Seventeen-year old runaway, Dana Jones was first introduced to Dr. Rick Bauer, on July 21, 1989 at Cedars Hospital. Dana had run away to Springfield from her parents' home, in nearby Clayton, after she starting dating an older man named, Bruce Daly. Unfortunately, Bruce wasn't as good of a man as Dana thought and after Bruce was arrested for drug dealing, Dana found herself pregnant. At this point, Dana decided to get an abortion. Although Rick was not Dana's doctor, he was opposed to the concept of abortion and tried to counsel Dana about alternative options. As fate would have it, Dana soon miscarried the child, making the need or want for an abortion moot. Meanwhile, Rick thought that Dana looked remarkably like a friend of his from his high school named Beth Raines who had apparently been killed a few years earlier. Meanwhile, Dana's boyfriend, Bruce, had showed a picture of Dana to his prison cellmate, Alan Spaulding. Alan also saw the same thing as Rick Bauer saw: how much Dana looked like Beth Raines. Alan decided to hire Bruce, and by extension, Dana, to set up his son Phillip. After Bruce's sentence was up, he returned to town and quickly reunited with Dana. Meanwhile, Alan had the sleazy Bruce send Phillip anonymous ransom notes demanding a million dollars for Beth's release. Phillip convinced his younger brother, Alan-Michael, to give up his inheritance to pay the ransom. Alan's original plan was for Bruce to bring Dana along with him at a drop off point at Stoney Lake and meet Phillip and Rick there. Then Phillip would hand Bruce the $1 million dollars and Bruce and Alan would share the money as. However, Bruce started to become convinced that Alan wasn't going to live up to his end of the deal and share the $1 million dollars. W

When Roger Thorpe paid Bruce to pretend to be an F.B.I. agent and get a hold of the $1 million dollars instead, Bruce agreed. The only thing Bruce had to do, after being paid off by Roger, in this new scenario of Roger's was to leave Springfield for good. Later, at the drop off point, Rick was shocked when the woman who Phillip thought would be the very much alive, Beth turned out to be none other than Dana! Bruce had apparently convinced (or coerced Dana to go along with the scam) and Phillip really did believe that Dana was Beth! Rick tried to get his best friend to see that Dana wasn't Beth, but Phillip refused to listen and went ahead and left the money for Bruce. In the end, Bruce fled town and Roger ended up with the money.

In the middle of all this was Dana, who felt like she had been used. Despite her role in the scam, Rick felt sorry for Dana and offered her a place to stay. He also helped her overcome her drug dependency. Dana, of course, was grateful and even celebrated her first full month of being free by letting Rick take her out on a night on the town. However, Dana didn't really have feelings for Rick and kept on putting off becoming more seriously involved with him. Meanwhile, Rick did something else for Dana: he asled his former stepmother, Holly Norris Bauer Thorpe Lindsay, now part owner and manager of WSPR to hire her as an intern. Although reluctant at first, when Dana handled herself well during a crises in the control booth at the taping of WSPR's prized the talk show, "One on One" starring Rick's cousin, Johnny Bauer, Holly decided that Dana would be perfect and hire her as an intern in the control booth. At the same time, Frank Cooper also continued to develop an interest in Dana and Dana was starting to feel the same way. Unfortunately Rick was still pining after her so Dana needed to find away to discourage Rick. To do this, Dana made a pass at Rusty Shayne in front of Rick. Now, Dana was free to develop a relationship with Frank, and even ended up moving into Frank's garage apartment with him.

Not long after, Johnny found himself being a target of an obsessed fan. However, when his stalker destroyed his fiancée Chelsea's wardrobe on New Year's Eve, and later, almost killed Chelsea when a piece of lighting equipment nearly fell on top of her, Johnny realized that the stalker was targeting her! Almost everyone else at the station assumed it was an accident; but near the end of the show, the "obsessed fan" called with a warning to Chelsea that this wasn't the worse that was about to befall her. Johnny now knew that Chelsea was being stalked. By coincidence this was the same day that Frank and Dana first made love in his garage apartment and Dana was not at the station during the incident. Days later, the "fan" tried to run down Chelsea with a car and then later left another phone call at the station. Chelsea, who up to this point, refused to believe that she had a stalker, now believed Johnny's claim. During all of this, Rick and Rae Rooney became an item and one day, Rick and Rae visited Frank, while Dana was at WSPR's control booth. During the visit, an unidentified gloved hand was seen planting Chelsea's engagement ring, which had been lifted during the ransacking of Johnny's apartment and her belongings, in Dana's clothes. A day later, while Frank and Dana visited his mother, Nadine, Chelsea's engagement ring fell out of Dana's clothes. Later, a horrified Nadine secretly spied Dana imitating Chelsea. The following, after Johnny left Chelsea at a park gazebo, another set of hands attacked Chelsea with a sharp letter opener! Luckily, Johnny was able to stop the stalker, even injuring the stalker's hand slightly. Later Rae Rooney told Chelsea and Nadine, at Cedars, that she suspected that Dana Jones was the stalker and Nadine agreed.

