Jessica is another story. We can see that some of her behaviors were hardwired into her fragile psyche as a child. It might seem to an outside observer that Jessica McCord was a sociopath. She fits rather perfectly into about 90 percent of the “sociopathic” profile Dr. Robert Hare and Dr. Hervey Cleckley designed many years ago. Cleckley outlined sixteen behaviors on a checklist of sociopathic behavior, including unreliability, insincerity, suicidal threats and a host of other behaviors and attitudes that seemed to fit Jessica McCord quite closely.

I wrote to Jessica repeatedly. I called and e-mailed her mother, Dian Bailey, repeatedly. I never heard from either one of them. I did hear a lot of talk that went on behind the scenes—excuses on Jessica’s part regarding why she couldn’t talk to me. I guess, in the end, I wondered if Jessica had agreed to interviews, what I could possibly learn or believe. What would she have to say to me? Maybe one of the reasons why she did not want to talk to me is because she understands I cannot be manipulated—that I would be able to see through her lies.

Still, as I was completing this book, I heard from a former cellmate of Jessica’s. She expressed a desire on Jessica’s part to answer some of my questions: I am an acquaintance of Jessica . . . [and she] has asked me to contact you. . . . She is currently in segregation. . . .

(It seemed whenever I spoke to a source inside the prison, Jessica was “in seg.” Or in the psych ward. Or complaining about the treatment she was receiving by guards. The universe is a strange, unforgiving, mysterious place, whereby some are inclined to believe that what you give, you get back. It would seem that a majority—not all—of the turmoil and trauma Jessica had caused others in her life on the outside is coming back to her ten-fold now that she is locked up.)

In response to the e-mail I received from Jessica’s former cellmate, I sent the following:

Thanks for writing. Please tell Mrs. McCord that I have given her and her mother several opportunities to talk about her case. Time is running out. If she wants to contact me, she should write me a letter and explain all she can in that letter—but she needs to do it quick. I have read her testimony and I find one hole in it after the next. I have interviewed scores of people (former friends, neighbors, former and present inmates, and many, many others) and there’s not a lot of her story that checks out.

In her letter, she should tell me about Jeff, the type of person he was, and why he would kill two people he didn’t know. What purpose did Jeff have? She should tell me about her childhood. The abuse she suffered at the hands of George Callis. She should talk about why she kept the kids from seeing Alan when the court ordered the visitations (I have hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents from several different courts). I don’t want to hear lies. I want truth.

But she needs to do this quickly.

I was told for the next three weeks that Jessica was “in the process” of writing to me. That she was eager to talk. That she wanted to tell “her side” of this story. “Get the truth out.” That she had “things” to say about Alan, about Terra, about what “really” happened.

As of this writing, I have not heard from her.

Her behavior here fits flawlessly into the austere, “poor me” image Jessica McCord likes to project of herself. She wants the people around her to think of her in one light, but she behaves in an entirely different manner. She is incapable, at this point, of explaining herself. Unless she comes clean and begins to accept that she has been convicted of double murder, Jessica McCord is only fooling herself.

I’m told from prison sources that Jessica is on Lithium and all sorts of other antidepressant and antianxiety medications. I’m told she is constantly in the medical ward of the prison. That she routinely complains about prison life (what a shocker!), the conditions in which she lives and the treatment she receives behind bars.

Once again, everyone around Jessica McCord seems to be against her.

I was told by a few sources that after I “had called Jessica’s two churches (for interviews) . . . as a result, one church will not replace her Bible that was illegally taken from her when she got sent to seg.”

So, therefore, I am the one responsible for Jessica not being allowed to read the Word of God.

Go figure.

From prison Jessica has told people that an agreement she signed with the court prohibits her from speaking about her case. That, incredibly, other agreements having to do with the lawsuit the Bateses filed—which she claims to have been “forced to sign”—will not allow her to talk to anyone until Alan’s girls are adults. She even went so far as to say that if she talks to me, she could have her “canteen account” seized under the agreement.

This is all ludicrous, of course. None of it is true. This is Jessica, once again, lying to support her claim that jailhouse rules force her to be silent about her case.

Ridiculous.

I was also told that a family member is sneaking one of her children into the visiting section of the prison when a court order spells out clearly that the child is not to be near the prison.

Jessica McCord is playing by her own rules once again.

And yet, throughout it all, she has never once expressed an iota of sorrow for the deaths she is responsible for. Nor has she ever shown a bit of compassion for those who have lost so much in being forced to say an early good-bye to Alan and Terra. This behavior Jessica is showing us behind bars falls right in line with the character of the narcissist: her world is her stage, the people around her the players in a drama she continues to broadcast to those who want to participate still.

As my narrative spelled out, I wrote to George Callis, Jessica’s biological father. He is in prison serving a life sentence for murder. George wrote back—boy, did he ever! A manifesto, to be exact, that is truly unreadable. George is a self-described “born-again” Christian. Every thought, every word, every sentence, every page of what he wrote to me, speaks of some sort of “vision” from the Holy Spirit. He’d begin with the first-person pronoun “I” and then break off into quotes from the Bible. God bless, George; he has found meaning in the Holy Scriptures and feels the Holy Spirit is actively involved in every aspect of his life. He feels forgiven, obviously, for the nightmare he has caused. None of it, though, was helpful in understanding how his daughter might have turned out to be a murderer—ahem, like him.

In closing, I’d like to say that in all of the books I’ve written, in addition to the cases I have researched and studied over the past ten years, I have never seen such a disregard for authority. All murder is, inherently, evil and senseless. We know that. All murderers are, in every respect, coldhearted and immoral. We understand that, too. But when you have two people murdered by a woman who had claimed to love one of them once, and by a man who had been trained to preserve, protect and save lives, there is an additional layer of cruelty, insensitivity and selfishness involved. That is, besides inviting into the conversation the absolute disregard for relative morality.

Remember, Jessica McCord claims to be a Christian. She says she loves her children. Yet, when the facts are reviewed, we can see that Jessica McCord showed that love and dedication to Christ by killing her children’s father and stepmother.