WMG / Step by Step

Karen drove her stepsister, Al, to suicide in the episode "It Didn't Happen One Night"

Not only does Karen refuse to stand down increasingly vicious rumors about her stepsister, Al, being "easy" and having sex with half of the school, she joins right in ... jealous at the very thought she merely might be having sex with more boys in school and is more popular than she is. When Al tearfully tries to stand up for herself in the hallway, Karen goes on a tirade about Al, saying some incredibly vicious, hurtful things: She is annoyed at her voice and she is even more disgusted with her as a human being, a stepsister she never asked to have or was asked for her opinion and wishes she'd go away forever. Al can't believe her ears, and a huge shouting match ensues before the principal comes to stop it. Before Al can be taken to the office to calm her down, she runs out of the school, having had a psychological break and gone crazy, tearing off her red sweater (to reveal just the plain white T-shirt underneath. Al runs home, rushes upstairs and locks herself in the bathroom, ingesting as many pills as she can find in the medicine cabinet. Later that afternoon, Dana comes home and needs to use the bathroom and finds it locked. She frantically knocks on the door when she gets no answer and has Rich help get her in ... only to find Al lying on the floor, unconscious and showing little signs of life. Dana screams in horror and, as Rich rushes to a phone to call 911, tries everything to see if there's any signs of life. There are none, and Al fades away before the paramedics arrive. Later, when everyone is home, only Karen is sitting in the living room, sulking because she had a hot date planned that night and is pouting that she has to be there to greet family and friends in a time of mourning, and refusing to understand that it was her words that drove Al to suicide. Even at the funeral, Karen refuses to grieve, sitting there stir crazy as she can't wait to go out on another date with another popular jock! And she never gets it ... that she is a mean, cruel, stuck-up bitch who said things that drove her own stepsister to her death at age 17. Al, meanwhile, is the hottest girl ever to lie in state at the funeral home and — buried in a plain white T-shirt and blue jeans — buried at the Port Washington Cemetery.