The following week, Chelsea told Frank, at the Diner, that she was convinced that Dana was the stalker and was still after Johnny. Frank was certain that Chelsea was wrong. In fact he believed that Rae was her stalker, which Chelsea totally and vehemently disagreed with. However, very soon after their conversation, Frank would have a jolt that perhaps Chelsea and his mother were right about Dana. Frank went to see Johnny at this apartment and found the door wide open. Frank went in and, to his shock, saw Dana going through Johnny's stuff! Dana tried to tell a now suspicious Frank and Johnny, who showed up shortly after this, her suspicion that the stalker was Johnny's former girlfriend, Roxie Shayne. Of course, Frank and Johnny were now even more suspicious of Dana and Dana was upset that Frank was now eyeing her as the stalker. Very soon after, Dana told Frank they were over and moved out of his garage apartment.

Throughout the rest of February, Dana remained the main suspect in the stalking, especially since no one could find her after she left Frank's apartment. Matters weren't helped any when Dana called Holly and told her she was quitting and wanted to pick up her last paycheck. Holly tried to talk Dana into both staying in town and staying at the station, but Dana refused and stated that she would probably be returning home to her parents' house. Dana then called Chelsea and asked to set up a meeting. Chelsea reluctantly agreed and Dana set up the meeting in the garage parking lot of WSPR. While Chelsea was waiting, some gloved hands came from behind the back seat of Chelsea's car and took one of Chelsea's scarves and started choking Chelsea with it. Chelsea struggled with her attacker and was able to give the attacker a quick kneed with her hand to the abdomen and the stalker let go. Afterwards, Holly, Nadine and Frank found an unconscious Chelsea and took her to Cedars. Even more suspicions were raised about Dana when she then showed up at the garage apartment. Luckily, Holly and Nadine found Chelsea's scarf and it was taken to the police lab for analysis. Sure enough for everyone, Dana's fingerprints were all over Chelsea's scarf. Despite the fact that Chelsea admitted to lending Dana the scarf, which would explain the fingerprints, Dana was arrested.

A couple of days later, an unknown person posted Dana's bail. Dana assumed it was Holly, but Holly denied it. Dana then assumed that perhaps it was Frank, but she was too upset with him to ask. With all eyes on her as the stalker and seeming like there was no future in Springfield, she decided she'd go to WSPR to get her items and leave town for good. Suddenly, Holly told Dana that she still wanted Dana to stay as a control booth operator for a couple of more days. Dana reluctantly agreed to man the control booth during this planned on-air confrontation of Roger Thorpe, but told Holly in no uncertain terms that this would be her final day in both Springfield.

The day of the taping, as Dana went to the control booth she noticed that the door was open, which was not the way Holly normally left it. Dana proceeded cautiously, but, when she looked in, she saw a mysterious figure in a trench coat working the controls. The mysterious person was about to have a spotlight fall right on Chelsea! Dana confronted the person and got knocked away. Suddenly, Dana came face to face with Chelsea's stalker—it was none other than, Rae Rooney, Chelsea's supposedly good friend. Dana quickly went after the control booth again to get Rae's voice broadcast live on-air, while at the same time vocally confronting Rae. Rae warned Dana to stay out of it but Dana refused and told Rae she was tired of also being a victim of Rae's stalking. Rae got furious when Dana was able to reach around Rae and turn on the sound in the control booth to go out on-air and throughout the rest of the station's building. Rae quickly pulled out a gun out of her trench coat and started struggling with Dana, yet again. In the struggle, Rae had shot at and critically injured, Dana! Rae quickly left the control booth and sped away. Frank found the critically injured Dana in the control booth and Dana was able to tell Frank softly that she had been shot by Chelsea's real stalker. Unfortunately she was too weak to say the name and passed out. At Cedars, Rick operated on Dana and removed the bullet. Dana was placed in intensive care and was in a coma. Rick told Holly, Frank, Johnny and Chelsea that Dana had lost a lot of blood and didn't look good for her survival.

A devastated Frank begged Dana for her forgiveness for accusing her of being the stalker. Days later, Frank caught Rae in his apartment going through Dana's things. Rae was able to convince Frank that she was only there to fetch some of Dana's favorite things and to take them to Dana's room at Cedars. Later, Rae entered Dana's room and started to go after the machines helping Dana breathe, thinking she'd kill the one person who could identify her as the stalker by "pulling the plug." At that moment, Dana suddenly opened her eyes and saw Rae standing right next to her bed! Dana struggled, but could barely move. Rae just smiled and told Dana that she knew that Dana wouldn't be mean and tell anyone that she was Chelsea's stalker. Dana then went into a convulsive shock and had a heart attack! Rae left and ran away, shortly thereafter, as Dana's call button went off! When Rick and Lillian Raines rushed to respond to Dana's hospital room call button, with Frank right behind them, it was too late. Dana Jones was dead.