| Richard Nealon | |||||||
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| ''The Young and the Restless'' | |||||||
| First appearance | Mar. 26, 2021 (mentioned) Apr. 9, 2021 (photo) | ||||||
| Profile | |||||||
| Alias(es) | Rick (to Victor) | ||||||
| Gender | Male | ||||||
| Died | 1988 | ||||||
| Occupation | Newman accountant (formerly) | ||||||
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Richard Nealon is the father of Amanda Sinclair and Hilary Curtis, who was first mentioned on March 26th, 2021.
Storylines[]
During college, he met Naya Benedict and got her pregnant. He never knew about his twin daughters and was killed in a car crash about a year after they were born. Years later, his daughter Hilary was killed in the similar action as her father in a car accident. Three decades later, new evidence came to light that Naya's father, Sutton Ames, had arranged for his death and was supposedly responsible for the car crash. A reporter named Bruce Stansfield uncovered that Richard's breaks had been cut, so there was definitely some foul play involved, whether Sutton was behind it or not.
Believing that Sutton was innocent, Naya asked Amanda to represent him in court and sent her the facts of the case. Apparently, Richard had gotten a job at Newman Enterprises after graduating from college. While working there, he found out that Sutton had bent the rules to help the company bypass a zoning law for their commercial real-estate deal. In exchange, Newman Enterprises sent political donations to the Ames family. Both parties involved wanted to keep the arrangement a secret, but Richard was ready to expose them. Amanda theorized that someone from Newman Enterprises would have equally strong motives and could be behind Richard's crash instead. She eventually agreed to take the case and a box of files was sent to her hotel room. Included was a photograph of Richard, and Amanda got emotional seeing her father's face for the first time.
On April 16th, Amanda met with Sutton and Naya at Society to discuss their defence strategy. Amanda had done some digging into Richard's past and found he'd had a mountain of student debt. She theorized Richard could have tried to blackmail the Newman executive for the funds in return for his silence. Naya saw how that would give the murderer a stronger motive for causing Richard's crash. Sutton commented that this would paint Richard in a bad light and wondered how Amanda was handling this recent development about her birth father. Amanda seemed determined to stay professional and not let her emotions get in the way of building a strong case.
Still, Amanda had some reservations about throwing Richard under the bus, and on April 27th, she reviewed her father's history with Devon. Richard had been born near Indianapolis and graduated from Wheaton with a business major in economics. Shortly after, he went to work for Newman Enterprises in accounting. Bruce Stansfield, the reporter who discovered that Richard had been murdered, claimed that Richard had known about the scandalous Ames-Newman deal for quite a while before his death. Richard had plenty of opportunity to tell someone but didn't. Was he merely afraid of losing his job if he blabbed? Or was he waiting for a payoff from the Newman exec? It was impossible to know for sure, but Amanda's goal was just to cause reasonable doubt. Since Richard could have potentially blackmailed his bosses, Amanda could shift blame to the Newman execs.
On May 7th, Sutton met with Amanda again in her hotel room. After going though the evidence against Sutton, Amanda focused her attention on Richard and asked what kind of man he was, to get a better picture of his mindset. Sutton didn't know much and said that Richard was a bit self-centered, based off of what he'd heard from Naya. This didn't fit with Naya's previous description of a charming, funny Richard. Sutton also claimed he had never met the guy and couldn't confirm whether or not Richard knew about Naya's pregnancy. Dissatisfied, Amanda resolved to speak with Naya again about Richard. Then she assured Sutton that his case was her priority, despite her eagerness to learn more about her birth father.
On May 21st, Amanda filled Devon in on the latest news about Richard. The legal team had uncovered Richard's day-planner, which contained some enlightening info. Shortly before Richard's death, he'd had two meetings with Victor. This was rather unusual for a low-level accountant who was fresh out of college. Furthermore, records showed that Richard had stopped working at Newman after these meetings. Amanda thought it was because Richard had been fired after attempting to blackmail Victor. However, this couldn't be further from he truth. When Amanda went to see Victor at Newman Towers to question him, she learned the true story. Richard was desperate for some help and had heard about Victor's past at the orphanage. As it turned out, Richard had known about Naya's pregnancy, but not that she'd had twins. Determined to find his child, Richard turned to Victor, who put him in contact with a private investigator. Then Victor gave Richard a leave of absence from work so he could focus on his search. Victor told him that his job would be waiting for him whenever he came back. Amanda was stunned by this revelation and lamented later to Devon how different her life could have been if Richard hadn't been killed. She and Hilary could have been raised together by their father. She vowed to bring his murderer to justice.
Amanda got in contact with Denise Tolliver, the private investigator who had helped Richard all those years ago. On May 31st, Amanda and Imani met with Denise to confirm Victor's story and find out more. Denise remembered Richard clearly and everything she said lined up with Victor's version of events. In fact, Denise had succeeded in finding the child's foster parents and had given Richard their contact info.
On June 7th, Amanda introduced Denise to Devon. Amanda explained that Denise had been getting ready to retire, but had taken a personal interest in Richard's case. Fortunately, Denise had saved all her notes from when she had helped Richard. She was able to get in touch with the Lewises, Amanda's foster parents. Denise had brought all of Mrs. Lewis' files to Amanda in the hopes that they would provide some clues. Before leaving, Denise lamented how she wished she could find Richard's daughter to let her know how desperate he was to find her. Later, after going through Mrs. Lewis' old calendars, Amanda discovered that Richard had scheduled to meet with Mrs. Lewis, but was killed before he got the chance.
On June 23rd, Denise sat down with Amanda and Devon at Crimson Lights to share her recent findings. Denise had dug up a bunch of old phone records, showing that Naya had spoken with Richard shortly before he died. The records also showed that the phone call had lasted at least five minutes. This proved that Naya had lied about having no further contact with Richard after their breakup. Amanda later confronted Naya and demanded the truth. Naya eventually explained that Richard had called for help finding his daughters. Naya reiterated that she had no idea how Richard found out about her pregnancy, or how he knew she'd had twin girls. But it seemed that Richard had gotten suspicious, when Naya had disappeared from college abruptly, and had tried to find out why. Naya revealed that Richard had been more in love with Naya than she'd been in love with him. He'd been insulted and disgusted when Naya had offered him money in exchange for his silence about the twins. There was no way Richard would abandon his daughters for a bribe.
It was finally revealed that Sutton had arranged Richard's death after all.