Karen Hopple

Karen Hopple is a fictional psychiatrist and a minor recurring character featured on the FX Network television series American Horror Story. She appeared in the season nine storyline, "1984". Played by actress Orla Brady, she was introduced in the premiere episode of the season, "Camp Redwood".

Biography
Doctor Karen Hopple was a psychiatrist and worked at Red Meadows Asylum in California during the early 1980s. She worked for a hospital administrator named Art. One of Hopple's most infamous patients was Benjamin Richter, aka "Mr. Jingles", who had been committed after being arrested for the gruesome deaths of nine campers at Camp Redwood in 1970. Richter underwent electro-shock therapy early in his treatment, which robbed him of memory of the events.

Richter remained in captivity for fourteen years, and in all of the time that Hopple worked with him, she was never able to get a word out of him. Another psychiatrist, and serial killer enthusiast named Donna Chambers came to Red Meadows in the hopes of speaking with Richter. Hopple and she spoke at length, and Hopple warned her that would likely get very little out of Richter.

As it turned out, Donna Chambers' main motivation was to set Benjamin Richter free. She gave him instructions on how to stage the break-out, which included triggering the emergency release switch on all of the other patients' rooms.

The night that Richter escaped, Hopple was in her car when she noticed all of the other patients wandering around outside the hospital. She conferred with Art, who informed her that Mr. Jingles was free.

Suspecting that he might return to Camp Redwood, Karen drove there to speak with the current owner and survivor of the 1970 massacre, Margaret Booth. Benjamin Richter found Doctor Hopple just outside the camp. He stabbed her in the neck, then cut off her ear as a souvenir.

Notes & Trivia



 * Karen Hopple is the third actual murder victim of Benjamin Richter. She is Richter's first female victim. He previously killed an unnamed hospital orderly, and a gas station attendant named Ed.


 * Karen Hopple fills a roll similar to that of Sam Loomis from the Halloween film series. Both were charged with treating unresponsive (alleged) murderers, and both were present when a patient outbreak occurred at their respective places of employment.

Appearances

 * American Horror Story: Camp Redwood
 * American Horror Story: Mr. Jingles
 * American Horror Story: Slashdance