Neumann and Wiley did not have a lot to work with. In defending Jessica, their hands were not tied behind their backs, but practically severed. Jessica had not given her attorneys any tangible, clear explanation for the evidence against her. On top of that, she came across as arrogant and even taunting on the witness stand. It was a hard sell to come out and claim that she was telling the truth. But what else could Neumann and Wiley do? They had to fight.

“Circumstances, circumstances, circumstances. How good is it? Well, that’s for you to decide.”

Neumann went on for another ten minutes, repeating himself many times, then apologizing for repeating himself. Finally, “There’s so much at stake here. We’re talking about a lady who’s got five beautiful children who—well, I appreciate it, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll leave the rest of whatever I’ve missed to Mr. Wiley. . . .”

With that, Neumann passed the torch to his partner. It was quite common in Alabama courtrooms that when two or more lawyers defended a client, both gave closing arguments.

Wiley talked about the idea that it was a capital murder case and a woman’s life was at stake. He tried to play on the sensibilities of twelve men and women playing God with a person’s life. He cleared up the notion that it was the judge’s decision to sentence Jessica—if she was found guilty—to life without parole, or death. The jury was simply there to make recommendations in these matters.

“So, in your deliberations, you’ve absolutely got to think about your guilty verdict. You are killing Jessica McCord, just as surely as if you pulled that switch and electrocuted her, or if you open a little valve and let the lethal fluid into her veins. You have got to know that if you find her guilty in this case, you are executing Jessica McCord. You are causing her death.”

Silence.

Wiley was playing the guilt card in more ways than one.

The experienced lawyer carried on, beating the same drum Neumann had just completed, trying to bolster the argument Neumann had made about blood, DNA, ballistics. It sounded as winded and as weak as it did the first time around—only now the jury was tired of hearing it again.

And then Wiley mentioned Dian. “She’s telling the truth!” he shouted. “She saw Jessica and Kelley McCord there at twelve-thirty at her house! And because of that fact”—he paused a moment—“they couldn’t have been over in Georgia burning that car between one and two [in the morning].”

Exactly what Roger Brown and Laura Hodge had been saying all along.

Wiley continued for another fifteen minutes.

Then Brown got up and gave a rebuttal.

Brown made a great point—he said if the jury was to believe what Wiley and Neumann had argued during their closings, that would mean, simply put, that “everyone is a liar.”

Cops.

Doctors.

Scientists.

Every single expert the state presented.

They were the liars and—yes!—Jessica McCord and her mother were the truth tellers.

64

It didn’t take long. By 4:45 P.M., Saturday, February 15, 2003, after just two-and-a-half hours of deliberations, the jury foreman indicated that a unanimous decision had been reached.

Jessica sat still as a leaf. No emotion whatsoever.

When polled, each member of the jury stood and answered “guilty.”

After a bit of movement amid the whispers in the courtroom, Judge Virginia Vinson explained that everyone was going to be returning on Monday morning, at which time the defense would argue for life; the state for death.

Before any of that, however, the jury would hear testimony as part of the death penalty phase. Then they could deliberate once again and make a recommendation to the judge for life or death. Would Jessica be executed for her crimes, or be sent to prison for the remainder of her natural life? Either way, the outcome was not something Jessica was going to accept without a fight.

Wiley asked the judge if Jessica could have a moment with her family before being taken to jail.

The judge did not hesitate.

“No.”

Perhaps she wasn’t in the mood to be granting a double murderer any conveniences.

Dian Bailey was on the verge of breaking down when Jessica, being escorted out of the courtroom by two guards, mouthed, “It’s okay.” Life or death was her future, but . . . it’s okay?

Members of the Bates and Klugh families cried. There was no jubilation or pending celebration in learning that what you had known all along—but had held out the slightest bit of hope was not true—was now a fact.

Jessica McCord had murdered Alan and Terra.

If anything, it was time to commemorate two lives lost and think about how the family members were going to address the one person responsible for those deaths.

Two days later, on the morning of February 17, 2003, Jessica was marshaled back into the courtroom. This time, however, she did not wear a slick blue suit coat, white shirt and black shoes with flashy buckles. She was now dressed in an Alabama Corrections Department jumper.

Dian Bailey took the stand first. Jessica’s mother told stories of Jessica being beaten as a child by her natural father, George Callis. Much of the animosity between Callis and Dian postdivorce, Dian suggested, was centered around visitation rights. The implication was that none of what Jessica had done could be considered her fault alone, simply because it had happened to her as a child. She had been hardwired.

In many ways, this was true. Yet, on the other side of the argument, how many kids out in the world had undergone the same abusive treatment and did not grow up to be double murderers?

Jessica testified next. She talked about her children. How much they needed her. Especially her four-month-old. She didn’t allow the young children to visit her in prison. Not because jail was not the right place for a child to see his or her mother, or the environment was not conducive to rearing children, but, Jessica said, because “there’s germs and stuff in jail.”

Jessica talked about high school and her grades. She said she had gone to a “school for the gifted.” It was, in some ways, sad to hear that a woman with so much promise as a high-school student had gotten pregnant, dropped out and then led a life of constant struggling. Jessica wanted it all, but in her mind a wonderful husband, a house and child weren’t enough. And when Alan decided to leave the marriage, well, she couldn’t take it.

She snapped.

Jessica’s tone was more subdued, now that she had been convicted. At times she drifted off into stories of sitting, talking to her children, explaining life to them.

When Roger Brown cross-examined Jessica, he focused on her and Alan’s first child—the pregnancy that led to their marriage.

“You told Kelly McCloskey (the court reporter during the deposition) . . . ‘I don’t know why he even wants [Samantha]. She’s not his.’ Is that what you said?”

“I didn’t say that to her exactly, no. And as I just stated, he is her father on her birth certificate.”

“But he’s not her father biologically?”

“No, he’s not. Not to my knowledge, he’s not.”

“So you became pregnant by someone else?”

“I became pregnant and, unfortunately, the time is in question, yes.”

“So you lied to Alan about him—”

But Jessica wouldn’t allow Brown to finish. “No.”

“—him impregnating you?”

“Absolutely not! Never. Alan was at [college] when that happened, and his entire family knows it.”

The bottom line here was that the Bates marriage was based on a lie; Alan had married Jessica out of responsibility to a child that wasn’t his.