case later took a turn when it turned it was murdered by a jealous business rival. Andrews was fired from the force as a result, and following attacking a rival in a bar, Mason escaped a jail sentence by pleading insanity and getting sent to Ardmore Sanitarium in Winchester, New York. While in the mental facility, he was reunited with Ty Hedison under-going counseling, and after a series of skirmishs, attacked him in an incident where Ty lost his left eye.

Due to the skirmish, Mason was expelled from the hospital and was being sent back to prison, but he attacked and brutally beat his driver and escaped. He turned up in Ashford Falls in the employ of Dash Andrews, often doing jobs that benefited Carter Hedison, Andrews' main client and continuing to harass Ty, who had been rendered amnesiac after his experiences at Ardmore. Eventually, an arrest warrant from nearby Troy, New York lead to Mason being sent to Ryker's Island where he served his sentence with Gabe Kirkwood, unjustly imprisoned for the murder of Angel Harker. To cover up the duplicity of Rachel Hedison in the murder, Andrews had Mason take care of Kirkwood, who soon fell to his death by falling over a third floor railing.

Under unknown means, Mason turned up in Ashford Falls once again making indecent overtures toward locals Bobbi Pierce, Helen Caldwell and Maddie Harrington. Whether he had escaped or was released under unknown means is unrevealed, but when local girl Chloe Waverly was attacked, raped and left for dead, he was a prime suspect to Sheriff David Carmichael. As Carmichael was nearing to make an arrest, Mason fled town with Louis Riley for a fishing lodge in Upstate Maine where they lived in isolation for several months.

Carter Hedison eventually called Riley back to Ashford Falls to muscle in favors in the election of Carl Griggs as town mayor and to intimidate Fletcher DuBois into selling his medical formulas, particularly the Meta-Pill. Mason accompanied Riley back to town as they lived illegally in the abandoned Hathaway Mansion in town. However, after Dubois passed away, Riley and Mason broke into the DuBois House to steal his formulas and terrorized his daughter, Janet DuBois, but they were fought off by Jack Gable under mysterious circumstances.

Eventually, Riley and Mason were hired by Rachel Hedison to distress and complicate Helen Caldwell's relationship with Dr. Paul Kirkwood, who Rachel considered her one and only love. Both Mason and Riley ended up faking a burglary at Helen's house and tampered with the gas lines as well. The delayed explosion nearly took the life of Helen's sister, former actress Tricia Caldwell, and in the insuing investigation, Mason was nearly arrested by Carmichael.

Mason's later whereabouts are unrevealed, but according to Riley, Mason became attached with the Children of the Sun cult and followed them west to Jefferson County, New York, where they took over a decommissioned army base.