Don Craig and Roman found Marlena's patient Eugene Bradford's apartment walls covered with newspaper clippings about the strangling deaths in Salem. When Eugene kidnapped Marlena at knifepoint, Roman and Don rescued her and Eugene confessed to the killings. However, the killings and harassing phone calls continued even after Eugene was committed to the psychiatric ward of the hospital, proving he could not have been the killer.

Roman and Marlena continued to grow closer. They went to Mazatlan, Mexico, on a romantic vacation together after the Salem Strangler case had been closed. After their trip, Roman asked Mickey to have his missing wife Anna declared dead so that he would be free to marry Marlena. (Roman and Anna had met in a library; she disappeared three months after their wedding.) He then proposed to Marlena.

Coincidentally, Anna Brady suddenly showed up in Salem, saying she was back to divorce Roman and to leave their four year old daughter Carrie with him. Anna explained her disappearance and long absence by claiming that she had been forced into white slavery. Roman and Abe harbored doubts about her story. Roman came to believe Anna, however, when he happened to see scars on her back from the beatings she endured. Anna hid the fact that she had multiple sclerosis.

Roman and Anna did divorce, and Roman and Marlena returned to Mazatlan in late November of 1982 to celebrate.

Anna went to work for Tony Dimera as his secretary. For a million dollars, Anna agreed to help Tony's father, crime lord Stefano Dimera discredit Roman. She hypnotized little Carrie, who then planted deposit slips in Roman's apartment to make it appear that he was accepting bribes. He was called before a hearing board, found guilty, and suspended from the force. Roman was incensed when he learned how Carrie had been used and he vowed revenge. The ISA (International Security Alliance) believed Roman wasn't on the take. Stefano's plan and failed and he focused his energies on destroying Roman.

Roman and Marlena's wedding poem:

"That is the true season of love
When we believe that we alone can love
When no one has ever loved so before us
And no one will ever love in the same way after us.
~Goethe"

Trivia Tidbit: Roman's younger brother Bo gave the newlyweds a microwave oven as a wedding gift.

Marlena was witness to a murder and admitted that she had seen Roman at the scene of the crime. Although Abe was forced to arrest his friend despite Roman's vehement protestations of innocence, Marlena stood by her man. Alice Horton made donuts laced with drugs that simulated the symptoms of a heart attack. When Roman ate the donuts, paramedics arrived at the jail. Then Alice helped block the road so that Bo could help Roman get away and find the real killer. Roman ended up saving Anna from a warehouse fire and she teamed up with him as well.

Carrie, who was in Salem with Marlena, broke her arm and was knocked unconcious when she fell on some ice. Roman snuck into the hospital to see his daughter, but a Salem police officer spotted him and reported him to Alex Marshall.

Roman made it look like he had been killed in an explosion. During his memorial service, he reavealed himself to Marlena and several others but he had to stay out of sight until he proved his innocence, so he hid in Eugene Bradford's basement.

When Marlena told Roman that she was pregnant, he insisted she leave town, but Stefano, who planned to have Marlena killed, found out. He captured Roman but allowed him to escape, knowing that Roman would try to save Marlena. Chaos ensued and Stefano's car plunged into the icy waters of Salem's harbor following a pursuit by Roman and the Salem police. The bodies of Stefano and his driver Petrov were never recovered.

In 1986 Marlena tried to help newcomer John Black regain his memory. John's familiarity with Stefano made some people speculate that he might in fact be Stefano. Marlena however realized that he could be her presumed dead husband Roman. John fell in love with Marlena and he bonded with Carrie. On August 22, 1986, Marlena and Roman renewed their vows at St. Luke's church.

Marlena was abducted by Orpheus, a former ISA agent. Clues led Roman, Steve, Bo, Hope, Shane and Kayla to Stockholm, Sweden, where they found Marlena. Orpheus planned revenge. He planted a bomb in the Brady home and Roman watched in horror as it blew up with Marlena inside. A memorial service was held shortly before Christmas.

Roman learned that Marlena was still alive and being held prisoner by Orpheus. He got to the airport where Orpheus had boarded a plane. Before Roman could save her, the plane exploded with Marlena on board. Roman killed Orpheus.

In 1987 Roman became involved with Diana Colville, but she feigned a relationship with Victor Kiriakis to get incriminating information about him. To keep her from marrying Victor, Roman kidnapped Diana, who then admitted to him that she was only marrying Victor in order to help her mother Serena. When Diana learned that Serena had been abducted and taken to Peru, Adrienne, Justin, and Roman went there with Diana, who had inherited her family fortune. When Roman and Diana were arrested in Peru, Roman revealed to her that Serena was working with Victor to swindle Diana out of her fortune. Justin and Adrienne helped Roman and Diana escape. Back in Salem, Diana moved in with Roman for her own protection.

Diana stole a Greek icon from a museum and Roman figured it out. They soon ended their romance but when Roman began investigating the Torres crime family, his life and Diana's became entwined again. When her life was threatened, Roman persuaded her to fake her own death. The Torres family learned about the deception and attacked Roman and Diana. They fled first to Japan, then to the Bahamas. After their return to Salem, Roman narrowly escaped death in a car bombing incident.

After this, he was plagued by vague memories and a personality change. He remembered a man named Orion, who had been his kung fu master. To get to the bottom of these memories, Roman agreed to have his sister Kimberly hypnotize him. She deduced that he had been the victim of post-hypnotic suggestion. Certain signals caused him to go into a trance-like state during which he became an assassin.

