Philip Bates, who had learned recently that he had prostate cancer, sat on the stand next. Brown questioned him about the children and their “monstrously different” attitudes whenever they came from Dian Bailey’s house. It took about two days, Philip figured, after Jessica had them, before the Bates family could get the children back into “a routine.”

Brown asked Philip if he ever asked Alan about Samantha being his child.

“On two occasions,” Philip said, “I specifically remember asking him, was he sure it was his child, and he just shrugged it off. ‘Oh, Dad, sure it is.’”

Jessica was still lying. Here she was facing her mortality, and yet still not ready to be remorseful or come to grips with the fact that she could be sentenced to death.

Both sides gave closing arguments, each, of course, standing on his side of the death penalty.

The judge told the jury what it needed to do.

The jurors returned ninety minutes later.

Life without parole was the recommendation. The vote, however, had said something about Jessica Bates McCord: seven for life, five for death. There were five human beings on that jury who believed Jessica should die for her crimes.

The judge wasn’t prepared to render her sentence just yet, though. She needed to study the evidence and read through the testimony given that day. She had to make a conscious decision based on the jury’s advice.

Word was that Jeff McCord, understanding that one jury had seen through Jessica’s lies already, wasn’t willing to roll the dice any longer. He was now itching to cut a deal.

The more compelling news, however, had little to do with Jeff or Jessica directly. Behind closed doors Roger Brown and Laura Hodge were preparing cases against two people connected to the McCords in relation to Alan’s and Terra’s murders—both of whom were about to be indicted.

65

It wasn’t necessarily closure the families wanted. Just truth. The Bateses needed to know what happened. They felt Jeff McCord could give that to them. Roger Brown waited until after Jessica’s trial, because he didn’t want one case to meddle or cause problems with the other. But Jessica had been found guilty, the jury recommending life. It was time to go to Jeff and see if he wanted to talk.

Now or never.

The state offered Jeff two consecutive life terms in trade for the truth. All of it. Step-by-step, what happened? When? Where? How?

Jeff thought about it. Jessica’s jury had spoken loud and clear. Why would a second jury believe him?

Jeff called his attorneys.

“I’ll take it.”

66

Hoover PD detective sergeant Tom McDanal asked everyone in the room if they were ready.

Head nods and “okays” followed.

“Testing, one, two, three, four . . . five,” McDanal said aloud, adjusting the tape recorder.

It was 9:20 A.M., on April 15, 2003.

From there, Roger Brown took over. They sat inside the jury room adjacent to Judge Virginia Vinson’s courtroom. Laura Hodge sat next to Brown; McDanal there at the table next to them; Hoover PD detective Laura Brignac next to McDanal; Jeff McCord’s attorney, Mike Shores, sat next to his client.

There was a numbing sense of irony present in the room that no one needed to acknowledge. It was just there. Like the hum of the air ducts. Jeff had been in this same position in years past—but on the opposite side of the microphone. Now Jeff was the perp. His story being put on tape. How the tables had turned! And over what? A woman? Jeff McCord felt he was facing charges of double murder because his wife, a woman he had loved—maybe too much—and obeyed—without question—had asked him to help her get rid of a problem.

That turned into two “problems,” essentially.

“Mr. McCord,” Roger Brown said, “uh . . . I’m going to go over the things we went over a little earlier, and that we discussed with your attorney yesterday.”

Jeff nodded. Looked away.

“Um . . . in return for the reduction of charges that we made,” Brown continued, “you have agreed to fully disclose to us everything you know regarding the circumstances of the deaths of Alan and Terra Bates, leading up to it and following it.”

Brown then explained how he would administer “an oath,” and everyone expected Jeff McCord to be truthful. It was that, or the deal was off.

“We may wish to administer a polygraph at a later time to satisfy ourselves of the veracity of what you have to say. Do you understand all that?”

“Yes.”

Jeff McCord was ordered to raise his right hand.

They talked formalities first: address, age, former job as a police officer. And then the day—February 15, 2002, a little over a year ago now—which Brown referred to as “the occurrence.”

The life and death of two fine people could be refined into two meaningless words of such little value. It wasn’t Brown’s word, but a professional way to address the murders on tape.

“The occurrence.”

Jeff talked about how his day-to-day life was with Jessica, her three kids and the kid they had together. Things seemed all right at first. He loved the woman.

A large truck drove by the window outside as Jeff spoke. Roger Brown waited for the noise to subside, then got back to the interview.

The former Pelham police officer was passive. Quite taken aback by the process of talking about what led up to the murders, and what actually had happened that day. Brown asked Jeff if he knew Alan Bates at the time Jeff and Jessica got married.

“I knew who Mr. Bates was,” Jeff said. “No, I hadn’t—I don’t even think I had met him once at the time.”

Jeff married Jessica, and yet he had not met her ex-husband, who had been, according to what Jessica had told Jeff, a violent nuisance in her life. Someone to fear. It was clear from Jeff’s responses that Jessica had married him out of spite, wanting to one-up Alan and his then-future marriage to Terra.

Jeff said he met Alan for the first time in August 2000.

“Next to the interstate in Montevallo.”

Alan picked up the girls. Terra wasn’t with him. Brown moved on to what had become a pivotal point in the postdivorce relationship between Alan and Jessica: the fact that Jessica withdrew the children from the school system and began homeschooling them. Not because she wanted the children to have a better education, but for the sole purpose of hiding them from Alan.

After Brown asked the question, making reference to the fact that Jessica was hiding the family so Alan couldn’t find them, Jeff took a deep breath. Sighed. Shook his head. It was one of those oh yeah moments, as if he’d forgotten how devious his wife had become. Because he lived in the situation day in and day out, Jeff speculated, it was harder for him to see what was happening in front of his eyes.

It was just easier to go along with Jessica than to fight her.

Jeff could understand how wrong that all was now. He had gone along with Jessica on all these matters because she was his wife and he believed that’s what husbands were supposed to do.

Obedience.

As Jeff explained it, near the time Jessica proclaimed to be homeschooling the kids, somebody from the Hoover central school office, or Green Valley Elementary, he could not recall which, called the house.

“Yes?” Jessica said. “What is it?”

“Due to some sort of bureaucratic snafu, the records weren’t in order. The girls cannot continue to be students at the school and have to be removed.”

Apparently, the house the McCords lived in on Myrtlewood Drive in Hoover was not on file, Jeff said. It appeared the kids were going to the wrong school. So the school had them removed—which played right into Jessica’s desire to hide them from Alan.