How General Hospital's Josslyn Ended Up With Nelle's Kidney
Josslyn Jacks was born on-screen on "General Hospital" in 2009, though that date was modified since the character has been rapidly aged into a young adult played by Eden McCoy since 2015. Josslyn was born to legendary "GH" character Carly Corinthos Jax (Laura Wright), and her husband at the time, the wealthy Jasper "Jax" Jacks (Ingo Rademacher), per Soaps in Depth. The girl's life has been marred with drama since her birth — Claudia Zacchara tried to kidnap her as a newborn but was stopped and killed by her older brother Michael— but one of the scariest moments for her family was when she was diagnosed with kidney cancer as a toddler in 2011.
The doctors informed Carly and Jax that Josslyn needed an immediate kidney transplant or she would need to undergo chemotherapy. Carly refused to put her young daughter through such difficult treatment so she became determined to find an organ donor. She ended up going to her best friend Jason Morgan (Steve Burton) whose young son Jake had just been hit by a car and pronounced brain dead (via the Los Angeles Times). Jason and Carly were able to convince Jake's mother Elizabeth Webber (Rebecca Herbst) to donate his kidney to Josslyn and her life was saved.
However, several years later everyone would come to learn that nothing about the situation was what it seemed.
Carly began the search for Josslyn's donor
In 2015, it was revealed that little Jake Webber (James Nigbor) was alive and well and had been held captive by the insidious Helena Cassadine for four years as part of a plot to inflict pain on Luke Spencer, Jake's grandfather who believed he was responsible for the boy's death (via Soaps in Depth). After Jake was rescued by his former step-father Lucky Spencer (Jonathan Jackson), Josslyn and her family realized that he couldn't have been her kidney donor.
Josslyn's mother Carly began a search to find the person who gave up an organ to save her life. Soon after, Joss' father Jax returned to Port Charles from his home in Australia and tried to convince her to give up the quest (via Soap Central). Not to be deterred, Carly enlisted the help of Nina Reeves (then Michelle Stafford) to post an ad in Crimson asking the donor to come forward.
Meanwhile, Jax was acting shady and taking secret phone calls leading some to believe that he knew something more about Josslyn's transplant than he was letting on. Not long afterward, a young woman named Nelle Hayes (Chloe Lanier) showed up in Port Charles claiming to be the mystery donor, setting off a chain of events that nearly destroyed several lives.
Jax purchased Nelle's kidney for Josslyn
Nelle Benson showed up on Carly Corinthos' doorstep in 2018 claiming to be Josslyn Jacks' kidney donor after seeing the ad in Crimson (via Soap Central). Initially, Josslyn's family was skeptical and wanted to protect her from any potential harm and so they forced Nelle to complete a DNA test which confirmed that she was in fact the donor.
Nelle explained that when she was child she'd been heavily medicated and informed by her parents that she needed a surgery to make her well. Following the removal of her kidney, she spent the next several years dealing with complications that caused her severe pain. She also revealed that her parents had suddenly come into money after her procedure. Josslyn's family questioned Nelle's motives for trying to contact Josslyn and she said that reading her story had helped her realize that what happened to her had saved someone else's life and had helped her to let go of her anger.
When the question came up of how Nelle's kidney had made its way to Josslyn, Jasper Jacks was forced to admit that years earlier he had contacted Carly's deadbeat adoptive father Frank Benson to help him find an organ to save Josslyn's life (via General Hospital). Frank was always hard up for money and had extensive criminal contact so Jax asked him to procure a black market kidney in exchange for one million dollars. Though everyone was furious with Jax for his subterfuge he maintained that he believed the kidney had come from a willing donor who was paid for their sacrifice and that he'd never expected a young child had been manipulated in such a heinous way.
Nelle's ulterior motives became clear
Josslyn Jacks immediately bonded with Nelle Benson upon meeting the person who had saved her life (via Soaps in Depth). Though the family embraced Nelle after confirming her story was true, they soon learned that she had an ulterior motive for coming to have. It was revealed that Nelle was the daughter of Frank Benson, Carly's adoptive father who had abandoned her, and when Jax asked him for a kidney he had offered up his own child to be butchered.
In reality, Nelle still harbored anger toward Josslyn's family for what happened to her and especially toward Carly who she felt had abandoned her. Though Carly maintained that she had no knowledge of Nelle's existence, the younger woman claimed that they met once in Florida when Carly hit up Frank for years of back child support before coming to Port Charles. Nelle viewed Carly as the older sister who had left her to suffer with their abusive father while she was off creating a fabulous life for herself.
Nelle's vendetta against Carly continued and only got worse. She ended up getting involved with Carly's son Michael Corinthos (Chad Duell), switching their newborn son with a dead baby, leaving Michael to grieve their child while he actually was alive and being raised by Brad Cooper and Lucas Jones (via SoapHub). Fortunately, the family learned the truth about little Wiley's parents and were able to get him back. In 2020, after an altercation with Carly, Nelle slipped off the edge of a cliff and fell to her death, ending her reign of terror against the family that was never truly hers.