Maude Pearson

Maude Pearson's History

Life and Death

Maude constructed and owned Pearson Arms, the apartment complex in which she and her son Dennis lived in until 1946. Maude exhibited excessive over-protective behavior of her son, and when Dennis fell for a woman and told his mother he would be leaving her to live with this woman, Maude tied him up and placed him inside a space in the apartment before sealing him in with a brick wall constructed by herself to keep him from leaving her. Shortly after completing the new wall, Maude suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving Dennis to slowly die with both their spirits trapped between worlds.

Haunting

Years passed and as new tenants of the apartment arrived, each of them were tormented by Maude's poltergeist, who saw any woman as the representation of the one that Dennis would have left her for.

Maude was bound to the emotions that she felt at the moment at her death, stuck perpetually in that persona, unable to move on with the lack of closure that may have occurred following her sealing away her son, and before her abrupt death.

While haunting the apartment, Maude was presumably responsible for the cause for the suicides of residents Margo Dressner in 1959, Jenny Kim in 1965, and Natalie Davis in 1994.

With the assistance of one of Doyle's connections, Cordelia Chase signed a lease to rent and became the new tenant in Maude's apartment. Soon after moving in however, Cordelia was tormented as each tenant before her. Despite Cordelia's perseverance to keep the apartment, Maude's psychological torment made her emotionally break down.

Banishment

Maude finally attempted to kill Cordelia by luring her into the apartment by mimicking Angel's voice on an answering machine. Maude tied a piece of wire on Cordelia's neck to simulate suicide but she was then saved by Angel and Doyle who tried to exorcise Maude out of the apartment. The hitman Griff then burst into the apartment along with two fellow hitmen, angering Maude as she didn't want more people. She killed one of his men before forcing Cordelia into the bedroom to torture her some more.

Maude told the weak and desperate Cordelia to make a noose from the bed sheet. However, after calling Cordelia a "stupid, little bitch", Cordelia regained the self-esteem and confidence she had in high school, stepping up to Maude and telling her "the bitch is back", and yalled at her to "get the hell out of her house". This display of confidence dispelled Maude's manifestation and stripped her of her power. With her control broken, Dennis' ghost took the opportunity to temporarily possess Cordelia in order to break the wall in which his corpse rested, still bound. Maude saw Dennis' remains and finally came to terms with what she had done. A guilty Maude pleaded with Dennis that she did it for his own good but the furious spirit of Dennis roared and burst into Maude, obliterating her presence.