To hide something was the only answer the HPD could come up with. Jessica and Jeff were not providing any other alternative solution.

Zanzour found “gold-colored carpet” fibers near the base of the hearth of the fireplace inside the den. It was clear upon careful examination that the fibers did not match the carpet the HPD had removed from the den floor.

There was an old carpet somewhere, the HPD was now certain. That carpet needed to be located. It was probably loaded with trace evidence, and possibly even blood from the victims.

“Shelby County Landfill,” someone said. It was the closest dump site to the McCord home. Jessica, Jeff and Albert had admitted they had taken items to the dump that Saturday morning and the previous day. If the HPD could find the carpet, they were confident they were also going to find enough evidence to send Jeff and Jessica to Alabama’s death row.

“As I recall,” Jessica said later, “the carpet that was on the floor of the den went out with the trash.”

Standing outside the home, D. C. Scively examined the coffee table that investigators had taken from the den. There was a small stain—about the size of a dime—on one of the coffee table legs. In addition, there were smaller “stains” on the glass portion of the table. All of these appeared to be red in color.

Scively sprayed a few mists of luminol on the glass and table leg.

Waited.

It took a few seconds, but there it was: that fluorescent shimmer, like a child’s glow stick, exposing the blood of the recently departed.

23

Jessica alienated Alan from his children the moment he walked out of the house in 1994. One would have to assume that she believed if Alan had abandoned the marriage, why should she show him any respect where the children were concerned? He was the one who left. He had deserted them. He took it upon himself to leave. There had to be a price to pay for such a betrayal.

In the years to come, Jessica had no trouble expressing her opinions regarding Alan’s responsibilities as a father; and it was clear that from the moment Alan was out of her life romantically, Jessica’s goal was to make him look as bad as she could in the eyes of his kids.

Jessica didn’t last long in the apartment she rented after leaving the house in Montevallo. She moved back into the house once she realized Alan wasn’t going to be staying there. But even this act of hospitality on Alan’s part—he insisted Jessica take the house because of the kids—was later turned around by her malicious tongue.

“Alan moved into an apartment in Southside,” Jessica said in court, “and I was still in Montevallo at the time. And that fall [of 1994] and in the winter [of 1995], I came down sick. It was very, very cold in that house down there. I came down sick, and the kids were sick. And I just could not keep up by myself being sick with the two kids, so I went to stay with my mother.”

Jessica tried to give the impression that because Alan had moved out, she had a hard time paying for heat. Alan gave her money from day one. There is a long, multipage computer printout detailing every payment Alan ever made to Jessica. The guy never missed.

It’s clear Jessica needed to blame the people around her for anything that might have been even remotely considered her fault. She couldn’t take responsibility for a failed marriage and begin a new life. It needed to be someone else’s burden.

Friends became uncomfortable around Jessica as she routinely played the situation against Alan. Her whole life revolved around Alan. Everything was his fault. In front of the kids, she ranted and raved about Alan not paying her child support and not wanting to visit the kids.

None of it was true.

Bottom line: Alan gave Jessica more money than he had to. For example, Alan was paying Jessica child support even before the divorce decree was signed and sealed. Jessica took that money and spent it on herself, and then turned around and blamed Alan for not taking care of the kids financially.

Without being able to fend for herself and the kids as a single mom, Jessica moved into her mother’s house in Hoover, abandoning the house in Montevallo. Her mother and stepfather could help out with the kids. Dian was about to start a new job as an accounting supervisor for the child support enforcement unit at the family court. At the time Jessica moved in, Dian was a cashier for the collections office of the court.

The Bates divorce was finalized in January 1995. If she chose, Jessica could take the Montevallo house, as Alan promised, until the kids were adults. The Circuit Court for the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit of Alabama gave Jessica, under Alan’s complete blessing, the responsibility of the care, custody and control of the minor children . . . , the Bates divorce decree stipulated. Alan had no trouble relinquishing primary custody. Kids belonged with their mother. He was all for it. At the time Alan believed Jessica was a competent adult mother who could take care of her children. She would get over the breakup. She’d realize what was important. Despite the violent nature she displayed and the negative attitude seemingly festering inside her, Alan trusted she’d snap out of it and come to terms with the notion that their lives were now about raising the children. He had no idea what was spinning inside Jessica—or what was in store for him in the coming months and years. Nor did he ever presume Jessica was capable of the behavior he was about to meet up with.

No sooner had a judge signed off on the divorce did the real problems begin for Alan. He knew it was going to be a fight, but he had no idea how bad it would become. Jessica routinely kept the children away from Alan, allowing him visitation only when she said so. And even then, it turned into Jessica purposely keeping the kids away from their father.

They weren’t divorced a month and Alan was fed up. He was pulling his hair out, wondering what he had to do to see his kids. He’d call and no one would answer. He’d leave a message and the kids wouldn’t call him back. He’d ask the kids, when he finally got to see or talk to them, if their mother or grandmother had given them his messages and they said no. There were times, family members and friends later explained, when Jessica took things as far as sending the kids outside to sit on the front porch with their bags, telling them Alan was “on his way.” She would tell them this, knowing there was no scheduled visitation planned. After hours of sitting and waiting, Jessica would then call the kids back into the house, reportedly saying, “See, he doesn’t care. He’s not coming!”

Then came the men. Jessica hung around a popular local restaurant, J. Alexander’s, in Hoover. One night she ran into someone she knew. Barry Cyrus (pseudonym) was older than Jessica. “The first time I met her . . . she was in high school, I was in college,” Barry later said in court.

They never dated. Just friends, Barry insisted.

Now Jessica was giving Barry that eye, though—the look of a newly divorced woman out and about, prowling, looking for a man. She was going to show Alan that she didn’t need him. She could go out and find herself somebody else.

The more they hung out together as platonic friends, Barry noticed how much Jessica had changed since high school. Barry also noticed the way in which Jessica addressed the children, especially when she talked about Alan. It was always in a negative light. Alan was the bad guy. The evil one. The cause of all Jessica’s and the kids’ problems. She constantly said vicious things about Alan to the kids, undermining his role as their father.

“I had mentioned to her a couple of times where she would say some things kind of unkind about Alan in front of the children,” Barry said later in court.

“Try not to do that in front of the kids,” Barry told Jessica. He was unnerved by the way she spoke to them about Alan. It was not only uncomfortable and wrong, but it was having an ill effect on how the kids behaved and viewed life in general.