“I worked primarily in boys homes,” he said. “My job entailed teaching or helping to teach social and independent living skills to ‘at risk’ youth with a variety of emotional, psychological and behavioral problems.”

At one time Jeff McCord was a mentor. He believed children without a chance in life deserved a role model who could show them that achievement was a state of mind. Success was there for everybody, regardless of class, race, gender or social standing. You could do anything you wanted in life. This had always been one of Jeff’s core convictions, on which he aimed to build his experience as a police officer upon.

“Cops, deputies and road troopers are in the best position to help people in need or distress,” Jeff noted. “Be it by direct action or referral.”

According to one of Jeff’s high-school teachers from Opelika, Alabama, a man who later became friends with Jeff’s mother, Jeff’s problems did not start until he met and married Jessica.

“I observed [Jeff] as he attended church from a young child,” Bobby Kelley, Jeff’s former science teacher, later noted. “After he left home, I became acquainted with his mother, and close friends [with her] a few years prior to his involvement with Jessica.”

The Jeff McCord that Bobby Kelley knew and taught was “an obedient child,” Bobby said, “slightly introverted and very respectful of authority. He was an average student and average athlete. Although he was supported by his mother in his participation of sports, there was a noticeable absence of a father figure.” Jeff’s parents had divorced.

Bobby said there was no doubt Jeff was a “man’s man.” Jeff’s sexuality “or sensuality” was never questioned then, but there were observations and issues surrounding Jeff’s ability to bond with the opposite sex in a healthy manner. His fear of being rejected by a female he had “conquered” was likely, some suggested, one of the reasons why Jeff was easily influenced and controlled by Jessica. He had won her heart. To Jeff, that was the difficult part of the relationship—the challenge. Whatever happened afterward, whatever supposed hell he had to endure, was “the price” you had to pay in order to keep her.

“The way he changed after meeting Jessica was very strange to those of us who knew him,” Bobby remarked.

Looking over Jeff’s life, however, you could clearly see the correlation between the value he put on opposite-sex relationships and the choices he later made. Jeff’s mother was there for him—always. She had raised a great kid. Without a male role model around, it was Jeff’s mother who took him to baseball and football practices and cheered for him at the games.

More important to Jeff’s future relationship with Jessica, there was a “conservative presence that permeated through other things,” Bobby Kelley claimed, “like Jeff’s inexperience with the dating area of his life, and the indirectness he dealt with confrontation and, to a degree, allowing manipulation to occur [in order to] prevent conflict.”

Jeff had a “very healthy” relationship with his mother. He was allowed to grow, Bobby said, “and function without conflict” in the home. This is an important piece of a healthy upbringing. The idea that children learn to resolve disagreements in their lives with chaos is wired into their psyche at an early age. With Jeff, however, his character, or the impression of who he was as a young man, was never made that obvious or fully developed, Bobby Kelley speculated.

“If I have given the impression he was weak, that is not the case at all. He was able to function well on his own two feet. He had a . . . healthy communication with his mother during and after he left home.”

That all changed, however, after Jessica was introduced into the dynamic of Jeff’s life. Here was a dominating personality now taking over the role as authoritarian, in other words. Jessica was stronger than Jeff emotionally; she had been through more. If you believe Bobby Kelley’s version, Jeff was just happy to have someone love him.

It was when he started dating Jessica that the communication between Jeff and his mom deteriorated rapidly, Bobby said.

“I don’t want it to seem as if I’m saying that he left a dominant mother for a dominant wife. It wasn’t that way. [Jeff’s mom] is a strong woman, but [she] clearly wasn’t a dominant, controlling, manipulative person.”

Like Jessica.

Regardless, Jeff stopped responding to his mother’s phone calls after he and Jessica married. No doubt, Jessica told him not to speak with his mother before consulting with her first.

When he heard that, Bobby Kelley suggested to Jeff’s mom that she start sending correspondences to her son via the Pelham PD, bypassing Jessica altogether.

“It was during the time that [Jeff’s mom] was unable to communicate with [Jeff] that she called me,” Bobby Kelley said later. “The discussion was . . . that it would be very necessary to contact him at the [Pelham] PD, be it by phone or mail, to insure that [he] got the correspondence, whether he responded or not. I clearly told [Jeff’s mom] that was the best way to insure communication avenues were open and we both agreed that [Jeff] would not have to suffer the brunt of having to deal with his decision to communicate. So it was [Jeff’s mom] who initiated this activity with the desire to have a dialogue.”

And it was Jessica who put the brakes on it.

At home there’s no question Jessica monitored what was said between Jeff and his mother. She was keeping Jeff—same as she had with other people in her life—away from someone he loved.

Meanwhile, Jeff, instead of dealing with the conflict he knew it would cause between them, decided to go behind Jessica’s back and, on the surface, pacify her insecurities.

Jeff’s mother called the house one day. “He’s not here,” Jessica said.

“Have him call me,” Jeff’s mom demanded.

“Oh, I will. . . .”

But Jeff never called. When his mother finally did speak with him, he said he had never received the messages.

Jeff had a woman in charge of his life—one who felt threatened by the woman who had raised him. Jessica knew she could not control Jeff’s mother. This caused a transference of anger and put pressure on Jeff.

“I truly [know Jeff’s mom] feels that this factor played a part in the breaking of [Jeff’s] spirit by [severing] family ties, to which, I regret, he had to make so many emotional disconnections,” Bobby Kelley later said. “It is that point that led me to tell her that I felt [Jeff] was being manipulated to play her to get what Jessica wanted. And that, I expected, due to his passive nature, Jessica would or had learned the buttons to push to get [Jeff] to do whatever made her happy.”

Jessica was the puppet master, that much is clear. She told the man what to do and when to do it—and he obeyed her. Former friends and relatives all agreed: Jeff was in the same boat as many others who had to deal with Jessica over the years. You agreed with her so as not to have to endure her wrath. It was easier to oblige than face a monster.

Except Alan. Alan Bates wasn’t going to sit back and allow the woman to dictate his life, especially when he could or could not see his children. A line had to be drawn.

Standing with Jessica, watching all this attention being paid to his house, Jeff McCord thought about those moments when he valued the idea that his true calling was to help people in need. Now here he was, on the opposite side of that equation. His life had flipped over on him. The cops were chasing him.

“I grew up in the church,” Jeff commented. “It would be safe to say I have done my share of ‘backsliding. ’”

As Jeff and Jessica stood outside, Tom McDanal was on the telephone with Detective Laura Brignac, who had just finished interviewing Albert and Dian Bailey, as well as Jessica’s children. Brignac knew where the search needed to be centered inside the McCord house. The den.