The Edgewood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham was buzzing with talk after Jessica’s arrest. Many relatives from her mother’s side were members of the church. The pastor, Sid Burgess, focused much of his Sunday, February 24, sermon on “fellow parish member” Jessica Inez Callis Bates McCord.

The title of the sermon spoke to the church’s reaction to the charges against its member: “Still ‘Open-Hearted, ’ Still ‘Open-Minded.’”

There was going to be no judging going on inside the walls of Edgewood. Jessica was going to be given the benefit of the doubt.

“Right here, right now,” Burgess preached from the pulpit that morning, “this congregation has been rocked on its very foundation. . . .”

Burgess then explained how murder charges had been brought “against one of our own.” He called Jessica a “third-generation member.” He spoke of the “headlines” in the newspapers and the “highlights” on television. He mentioned how Jessica’s family had been pillars inside the Edgewood church community for “almost sixty years.” He asked parishioners, after listing all the health problems Jessica’s family had endured throughout the years, to be there, as the church itself would be, for Jessica, Dian and Inez, Jessica’s grandmother. The “embarrassment, the pain and agony, now the anguish of a daughter and granddaughter charged with a capital offense, we, their brothers and sisters,” he shouted, pumping his fist, “must also share.”

The pastor next poeticized how Jesus had taken up His cross. Then asked those who believed in Him to stand by His side, follow and do the same for Inez, Dian and Jessica.

Unity.

Jessica’s church family was a devoted group of Christians—no doubt about it. Pastor Burgess spoke of how, during the week leading up to that Sunday’s service, he thought perhaps he could “duck” out of talking about the case “up here in the pulpit.” But after seeing the effect the news had on church members during the week, crying for Jessica’s “innocent children,” coming together and “openly weeping” for Dian, Inez and Jessica, there was no way he could deny his flock his shoulder. So he decided to take the difficult path and confront the issue head-on.

“How can a pastor not at least try to address such heartfelt pain?”

“Open-Minded, Open-Hearted” was this church’s slogan. Local television cameras showed file shots of the building during the nightly news—and there was that recognizable bumper sticker from the church with that so-familiar slogan plastered on the back of Jessica’s vehicle as it was towed away by the police.

By the end of his impassioned and compassionate sermon, Burgess said that while the “larger community” was prepared to “give up on Jessica McCord,” God was not. Even if she was to be ultimately found guilty, he explained, “we know God has a history of redeeming murderers.”

Ending the sermon, he compared Jessica to Saul on the road to Damascus, and recalled how Jesus was able to convince this onetime Christian basher and nonbeliever to drop everything and follow Him.

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The first the public heard regarding details of the crimes came during a probable cause hearing, on Thursday, April 4, 2002. There was one witness on hand to lay out the state’s case against Jeff and Jessica McCord—Detective Sergeant Tom McDanal.

During the hearing McDanal called Albert Bailey a “suspect” who had not been charged yet. The theory was that Albert had helped Jessica and Jeff cover up their crimes by willfully and willingly dumping evidence.

The murders were a family affair, apparently.

Jessica’s court-appointed attorneys argued vehemently against the treatment their client had received since charges were filed. They even hinted at the notion that one possible defense might be police misconduct, citing the notion that the Hoover PD did not have probable cause to search the McCord home. They also suggested that “Jeff McCord’s position as a police officer influenced Hoover investigators.”

“Someone made the McCords a suspect even before there was a body found,” one of Jessica’s defense attorneys said. Then, at one point, Tom McDanal was asked, “Was there acrimony between your department and his department? Did the Hoover Police Department have any problems with a police officer from another department living in your jurisdiction?”

“No,” McDanal said in his terse, matter-of-fact demeanor. It was preposterous to think that police officers would go after another cop like that, especially with two people dead and an investigatory clock ticking. Moreover, the bodies of Terra and Alan Bates had been recovered almost first thing that morning.

The attorney asked about other suspects—why, for example, had the Hoover PD failed to explore other leads?

“It was pretty obvious we were on the right track,” McDanal said.

Judge R. O. Hughes ultimately agreed with the prosecution ; there was sufficient evidence to send the case to a grand jury.

After that, the notion of Jessica’s health came up. After all, she was pregnant again. She had not been lying about that little detail. By now, she was starting to show. Neither she nor Jeff had a history of violent crime convictions (save for that little attack on Alan that had caused him a broken arm). Her attorneys wanted to see them both out on bond. It was only fair.

“She is at a great risk of losing the baby,” her lawyer explained.

Roger Brown argued against this, making his point quite clearly, if not candidly. “This is a potential death penalty case. [These were] vicious, brutal killings. These are dangerous people and they need to stay in jail.”

The judge considered both arguments.

“Bond denied.”

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It did not take long for Jessica to cause problems from behind bars. In an almost relentless manner, she sent Judge R. O. Hughes letters. Long, tedious, accusatory and—well, in the end—pathetic diatribes describing the conditions of her imprisonment and the fact that her court-appointed attorneys were acting extremely unethical, she wrote. Jessica demanded that her legal team be replaced: I cannot work with them. She accused them of asking her to commit perjury [and] injure another client of theirs.

As they headed toward the end of 2002, it appeared that Jessica and Jeff were going to be tried together the following year, 2003. The Hoover PD was still working on Jeff. Roger Brown’s crack investigative team was trying to break the fallen cop, hoping he might cut a deal. Then the focus could be put exclusively on Jessica.

Jessica was not going to back down. She was in this for the long haul. She told anyone who would listen that she was innocent. She was going to prove it when she had her day in court.

Pregnant, Jessica was scheduled to give birth in the neighborhood of mid-to-late September. She and Jeff’s case was transferred to Judge Virginia Vinson’s Tenth Judicial Circuit Court in downtown Birmingham. Vinson, a stunning middle-aged woman with short brown hair and a charming smile, was fairly new to the chamber. She had been a Criminal Division judge since January 2001. A graduate from Samford University and the Birmingham School of Law, Vinson had nineteen years in private practice behind her as half of Wilkinson & Vinson before taking on the thankless job of criminal court judge. If there was one thing about Judge Vinson everyone could agree on, it was her tenacity to run a tight ship, and not to allow cases to fall on the conveyor belt of postponement. She kept her attorneys on schedule and focused on moving their cases forward. In learning that Jessica was in the final trimester of her fifth pregnancy, Vinson issued an order to keep the double-murder suspect’s court appearances to a minimum until after she had the baby. There was no need to put any additional stress—other than what she was going through already—on the accused murderer and mother-to-be.