Roman began to suspect that Marlena was still alive, and believe that Stefano Dimera was behind it. Stefano kidnapped Carrie and held her and Orion hostage on a boat. Roman travelled in search of Carrie. Stefano put him in a trance and wanted him to kill the entire Brady family. Fortunately, Diana was able to shake Roman out of the trance before anyone was harmed, but not before Stefano escaped. Roman was forced to accept the fact once and for all that Marlena was really dead. He proposed to Diana, but their marriage was postponed because there was no death certificate for Marlena.

Jack Deveraux meanwhile had discovered that Diana had been married to Cal Winters and threatened to tell Roman unless Diana sold him her half of Salem's newspaper, The Spectator. She agreed. Even though Diana rushed her wedding to Roman, Cal crashed the ceremony. There was a crossfire of gunshots, and subsequently Diana learned that she had accidentally shot Roman, causing him to lapse into a coma. Overwhelmed with guilt, Diana left Salem, never to be heard from again.

Roman had a brief romance with a call girl, Yvette Dupres, who had been hired by Justin to pose as a baronness and seduce Victor. Victor managed to win Yvette back from Roman, and she soon agreed to become Mrs. Kiriakis.

In 1990, Roman's sister Kayla was falsely arrested for the murder of Marina Toscano.

His efforts to clear Kayla brought him closer to Marina's sister Isabella Toscano. Isabella, who had been suffering memory lapses, finally remembered that she had been the one who had killed Marina. Roman was forced to arrest her. When it was proven that the killing had been in self-defense, Isabella was cleared. She provided Roman with proof that Victor had been withholding evidence and he arrested Kiriakis.

In 1992 the Torres family kidnapped Bo. Roman went undercover and saved his brother. Roman and Marlena were reunited and resumed their lives in their home at 334 Sycamore Street in Salem.

Kimberly, suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder, had shot Roman while she was in one of her alternate personalities, Clare. After surgery to remove the bullet that had lodged in his brain, Roman recovered.

Marlena and John had an affair in 1993. She betrayed her vows to Roman on the very night he had planned a surprise anniversary celebration. Marlena became pregnant. When she had the baby, she named her Isabella, after John's now-deceased wife, and they called her Belle for short. Sami, who had witnessed her mother having sex with John, learned that Belle was not Roman's child. She kidnapped Belle and tried to sell the baby into black market adoption. John and Stefano's adopted daughter Kristen Blake recovered the baby and brought her back to Roman and Marlena. Stefano publicly revealed that John was Belle's father and Sami admitted to having tampered with the blood test results at the hospital. Publicly humiliated, Marlena moved in with Alice while Roman filed for divorce. Despite her pleas for forgiveness, Roman, bitter and hurt, left Salem to take a dangerous undercover assignment with the ISA, and was later believed to have been killed in the line of duty. In fact, Roman had fallen victim to a rare disease caused by the effects of chemical warfare and didn't want his family to see him die, so he sent word home of his own death in advance.

John ended his romance with Kristen and reunited with Marlena. They planned to wed by the summer of 1997 but Kristen brought the ceremony to a screeching halt by delivering a still alive but gravely ill Roman back to Salem. She had somehow located Roman and got him to come back to Salem by persuading him that Marlena still loved him. Roman told Marlena that he still loved her. He then went into cardiac arrest, but Marlena saved his life. He was brought to Salem's University Hospital and placed in ICU, then later recuperated at the Dimera Mansion. He would experience bouts of dangerously high blood pressure upon seeing John and Marlena together.

Stefano was back in Salem as well and had been arrested, but he had a trump card up his sleeve: He possessed a cure for Roman's sickness and presented John with an offer he couldn't refuse...the cure in return for a complete pardon from all his past crimes. John had no choice but to comply and Stefano was released to obtain the cure from a secret laboratory deep in the jungle. John, Kristen, and Hope followed him to his jungle compound to make sure he kept his end of the bargain. It wasn't long, however, before DiMera and his men locked John and Hope away. When the vial containing the cure was broken, Stefano sent John on a mission to get a rare tropical orchid, a key ingredient.

Despite her orders to stay behind, Hope joined John and together they navigated their way through a variety of obstacles on their quest for the rare flower. They swam, jumped, and hiked their way through the treacherous terrain and faced death on more that one occasion. In addition to the many natural hazards, the duo was forced to contend with the dangerous natives and poisonous creatures. John eventually reached the special orchid but the was clubbed on the head and captured by the natives. Hope was airlifted to safety and returned to the compound...empty-handed and alone.

In Stefano's company, Hope slowly began to remember her past at Mansion Blanche but the natives attacked and they were forced to evacuate. Hope convinced DiMera that finding the flower (and John) was his only key to a complete pardon.

Meanwhile, John escaped the hanging cage in which he was being held captive. He managed to reunite with Hope and the group but not before being shot with poisonous darts. The group left the jungle and Rolf concocted an antidote for John while they traveled back to Salem. Before they reached their destination, however, the plane went down!

Despite the odds, the group managed to arrive safely in Salem just in time to stop Marlena from remarrying Roman in the hospital chapel. The cure was made in time to treat Roman, Stefano was granted his pardon, and John was happy to return to civilization. Roman made a full recovery. After he recovered, he set aside his own feelings and stepped out of the way so that John and Marlena could be together.

Did you know that Roman's favorite ice cream is butter pecan?

Roman makes a great chili dog but is also known for his hamburgers at Brady-Horton family cookouts.