It was during the summer break of 1988, Alan heading from his junior to senior year, that he met Jessica Callis, a local Hoover girl. Jessica was every bit the polar opposite of Alan. On paper they should not have clicked. However, they seemed to get along and shared several things in common (what, exactly, no one really could pinpoint, even years later). Jessica grew up the oldest of three children in what was a broken home, over in the Whiting Road section of Hoover. According to Jessica years later, violence was one way to solve problems in the Callis household. Sure, the family sought solace in God’s word on Sundays in the form of the Edgewood Presbyterian Church on Oxmoor Road in Birmingham. But it was obvious the values preached from the pulpit by Pastor Sid Burgess must have gone in one ear and out the other of big daddy George Callis. There were beatings, Jessica later claimed, on top of openhanded slaps that left red marks and bruises; a week hardly went by without her parents getting into some sort of heated confrontation that ended in her mother crying, her dad taking off to go get drunker than he was already.
Jessica was a third-generation Edgewood Presbyterian churchgoer (though she rarely attended services as she grew older); her grandmother was a member of the church for some sixty years. “One of the saints of God’s Kingdom,” Pastor Burgess said of Jessica’s grandpappy in one of his 2002 sermons. Jessica’s mother, Dian, was the church treasurer at one time. Dian’s second husband, Albert Bailey, was “an active elder” on the council of the church. It was inside Edgewood that Jessica was baptized and given the Christian name Jessica Inez, after her grandmother—a name Jessica would use for the rest of her life whenever asked.
The church—or religion, in general—was one of the fundamental differences Alan and Jessica shared. As Jessica later put it, “Alan was brought up in the Church of Christ, which is not my, I mean, it’s Christian but, you know, the basic tenets are different than mine.” Edgewood was more of a “liberal church,” she said. “And the whole theory, different views on how girls should be treated, especially within the confines of the church. And I disagreed vehemently with [Alan’s] family on that. . . .”
And so it would seem, at least in the realm of schoolgirl crushes and teen romances, that as “an item,” Alan and Jessica would have not made a good match. Still, all that piety and good living was the social, public side of life Jessica led as a child. Living inside her home—keep in mind, this is according to Jessica herself—was a bit like stepping down into the fires of hell every day. And in that sense, unbeknownst to either of them, Alan and Jessica were like two magnets trying to stick together. Kids from vastly different upbringings, with vastly different values and vastly different views of life, trying to come together.
A positive and a negative.
Sparks.
Nevertheless, Alan saw something in the young, auburn-haired girl with the cute smile, pudgy cheeks and boisterous, look-at-me disposition. Jessica was no knockout, like the more popular girls in school Alan could have snapped a finger and took out, but she had something. Maybe a twinkle in her eye Alan was attracted to. A flare for life. A subtle vulnerability. Perhaps a calming voice that made him feel at the same time both comfortable and defenseless.
Whatever it was, Alan liked the package.
Marley Franklin, who was hanging around with Alan every day during that period when he met Jessica, later said, “Jessica hated my guts.”
As soon as she transferred to Shades Valley, Jessica made sure that people noticed her. Jessica did have a subtle beauty about her in high school; she stood out. Still, she craved and almost demanded attention.
“She latched onto Alan pretty quick, pretty hard and heavy,” one old friend said. “She loved the fact that [Alan] was a ‘band guy.’”
As Jessica and Alan became closer, Jessica pulled Alan aside one day and told him, “You stop hanging out with [Marley]. You never speak to her again.”
It was about control. Jessica was stepping in and taking charge of Alan’s life.
Marley got an uneasy vibe from Jessica and felt she and Alan were headed for trouble. Still, to Marley, Alan could make his own choices; he was a brother, not a lover. Marley wanted nothing to do with him romantically, or “in that way.” Then again, it was unnerving for her that this new girl in Alan’s life was telling him what people he could and could not hang out with.
“I got a really bad read of her,” Marley said. “I mean, everybody that knew her got a bad read of Jessica. You could just tell she carried with her a negative energy.”
It was like a cloud, former friends said. An aura about Jessica.
Perhaps Jessica fed a wild side of Alan that he rarely ever allowed to come out. She was aggressive. She was “different.” Heck, Jessica was more than willing to put out.
“She was fun,” said a former high-school classmate, “you know, and I am sure that was appealing to Alan.”
14
Williams and Vance had a ring to it, maybe like Cagney & Lacey. The only difference being that Bureau agent Kimberly Williams and MCSO investigator Sheron Vance were focused on catching a real killer. A double murderer, in fact. Or pair of murderers. There was nothing Hollywood about any of that. Two people were dead. Two fine human beings had been shot and their bodies burned. Two families were now trying to understand what had happened. Trying to deal with this loss.
The ripple effect of murder—how it spread out so far and wide.
Forever.
Vance and Williams stayed in town on the night of February 16, 2002. They knew the answers to their questions regarding the murder of Alan and Terra Bates were most likely going to be found in and around the Birmingham region. Both had a feeling Alan and Terra never made it out of Birmingham alive. The Bureau was certain the crime scene was somewhere in town—not Georgia, which was, Williams said, clearly nothing more than a “dump site.” Convincing the HPD of this was going to be a bit more complicated, Williams and Vance considered. HPD investigators still weren’t sold on the idea that Alan and Terra were murdered in their jurisdiction. After all, Alan and Terra could have met their demise somewhere along the road between late Friday afternoon in downtown Birmingham and early Saturday morning in Rutledge, Georgia. There was over two hundred miles of roadway and wilderness separating the two places. Anything could have happened. And until it was clear, Williams and Vance were sticking around to see it through.
Contacted the previous night while bowling, HPD detective Laura Brignac got to the station house first thing the next morning, February 17, 2002. Detective Tom McDanal explained to Brignac that there was a lot to do. Interviews. Tracking down basic information. Canvassing. Checking out cell phone records. Computers. Keeping tabs on the McCords, who seemed to be moving from one place to another. Writing up search warrants. Studying what type of evidence the Bureau was processing and seeing how it fit into what the HPD was uncovering in Alabama.
Brignac was the perfect fit for the job. She grew up in a town of about forty thousand, so there was that shade of the small-town Southern belle in her demeanor; yet she understood the nuances of the big city. She was the middle child of three girls. Brignac had studied sociology and earned a master’s in counseling and guidance from, of all places, Alan Bates’s alma mater, the University of Montevallo. Her main focus in school, and later in life, became children and families—troubled juveniles, specifically. Brignac worked at various shelters with probation officers dealing with kids who ran away from home. She wanted to help. She wanted to make a better life for kids who never really had a chance. After college she went to work at a group home for children. Working there, Brignac became friends with one of the HPD’s juvenile officers who brought kids to the home. One day the juvenile officer called Brignac to say good-bye. “I’m getting married and moving to St. Louis.”