John Clemens

John was an employee of Umbrella, and operated as the head researcher of the Arklay Laboratory; a top secret laboratory built beneath a mansion façade.

Biography
Due to his position, Organization operative Ada Wong was directed to seduce John to gain access to research data relating to the Tyrant virus. The plan succeeded, and John soon developed a relationship with Ada, taking it exceptionally seriously.

John was known to have had some involvement with Umbrella HQ, as Ozwell E. Spencer personally assigned him to hide the Imitation of a key in a place "where no one could find it", an order that he fulfilled by making the groundskeeper hide it in the collar of one of the mansion's vicious dobermans likely used to guard the estate.

In exchange, John offered to get him in return "a certain item he had always wanted to get hold on", but both the item or if he ever received it, remains unknown.

When James Marcus unleashed the t-virus upon the Umbrella facilities in the vicinity of Raccoon Forest, including the Spencer Mansion, John; along with all other Umbrella personnel, became victims of the virus and John turned into a zombie in the following Mansion Incident. John wrote one final letter to Ada, instructing her to take the evidence of Umbrella's experiments and expose them to the public. She never read the letter because she was not in Raccoon City at the time.

Ada kept a picture of John with her during her Raccoon City mission. Ada later learned of John's death through researcher Annette Birkin during the Raccoon City outbreak. Annette was also able to find a relationship between Ada and John through her knowledge of John's computer password; Ada.

Trivia

 * In S.D. Perry's novelisation of Resident Evil, John is given the surname "Howe". It should be noted that the S.D. Perry novels have their own separate canon outside of the games, and should not be used as fact when referring to characters in the games.
 * In Resident Evil: The Official Comic Magazine, also non-canon, John is given the surname "Fay".
 * In the file "Letter of a Researcher" featured on the Resident Evil 15 Minutes Demo, the surname of John is instead Clemens.
 * John's last name is not mentioned in the Resident Evil Archives, though his identity as the man assigned by Spencer to hide the imitation key is confirmed on another page.
 * It can be assumed that John was either one of the countless zombies killed by Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine or was killed when the mansion exploded due to the self destruct sequence set off by Rebecca Chambers.
 * Jon appears as "John Marcus" in George A. Romero's unproduced Resident Evil movie script, and is killed in the opening. His relationship with Ada is maintained.
 * He was to be a supporting character in the original version of Resident Evil 2 but was scrapped.