Carolyn Woods

*"Oh, please! What could possibly hurt me in the deep dark forest!! If there's a psycho serial killer, HE'LL be the one in danger!" - Carolyn Woods*

**Carolyn Margaret Woods** is a native of Ashford Falls, New York and the daughter of Elizabeth Woods and Thomas Pritchett. Known for her vivacious personality and carefree lifestyle, she has been accused of dating every eligible bachelor on Ashford Falls, developing a reputation for supposedly wrecking marriages.

Born July 16, 1976, Carolyn lived at Thornewood Hall in the suburb of Kirkeby with her mother, sister Monica Woods, uncle Robert Woods, his son David Woods and their governess Maggie Winters, but they were soon joined by other relatives over the years. Although they had a small staff of servants, they were almost entirely self-reliant with little interaction with the local population. Liz had been pushed into marrying Thomas after having Monica out of wedlock, and although she had feelings for him, the marriage was not happy. Liz felt pressured into a marriage she didn't want, and Thomas was stressed out at suddenly becoming a father. He loved Carolyn, but the added anxiety of raising Nikki forced him to start drinking. Liz finally gave him an option to either stand up or get out. After three years of a strained marriage, he left to get the family car at the garage, and never returned.

Growing up, Carolyn and Nikki were each other's best friends, but as their personalities developed, they grew apart. Carolyn was very close with her grandmother, Judith Woods, and Nikki was very close with Maggie. After her grandmother passed, she started asking what happened to her father, and to save face, Liz started claiming he had died. When she was 18, her Uncle Robert moved home after the death of his wife, bringing along David, and told her the truth about Thomas. Realizing she had been lied to, Carolyn lashed out at her mother, and having never really liked living at Thornewood Hall, the "local haunted house" she connived a stay at Hedison Mansion working as a servant to embarrass her mother, but two weeks after dealing with Rachel Hedison's extravagant demands, she moved back home without a word.

During high school, she starred a bank account by posing as a model for photographers and by selling forgotten antiques from the Thornewood attic. Discovered by David sneaking out with family heirlooms, Carolyn was punished by Liz by being forced into a job at the Ashford Falls Public Library which she couldn't be fired from. Over the years, she and David developed an antagonistic brother/sister relationship as he bonded with Nikki, and she actually began to like her job at the library because it allowed her to meet the local boys, but she never revealed this to her mother.

During her time with the Hedisons, Carolyn reconnected with Joseph Baldwin, an old friend from her youth, and they started dating. However, she was frequently dating anyone who took an interest in her, something which irked both Joe and her mother. She pursued Frank Latimer, a lawyer at odds with her mother, local lawyer Nathan Trimble, who was five years older than her, and Robert "Buzz" Corcoran, a local motorcycle rider. She also briefly pursued Barclay Woods, until she learned they were related, but this was no longer an issue when her high school classmate, Chris Hackett, who she was dating, was discovered to be a descendant of of her great grand-uncle, Quentin Woods. However, Joe finally grew tired of this pattern of behavior, and started seeing Nikki.

During her involvement with Barclay, Carolyn was more widely uninhibited and sleeping almost all day and going out at night, dating much more than before. However, in the Winter of 1995, she started dating Jeff Hodges, a former member of the Children of the Sun, who had stayed behind in town after they departed. An associate of Barclay Woods, Hodges seemed to tame Carolyn for the time and they fell in love and were close to getting married when he was killed in a motorcycle accident on a hair-pin turn in Haverstraw Canyon and she returned to Chris for solace.

As an adult, Carolyn supported Sabrina Collins in the 1995 Mayoral Race and took up protesting civil rights with Chris and others at the Ashford Falls Courthouse, turning up on the local news to stand for LGBTQ rights. Because of these views, Nikki has encouraged her into studying law so she can make a bigger change, but as yet, Carolyn is still content in only dabbling in politics.