Child actresses Jessica Azenberg, Janelle and Tamara DeMent, Alex and Brittany Smith, and Eliza Clark played the role since the character's introduction in 1986 till actress Erin Torpey played the role of adolescent to young adult Jessica continuously from November 5, 1990, revising her birth year to 1978. In October 2002, Torpey announced her decision to end her 12-year run as Jessica in order to explore the other areas of her life. Torpey's last appearance as Jessica was on January 15, 2003. Bree Williamson assumed the role on February 5, 2003 and remained with the series until the series' finale on January 13, 2012. Torpey reappeared on the soap opera in 2008 for two episodes for the soap's 40th anniversary, where she played a vision of an older Megan Rappaport Buchanan, the baby that Jessica miscarried in 1999, during Jessica's mother, Victoria Lord's, visit to Heaven. Torpey later reappeared on the soap for one episode in 2011 as Erin, the collegaue of Antonio Vega.