Origin

In 1983, Jerri Bartman, working under the name Jerri Butler, was an alcoholic reporter who burned a lot of bridges. After being sexually assaulted by her co-anchor of a big Cleveland market show, she was fired by executives that blamed the whole thing on her drinking. She was currently on her last chance journalism gig thanks to her brother, Ben, who ran a news station. She was doing puff pieces on local interests, but when she got drunk and tried to trap the manager of a Renaissance Faire in a lie, she made a fool of herself and the station. Ben could no longer afford to keep her on as a field reporter but also didn’t want to see her out on the street. So, he gave her the only job he could: to play horror host, Count Crowley, introducing horror movies and vamping between commercials, since the original actor stopped showing up.

Creation

Jerri makes her first appearance in Count Crowley: Reluctant Midnight Monster Hunter #1 by actor David Dastmalchian and Lukas Ketner

Her working name as a reporter was "Jerri Butler."

Major Story Arc

Her First Show

After her first night as Count Crowley, Jerri was attacked on the way to her car by someone looking for the original Count Crowley, Rich Barnes. The man was a werewolf named Steven, who intimated that Rich was helping him with his transformations. She narrowly escaped, but no one believed her because of her drinking. She decided to investigate Barnes on her own. He lived in a creepy old booby-trapped house that Jerri reluctantly broke into. She wasn’t the only one though. She was confronted by a zombie-like creature called a billatombia, or billy for short. She made another narrow escape in her car with Rich Barnes’ cat, but everyone continued to write her off as drunk rambling.

With no one else to turn to, she goes to a local nursing home to talk to Vincent Frights, Rich Barnes’ predecessor. Despite passing his witch test, Vincent had little faith in Jerri’s abilities. Regardless, she forced him to spill his guts. Demon heads and their monster armies have been plotting vengeance on unsuspecting humans, and Vincent and Rich were among the chosen to stand against these threats as the “Appointed,” of which there are no women.

Unhappy with that answer, Jerri stormed off with a stolen book of secrets and eventually demanded answers on how to kill monsters. Vincent eventually relented, telling Jerri about billy’s and how Rich was investigating a sect of vampires that were targeting media outlets. Worried her brother would be targeted by the local billy, she took a special weapon from Vincent and went to his defense. Jerri found the billy among the costumed applicants for a new Count Crowley. While her brother was indisposed, she cut billy to pieces and watched him reduce to dust.

She committed to attending A.A. meetings if Ben let her keep the Crowley job so she could continue investigating monster attacks.

Werewolf Problem

At one of her addiction meetings, Jerri came across Steve the Werewolf. He was a recovering drug addict who was doing meth with a werewolf named Crystal. He begged for Jerri to kill him before he could hurt anyone else, but first Jerri had to go back to Vincent and pry out how to kill werewolves from his misogynistic ass. He explained that Jerri would need to pry open the wolf’s jaws and cut out his tongue to end the curse and the life of the infected. When she showed up to Steve’s house to carry out the deed, she was attacked by his ex-girlfriend, Crystal, which she got to test the killing method on. Impressed that Steve never willingly became a werewolf during her fight with Crystal, Jerri thought he deserved a chance at a cure.

Vincent was unwilling to help Steven though. Instead, he pointed Jerri back to Rich’s house so that she could retrieve his ancient texts before the vampire sect showed up to raid his library. Jerri was able to locate and secure them but still crossed paths with Hubert Shagad, a slick TV exec looking for Rich that she got a bad vibe from. She tried to warn Vincent, but his mental decline was particularly bad. Instead, she hit the texts looking for a way to kill vampires, which Vincent says doesn’t exist. According to him, you can only subdue them by ripping out their still beating heart and burying it far from their body.

Jerri goes to a nearby hunting store to prepare but is interrupted by a call from Steven. He is freaking out about his upcoming transformation, and, like a good sponsor, she tried to get him to a meeting. However, when she went looking for him, she was attacked by Hubert. He tried to use his mesmerizing eyes on her, but it didn’t work, proving that Jerri was in fact “appointed.” Then, his heart was ripped out by Steven in his werewolf form. As a reward, Jerri agreed to keep Steven chained up at night in her basement until they could find a cure.

Unfortunately, when she came from work the next morning, Rich Barnes, the original Count Crowley, finally returned and killed Steven for her.