In October 1986, Jo was devastated when her niece Suzi McCleary (Eunice's daughter) was killed by an unstable woman, Ella Hobbs (Ann Flood), who wanted revenge from the McCleary family after a payroll robbery that Ella was involved in with her lover, Judge Jeremiah Henderson (William Prince), years earlier with Suzi's husband's father, Malcolm McCleary (Patrick Tovatt). It turned out the Malcolm was alive and fled to Ireland and that his twin brother was the one that was killed in the payroll robbery, not him. While the McClearys were about to reunite with the patriarch of the family, Ella was about to kill Jo, when she was held hostage in the elevator shaft at Liberty House. But Stu, Evie, Cagney, Jerry and Jeremiah rescued Jo, and Ella fell to her death.