The Crow: Stairway to Heaven

A cop-killer is using women as bait. Extremely intelligent and malevolent, the killer kidnaps women, then waits to pick off any police who come to the rescue. Vincennes launches a verbal tirade against the killer's cowardice, vowing to use any means to catch him. When this message is televised, he becomes the target and his wife Karen (Patricia Harras) is kidnapped to provide the lure. The frantic Lieutenant brings his children Jason (Alex Pollack) and Libby (Lauren Zabel) to the precinct for safety and Albrecht persuades Sarah to help look after them. Meanwhile, Albrecht and Capshaw are doing their own digging and finally, with some empathic insight from Draven, piece together the awful truth. The cop-killer is himself a cop: Reid Truax (Anthony Michael Hall), from their own station, is known for violence. As a lowly patrolman, however, no one even notices him. Now he has lured Vincennes into his trap and Draven and Albrecht have to find them. The trouble is, when the vengeful Crow em

Aimless and guilt-stricken, Hannah/Talon (Bobbie Phillips) has been wandering the streets of Port Columbia when her spirit crow leads her to a distraught mother, Nancy Meyers (Stellina Rusich), whose infant daughter has just been kidnapped. Hannah decides to intervene but her brutal methods for extracting information from anyone who may have been involved awakens interest in the police. Draven, unaware of the havoc Hannah is causing and the trouble she is in, has gone to a special glade in the woods where he and Shelly previously spent time together. Shelly appears and, not sure if it's real or not, Draven loses himself in the wonder of being together again. Meanwhile, Capshaw is finally back on the job, but her nerve is gone. She was instrumental in getting Albrecht demoted but in an ironic twist, Vincennes asks him to keep an eye on her. He has his hands full though with two Crows on the loose. He plays back-up as Draven and Hannah rescue the child but Hannah takes off with the baby

A shadowy group of powerful men approach Draven with an offer he can't refuse - to reunite him with Shelly forever. Dr. Dorsett (Don Most) seeks Draven out, carrying an unusual offer from the Lazarus Group. This secretive consortium of powerful men smoothed the way for Dorsett's therapy license to be re-instated and he owes them a favor. They claim to posses advanced technology which will reunite Draven with Shelly and want to test it on Draven. Unbeknownst to him, the Lazarus Group is a secret society rumored to have been in existence since the time of the Druids, and their interest in him is anything but benevolent. The society is dominated by the physically frail but still intimidating Frederick Balsam (Mavor Moore) who holds sway not only over Judge Morrison (Jerry Wasserman), who unexpectedly released Draven from jail, but also over head scientist Dr. Jack Saks (Robert Wisden), and group member Steve Fentress (Terry David Mulligan). Draven agrees to the experiment, but once hooked

In shocking turn of events Draven is set free by Judge Morrison but life on the outside is still bleak. Albrecht has been demoted to a beat cop and Draven feels terribly alone without Shelly until he meets another Spirit Crow. Citing that the jury ignored his instructions, Judge Morrison overturns Draven's conviction and sets him free in a dramatic reversal of fortune. But a cloud of suspicion still hangs over Draven, and, because of his association with Albrecht, over Albrecht as well. As if that weren't enough, Albrecht's girlfriend Cordelia, leaves him. Adding insult to injury, Albrecht is demoted to beat cop and Capshaw assumes his desk in the detective division. Treated as a pariah by the public at the Blackout, Draven goes outside where he sees a woman demolish two strong attackers in an alley fight. To his shock, Draven discovers that, she, too, is a Crow. He befriends the angry, confused woman and helps her learn the truth about her former life. She was the happily married, suc

Eric has hit rock bottom. After four months caged in jail he is finally on trial for the murder of Shelly but is helpless to defend himself against the charges. His court-appointed lawyer, James Pearl (Jaimz Woolvett), won't believe the truth and is only sticking with the case because he believes it will jumpstart his career. Sarah is desperate to help but her mother refuses to let her take the stand. Even when Darla does relent, Sarah's testimony, far from helping, further damns Eric. Albrecht has his own problems. He is still under suspension, Cordelia has moved out and won't even speak with him and his ambivalence about what really is the truth makes it hard for him to defend Eric on the stand. As the evidence mounts, Eric is painted as a jealous lover who had his girlfriend brutally murdered then staged his own death. When Funboy takes the stand, claiming that Draven hired him then tried to blackmail him for the murder, Eric can't stand the lies and lunges for the thug, further dam

