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Guest Character Profiles > Mandy Franze Kristy Best

Mandy Franze 2016

When the boiler blew up at Lassiter's Hotel, Paige Smith found herself being saved from the blast by a mysterious stranger, who she'd seen around the hotel complex earlier that day. The man fell into a coma and, despite the best efforts of Paige and the police, they couldn't find out who he was. When he woke up, he was suffering from amnesia, but Paige was determined to help him, happy to have found a distraction from her grief, with her half-brother Josh and grandfather Doug both having died in the explosion. Over the weeks that followed, John struggled to deal with what was happening, as he and Paige attempted to find clues to his identity. Their best lead came when they found someone who'd spoken to John and he'd mentioned Geelong, so they were there, and found a picture of John with another young man, Dustin in a hostel. As they arranged to meet with Dustin, it seemed that John was about to learn who he was, but when Dustin saw the police nearby, he ran off, leaving John convinced that he must have been involved in something illegal before his memory loss.

Paige and John were then in for another shock when a woman named Mandy turned up, claiming that she was his girlfriend. She told him that his name was Jason Jones, and that they lived in Geelong together and didn't really have any friends as a couple. She also explained that she'd been travelling, and he hadn't wanted to go with her, so she'd been surprised to return to Australia and find him missing. As Mandy revealed more and more small details of their time together, John was convinced that she was genuine and that he'd finally found a link to his past, but Paige was more suspicious, particularly as Mandy claimed that she'd lost her phone whilst in Africa so didn't have any photos of them together. After spotting Mandy trying to jog John's memory by kissing him, Paige became determined to prove that she was a fake. With Mandy planning to take John to Geelong, Paige realised that she had to act quickly and she took them some pizzas - knowing that John was allergic to pineapple, Paige tripped Mandy up, as she claimed that Hawaiian was his favourite. When John then asked her about a scar on his shin, and she said that he got it during a skiing trip, he realised that she'd been lying all along, as there was no scar. Mandy then admitted that she was just very lonely, and after bumping into John at Lassiter's before the explosion, then reading his story, she decided to try her luck with him. Before she left, John asked her if he'd said anything to her when they first met, and she said that he'd just been passing through the area, but had seemed very distracted, like he was looking for someone or something.