'90 New Yorker Problem

Looking for any help anyone might be able to offer.

Have a '90 NewYorker that recently had the battery go completely dead.
Replaced the battery. New one went totally dead inside of 24 hours.

Went to fuse block under hood and found that the fuse labeled "REAR WINDOW
DEFROSTER" showed a SHORT to ground. So, I removed it to get the car
running temporarily. Good news is, it worked.

Bad news is that when it was removed, interior lights (dome) went out.
Power windows and locks quit. So did SOME of the dash stuff, especially
radio.

One week later, I decided to troubleshoot further. Replaced the under-hood
fuse, and went looking in the interior fuse block for where the trouble
might be.

When you pull DOME LIGHTS fuse, the short goes away. But when you do this,
all KINDS of strange stuff seems to happen. I fully expected JUST the dome
lights to go away. But it also takes out the MANUAL control of door locks
(they still work fine when the ignition is ON, and they work "automatically"
as always when the car exceeds 15MPH or so). But the door locks DO NOT work
when ignition is OFF. It also takes out the radio (again).

Today, my daughter was driving the car, and she reports that the window
switch on the driver's side "started smoking" and sizzling. It quit -
but.....

What's going on here? Any ideas of how to fix, short of ripping the whole
harness out? Is it as simple as replacing the full set of door switches???

Thanks in advance for any help.

Bill