Desperate to open the loft portal and re-connect with Shelly, Draven dabbles in magic, unleashing a terrible force that even he may be incapable of overcoming. Desperately lonely, Draven attempts to re-open the loft portal door using ancient incantations. He believes he is successful when the door energizes. However, what emerges is not his beloved Shelly but the beast-like, evil force of executed serial killer Richard Lee Wilbanks (Lawrence S. Smilgys) who has been waiting for an opportunity to return and wreak vengeance on everyone who saw him die. He easily overpowers Draven, who loses his regenerative powers in the devastating fight. When several of those who were present at Wilbanks' execution are violently kidnapped, Detective Albrecht and his new partner, Capshaw, are assigned to the case. Draven confesses to Albrecht that it was he who unleashed this terrible force and when Cordelia, who was an Assistant D.A. at Wilbanks' trial, is also kidnapped, the rift between the two men s

The loft portal has vanished and despite his frantic efforts, Eric Draven can't connect with Shelly. Desperate to help him snap out of his profound depression, Sarah suggests he go to a psychiatrist for hypnosis. Under Dr. John Dorsett's (Don Most) care, Draven regresses into a former traumatic life, as a Native American called Blackfeather. Draven's alter ego had just as troubled a past as the present incarnation. Although he found his soulmate in a missionary's daughter who defied the wishes of her controlling, bigoted father to be with him, Blackfeather was murdered. He then returned to rescue Rebecca Morgan (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Shelly Webster) from the men who killed him and then threatened her. To Sarah, sitting in on the session, it seems like Draven is out of his mind; however, a Native American Masters' student, Jane Cogo, confirms that the dialect Draven is speaking is genuine. Draven can't come out of hypnosis, however, and Blackfeather seems stuck in the now

Draven is furious when he discovers that a young woman has assumed Shelly's identity. He tracks her down but during their confrontation realizes that she has taken the alias to escape from the Mob, which has already killed her husband. Draven's intervention unwittingly exposes her to her pursuers, forcing him to save her from becoming their latest victim. Along the way, both Draven and the woman, Antonia Scanlin, are able to find that rare friend of the opposite sex who can understand how deeply in love they were with their dead partners. Draven cannot yet move on to re-unite with Shelly, but he can help Antonia to her heart's desire.

A day at the carnival with Sarah brings Draven closer to Shelly when he meets a teenage trance-medium who may be unwittingly involved in murder. A day at the Carnival brings back painful memories for Draven of one of his first dates with Shelley. At the fair, he and Sarah stumble across a young trance-medium whose handlers claim he can channel dead spirits. Jesse (Brendan Fletcher), a sad, exploited teenager, actually has the powers he claims. He connects with Shelly who has a message for Draven -- that he must continue to ""set things right"" as a way of finally clearing the slate to allow the two of them to be together. Draven thinks he has found the means of reaching Shelly always, but the contact is short lived. Jesse is being exploited by his handler Doc (Gerard Plunkett), who uses him as a meal ticket to identify ""marks"" in the audience for robberies. When one of those robberies results in murder, Detective Albrecht turns his attention to Jesse, who seems to have predicted the kill

In the Land of the Dead, Shelly meets a young woman, Elise Franklin (Ingrid Kavelaars), whose fiance has been framed for her murder. Draven, meanwhile is about to be evicted from the loft he and Shelly shared when she communicates the injustice to him. The loft is obviously a link-point between their two worlds and must be saved at all costs. Detective Albrecht, who has formed an uneasy alliance with Draven, advises him to ""get a life and pay the rent,"" so when India Reyes (Julie Dreyfus) offers him a job at the Blackout Club, he agrees. Draven sets out to find justice for Gil Hedges (Peter Fleming) and expose the real murderer, the dead woman's father, John T. Franklin (Donnelly Rhodes). After Draven establishes Hedges' innocence, Elise is freed to move on to the Light and asks Shelly to join her. Shelly, however, isn't ready to leave -- she is waiting for Draven.

A year after being murdered by a gang, Eric Draven comes back from the grave. He can't figure out if he's alive, or dead, and doesn't know why he has returned. Meanwhile, he is haunted by the memories of his murdered fiance, Shelly.