Jessica sat quite lucid during her evaluation, demonstrating normal eye contact, the report noted. She showed no “unusual mannerisms,” and did not exhibit any odd gestures or facial expressions. In fact, doctors observed, Jessica appeared quite normal, with the exception of her tendency to—you guessed it—lie.

“Have you ever had any suicidal ideation . . . ?” one of the doctors asked Jessica at some point during the evaluation.

Jessica thought about it. “Not as an adult,” she said, then broke off into a story from her childhood, adding, “but between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, I did.”

“How so? Could you explain further, please?”

Jessica smiled. “I almost overdosed on Benadryl.” Then, a while later, “And [drove] a car off the road.”

The doctors weren’t buying it.

In the same psychological report, one wrote: She never required any medical attention and these should only be considered as gestures and judgment, if indeed they ever occurred.

It was as if Jessica made up conditions, ailments and problems as she went along—illnesses that seemed to suit her needs at the time. According to the evaluation, the three doctors agreed that Jessica came across as quite manipulative and self-ser ving. . . . She seems to be somewhat immature in her personal development and judgment but she had at least average intelligence.

“She is the absolute queen of manipulation,” an old high-school friend said.

There was no stopping Alan. Everybody around him knew the marriage to Jessica was wrong. Maybe even doomed. But friends and family could do nothing but support his decision and admire the guy for taking on the responsibility of being a father to his children.

One woman was hurt by the end of her friendship with Alan. All because Jessica would not allow them to speak to or see each other. It was a bit easier for this particular friend because she had moved away to another state to attend college. So the temptation to want to see and hang out with Alan wasn’t always there.

And then Alan called one day. It was a total surprise. “Listen, I . . . I . . . Jessica said it’s okay that we talk. And I really want you to see the kids.”

Alan’s friend was both appalled and excited. She didn’t know what to say. She was back home on a break from school. Of course, she wanted to see Alan’s kids. She and Alan were like cousins, brother and sister. She wanted to enjoy and share every bit of happiness Alan had in his life.

“But,” Alan said, “Jessica wants to bring them over to see you. She wants to talk to you.”

Jessica showed up at the woman’s parents’ house. They sat on the couch together. Jessica had failed to bring Alan. This first conversation was going to be just woman-to-woman.

“Here, hold the baby,” Jessica said with that fake smile she had all but mastered by this point.

Alan’s close childhood friend didn’t know what to make of this.

“Basically, Jessica sat there and told me that she was going to ‘allow’ us to be friends again.”

Jessica had once taken anything Alan’s friend had ever given him—cards, stuffed animals, photographs, gifts, mementoes of their childhood together—and discarded it all in the trash because she wanted to wipe her out of Alan’s life.

By the time Alan and Jessica were raising two kids, Alan worked full-time, while still managing a jam-packed schedule of classes. With that, Jessica milked her role as the stay-at-home mom, using the excuse of being young and strapped for money and home all the time as a means to drain Alan of any energy or serenity the man had left over.

Kevin Bates liked to spend time with his older brother and nieces whenever he could. He loved the children, of course, and was often driven to Montevallo on the weekends by his parents or Alan to help his brother work on the house. One weekend Alan made plans with Kevin to do several repairs to the front porch, which was in a state of rot and ruin. The two of them could knock it out on a Saturday and Sunday. Alan had a day off that weekend. He had been working himself ragged with school and a construction job. Just to hang out with his little brother and do some work on the house would be great.

Hammers. Nails. Laughs.

Man stuff.

But Jessica decided she needed to “sleep in” on Saturday. When Kevin showed up, Jessica went right at him and asked if he would watch the kids for her while Alan worked on the porch by himself.

“I’m not well,” Jessica said, playing it up.

“Sure,” Kevin agreed reluctantly. It was disappointing. He had so much looked forward to hanging out with Alan.

Jessica, Kevin explained, was well aware of that.

“Sorry about her,” Alan said to Kevin, who sat in the living room, keeping the children busy, while Alan worked out front. “I’m really sorry. I’ve been trying to get her to get out of bed. But I’m not having much luck.”

It was a recurring problem, expanding by the day. Jessica was getting lazier and more withdrawn, not wanting to do anything.

“It’s okay,” Kevin said. He understood.

“All she does is sleep, or want to sleep.”

Kevin took care of the kids most of that day while Jessica slept.

“Whenever she could,” Kevin recalled years later, “Jessica took advantage of a situation. She saw an opportunity that day and took it.”

Alan never played into the drama of his wife’s supposed “ailments.” He internalized a lot of what bothered him about Jessica, realizing that bad-mouthing his wife or complaining about her behavior was not going to do anybody any good. It certainly wasn’t going to help her or solve the problem. Part of Alan believed that it was a postpregnancy phase of depression Jessica was going to snap out of at any time. She would wake up one day and be an adult and a loving wife who wanted to participate in the marriage and raise the kids on a level compatible to Alan’s busy lifestyle. Alan believed in her. She would want, someday, to work together with him to raise their family.

Inside the theater department of the university, there was a cot and an area where, at times, Alan slept. As much as he wanted to comfort his young wife, he just couldn’t take her some nights. It got to a point where the idea of going home was too much to handle. He and Jessica, as the year 1993 came to an end, were having more problems. She was not getting better. Or so it seemed. Alan didn’t know what to do. Was Jessica playing this game for attention? Was she truly ill? Did she need psychiatric help? He was willing to get her the help she needed, but enough was enough.

Something had to be done.

By the time Jessica sat and talked to three psychologists in 2003, she’d given birth to five kids: two with Alan (one of whom she’d later say wasn’t his), one with a guy she met after Alan, and two with Jeff Kelley McCord. Not that having children is a crime, but Jessica seemed to blame the way her life had turned out on her own childhood, and then on the men she dated and later married. It was always somebody else’s fault. She claimed her marriage to Alan began to suffer problems when Alan “wanted her to sleep with his friends.”

It was an outrageous lie. So far removed from the person Alan proved himself to be. Jessica offered no proof whatsoever to back up this claim. It went totally against the grain of what Alan stood for and believed morally. What was more, every one of Jessica’s and Alan’s friends claimed otherwise: Alan had done whatever he could to save the marriage, while Jessica had done whatever she could to see that it failed.

If what Jessica said is true, and there was always a fine line between fantasy and reality, truth and lies, where Jessica was concerned, she had no ethical teaching growing up. Jessica was raised in Hoover, in the same house her mother, Dian, and stepfather, Albert Bailey, lived in at the time Alan disappeared and was found dead. The neighborhood was the same as any other middle-class locale in Hoover. Not a bad place to live out your formative years as an Alabamian. Yet, even though Jessica later said she hardly recalled much of her first five years, she claimed her life was nothing more than a wild, unstable and terribly abusive ride. She said her mother was constantly running away from an offensive, violent husband, a man locked in a perpetual pattern of destroying lives.