Just as Thomas decided to throw caution to the wind and propose to Hope on The Bold and the Beautiful, his controversial past came back to haunt him in the form of Xander Avant, a young man who believes that Thomas murdered young Forrester intern Emma Barber back in 2019 — but is Xander right?
Who Was Emma Barber?
Some newer B&B fans might be wondering just who was this young woman named Emma who everyone will soon care so much about as Xander hurls his accusations and Finn and Hope have to decide whether to believe them or not.
Emma was the niece of Justin Barber, Bill Spencer’s former confidante and right-hand man. She arrived in LA anxious to join the fashion scene and quickly got a job as a Forrester Creations intern working on Hope For The Future. That’s where she met Hope Logan, someone she had admired for years.
It’s also where she met Xander Avant, cousin to Rick Forrester’s then-wife, Maya Avant. Xander and Emma started a brief romance but trouble soon arrived in the form of his ex-girlfriend, Zoe Buckingham. Zoe was the daughter of Reese Buckingham, the doctor who stole Hope’s baby Beth and told her that Beth was dead. Steffy inadvertently ended up adopting Beth, naming her Phoebe after her late twin.
Within a few months, quite a few people were privy to the information that Hope’s baby was really alive and being raised by Steffy, including Xander, Zoe, and eventually, Thomas. At the time, Thomas was getting over the death of Caroline and adjusting to life as a single dad to Douglas. He’d also become crazily obsessed with Hope and wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of making her his wife and Douglas’s new mother.
Emma Barber’s Last Stand
When Emma overheard an argument between Xander, Zoe, and Thomas, she realized that Baby Beth was alive and drove off to tell Hope the truth after a confrontation with Thomas. Determined to stop her, Thomas got in his car and chased Emma as she texted Hope to tell her she was on her way.
Distracted while texting and driving, Emma finally noticed the lights of Thomas’s car tailgating behind her. She swerved to get away from him and her car fell over a cliff and into a ravine. When Thomas got out of his car, he looked down at the wreck and chose to do nothing to help, allowing Emma to take the Beth secret to her grave. (As we know, that secret came out a few weeks later anyway.)
Did Thomas Murder Emma?
After Beth was safely returned to Hope’s arms and Thomas’s role in keeping the baby’s identity a secret came out, so did his involvement with Emma’s death. The police ruled the crash an accident, clearing Thomas’s name.
Whether Thomas killed Emma or not became a hot topic in 2022 when Matthew Atkinson appeared on the YouTube show “Bold Live” hosted by show producer Casey Kasprzyk.
“They never made it clear whether Thomas pushed her [car] off the cliff or if she drove off the cliff because Thomas was chasing her. It would be interesting if in the future came back to bite Thomas in the butt,” Atkinson said, adding, “It’s a good lesson not to be on the phone while you’re driving.”
Hope already knows that Thomas had a role in Emma’s death, as does Steffy, but this is all news to Finn. Xander seems convinced that Thomas is a cold-blooded murderer and tries to make that case to Finn, a man who is already wary of his brother-in-law.
You can see the car chase that led to Emma’s death in the video below posted on the Bold and Beautiful YouTube channel. Tell us what you think. Did Thomas actually kill Emma Barber?
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