“I’ll pay for their flights and your hotel room,” Philip announced into Jessica’s sister’s voice mail that week during one of his many messages, “if you can bring the children here for the service.”

The Bates brothers said Philip never got a call back.

Word was that Jessica’s sister had some sort of problem in her house and it had to be fumigated. So she and the kids stayed at a neighbor’s. She wasn’t getting any of her messages. It was strange, bearing in mind all that had happened. Why wouldn’t she check her voice mail during such a critical period of time? But investigators from the HPD backed up this fact.

By Wednesday, February 20, the kids had no idea their father and stepmother were dead. No one had told them. Instead, the news was given to them about an hour before the Birmingham police arrived in Florida to pick the kids up and transport them back to Alabama. Once they arrived in Alabama later that night, the children were scheduled to meet with grief counselors. After that, they would stay with an aunt and uncle.

“Jessica’s sister told them [that Alan and Terra had been killed], right before we arrived,” one investigator claimed. “Which we didn’t want done. They still had to ride with us back to Alabama. We wanted them to at least have that ride back without having to think about it. But that was not the case.”

29

One of the first things Jessica did during the spring of 1997, soon after giving birth to Brad Tabor’s child, was summon him to court for child support. She was able to convince a judge to issue an order in the amount of a whopping $800 a month—nearly double what Alan was paying for two kids.

It was a paycheck. Between that and the money Alan was sending her, Jessica had the potential to collect almost $1,200 a month.

“She did whatever she had to do to get a free ride,” an old friend said. “Everybody who knows Jessica will tell you this.”

Everyone did.

Brad couldn’t pay, so he was not involved in the child’s life in any manner whatsoever. Sara (pseudonym) was born and Jessica took her home and Brad was not allowed to see the baby. At one point Jessica had Brad arrested for not paying child support. He was tossed in jail. Brad, in the meantime, proved to the court that he couldn’t afford such a high amount. So the judge reduced the monthly debt to $463.

And guess what? Brad was able to swing it.

Before the second order was issued, Brad had no legal rights to his child. Jessica had made sure she controlled that end of things. Brad, however, was able to renegotiate the child visitation portion of the order and, heading into late 1998, convinced the court to back him up.

Still, the court’s ruling meant little to Jessica. On top of that, Brad admitted later, he was afraid to go see his child.

“Personal-safety issues,” he admitted in court. “After conferring with my family and my attorney, it was advised that it wasn’t a good idea for me to be alone with her (Jessica).”

What was it that sparked this sudden fear?

Brad’s attorney found out Jessica had put Alan in the hospital. Jessica showed up at Alan’s apartment to drop off the kids one day and instigated an argument with him. Before she left, she hit and scratched him, then pushed him down the stairs.

“His face was bloodied,” a friend of Alan’s later said.

“She messed him up good.”

One of Alan’s friends was there, as was Alan’s mother, Joan. They were terrified. Jessica was wild and crazy that day. There was this look in her eyes: hate.

Jessica ran outside after the attack, but for some reason she didn’t leave.

The cops came. Jessica was all scratched up herself. “See what he did to me!” she told the cops.

The police figured out that Jessica had actually rubbed her body against a brick wall outside to create the appearance of cuts so she could blame Alan.

In addition to a battered face with deep nail scratches, Alan broke his arm during the fall.

This time he wasn’t going to mess around; he filed charges.

When Brad heard about the incident, he didn’t want to find out what else Jessica was capable of. Nonetheless, Brad tried to maintain a relationship with his daughter. But no matter what he did, no matter how many times he called, Jessica found a way to sabotage it.

Brad was talking with Jessica on the phone one night. According to him, he could hear Sara in the background, “Let me speak to Daddy, Mommy. . . .”

Jessica became enraged. She absolutely despised the idea that the child wanted to even know her father.

“You hush, Sara!” Jessica snapped, according to Brad’s version of the call. “He doesn’t want to speak to you.”

“Come on, let me talk to her.”

“Never!”

By the beginning of 1999, Jessica was working for the Birmingham Police Department as a clerical secretary. The job, however, wouldn’t last long, as Jessica lived up to her reputation as being lazy and disobedient. Not long after she attacked Alan, the BPD fired Jessica, citing her continued absence from work on top of, one letter noted: the attack on Alan. A termination message sent by the chief explained what happened, pointing out, You went to the home of your ex-husband and you admitted you hurt him. . . .

With no income coming in, save for the child support she collected from both men, Jessica needed more money. Near February 1, 1999, Jessica sent Alan a bill purportedly from SHR Incorporated, a contracting firm. On top of the bill, Jessica noted that she would soon be sending Alan all of the bills for the house and for dance lessons. It was Alan’s responsibility to pay half of the Montevallo house repair costs and all of the dance bills for the girls. The list Jessica sent was long. According to the invoice, both hot- and cold-water pipes had burst inside the house, insulation underneath the kitchen had been destroyed, several “emergency calls” to plumbers ensued, and there were outdoor water pipes leaking. The place was falling apart. The total to fix everything, the invoice claimed, was $1,700. Alan needed to send his half immediately, Jessica warned.

Frank Head, Alan’s lawyer, did some investigating. No one trusted Jessica. She was shady and a known liar.

Sure enough, Frank Head could find no such listing for a company named SHR. So he dashed off a letter to Jessica, explaining the problems with the bill. He said that after reviewing the statement from SHR she had sent to Alan, he could find no address or telephone number on the invoice. In addition, the invoice failed to provide the dates the work was completed. Head encouraged Jessica to provide original invoices so they could confirm the work with SHR themselves.

Frank Head never heard from Jessica about the bills again.

Alan was enjoying what could be considered a somewhat normal life. He had a decent job. He had met and fallen in love with Terra. He was working with Frank Head to get Jessica on the right track with visitations. His life was heading upward.

A direction—he came to find out—that infuriated Jessica even more.

Part of it was, whatever Alan had, Jessica wanted. It was a sport to her in some respects. She was all about keeping up with the Joneses. For example, Alan bought a brand-new Acura. Jessica went out and bought the same model, same year, same color, even though she couldn’t afford it. The only difference in the two cars was that Alan’s was a two-door; hers was a four-door, most likely because she couldn’t find a two-door model.

“That was a big issue with her,” said Naomi. “She had to have the exact same car, right down to the color.”

Naomi had trouble keeping track of Jessica and the children. Jessica would drop the kids off at Naomi’s, who loved to watch them. Naomi and her husband were McKenna and Sam’s godparents, so it was like having their own children in the house. With Alan’s life thriving, Naomi could hear the resentment and festering hatred building up in Jessica’s voice whenever she got herself going on about Alan. Naomi and Jessica talked one day and Jessica blurted out, “Alan missed another visitation.”