Editing The Edge of Night (section)

===The 1960s===
Mike later married [[Nancy Pollock]] ([[Ann Flood]]), a journalist who helped in many of his cases. Nancy had two siblings: Lee, who eventually married Geri McGrath, and Elaine (nicknamed "Cookie").  Cookie, was also involved in major story arcs. Cookie was married first to Malcom Thomas, who cheated on her, and then made her a widow. Later she married Ron Christopher, whose dealings with loan sharks affected Mike's good friends Louise and Philip Capice.

Other important characters were [[Chief of Police|Police chief]] Bill Marceau ([[Mandel Kramer]]), who was one of Karr's best friends and shared a tremendous mutual respect, rare between a defense attorney and a chief of police (perhaps because Mike had once been a police officer himself), Marceau's secretary (and later wife) Martha ([[Teri Keane]]), fellow attorney Adam Drake ([[Donald May]]), his client, then secretary (and later on, his wife) Nicole Travis ([[Maeve McGuire]]; [[Jayne Bentzen]]; Lisa Sloan), and wealthy socialite Geraldine Whitney ([[Lois Kibbee]]).

In one storyline, Nicole Travis (later, Drake) was victimized by two different women, Stephanie Martin ([[Alice Hirson]]) and Pamela Stewart ([[Irene Dailey]]), who both wanted Nicole gone but for different reasons.  Pamela was Adam Drake's ex-wife, and she knew Adam was falling in love with Nicole. She reasoned that Adam might return to her if Nicole were not there.  Although Stephanie did attempt to kill Nicole on at least one occasion (by poisoning her bourbon), she more interested in terrorising her in revenge for the deaths of her husband and daughter.  Stephanie's husband had borrowed money from loan sharks who answered to Nicole's gangster father. He could not repay the debt, so Nicole's father ordered his men to cut the brakelines on his car.  The whole family, including Stephanie, her husband, their son, and identical twin daughters Karen and Debbie were in the resulting accident, which only Stephanie and Debbie survived. (Debbie was struck dumb by the incident and was receiving in-patient therapy; while Stephanie unwittingly compounded the problem by calling her "Karen," thus making it clear she wished it had been the other twin who had survived.) Nicole's father was in prison, so Stephanie went after his daughter instead - gradually moving closer and closer, and eventually taking a job as one Nicole's two shop assistants. Stephanie was working late at the shop when she stabbed in the back, just as Nicole arrived to confront her - having learned earlier that evening that Stephanie was behind the threats on her life. Debbie, who had been sleeping on a window seat until just before the stabbing occurred, saw her mother on the floor with the dagger in her back and shouted "Pull it out! Pull it out!";<ref>{{cite book |title= Soap Opera Almanac|last=Lackmann |first=Ron| author-link=Ron Lackmann|year= 1976 |publisher= Berkley Publishing Corporation, New York |page=72}}</ref> which Nicole did. Thus, Nicole was accused of murdering Stephanie because her fingerprints were on the weapon; and Debbie was struck dumb again. Adam Drake defended Nicole against increasingly impossible odds, eventually realising that Debbie was the key to Nicole's exoneration. He had to find a way to make her speak again. Knowing Debbie had strong affection for the therapist who was helping her, he proceed to accuse the woman of being the killer. This proved to be the catalyst the restored Debbie's ability to speak again, to defend her friend. Adam then showed Debbie a picture of Nicole and asked if it was the woman who killed her mother and Debbie answered no. In a classic Perry Mason-like climax, Debbie was called to testify at Nicole's trial; and when asked on the stand if the woman who killed her mother was in court, she said "Yes. Her!" as she pointed to Pamela Stewart - who had killed Stephanie by mistake. In the darkness and because she attacked from behind, Pamela thought she was stabbing Nicole.