to confront McDaniels, and he showed up in Springfield to dump a confused and angry at her father when she found out why, Hope. Hope even moved out on Mike and Leslie and found her own apartment and a job at Roger Thorpe's night club, The Metro. A little later in 1976, Hope became infatuated with artist Ben McFarren who originally dated Pam Chandler, before she left town (Pam had also worked at The Metro when Sara had to let her go due to the rough economy. Pam told Ben she didn't feel any love for him as she did Tim Ryan.) When Hope told Mike she was over Alex McDaniels and was now seeing a much better man, Mike was happy and relieved, at first. Then Mike found out who the young man was, Ben McFarren, who Mike had defended in a robbery at a Deli several months earlier! Mike was now livid, and tried to get Hope to stop seeing this troubled young man. Although at first hesitant, Ben who was still paying restitution for the robbery, told Mike it was his younger brother Jerry who he was covering for and had actually committed the robbery. Mike then started to respect Ben for being willing to help his younger brother, as Mike had done for Ed on several occasions. But then Ben wanted Hope to pose in the nude, and Mike and Hope were both disturbed by this. Hope refused to do so, but then found one of Ben's painting was a nude of her, that Ben had painted from memory. This time, it was Mike who tried to tell Hope to have patience for Ben, but Hope refused to listen and dumped Ben and then decided to leave town to attend a design school. Ed asked Rita to marry him, but on the same day he proposed she was arrested and charged with murder. Rita, as it turned out, had a sordid past with bad boy Roger Thorpe which, unfortunately for her, came out during her ensuing murder trial. Rita was accused of murdering Cyrus Granger, an elderly rich rancher from Waco, Texas, for whom she'd worked as a private duty nurse a year earlier, as well as his son Malcolm Granger, who'd followed Rita to Springfield, and was admitted to Cedars after suffering a heart attack, where he later died under mysterious circumstances. During the lengthy