19

Alan graduated from Shades Valley in June 1990. He enrolled in fall classes at the University of Montevallo, thirty-five miles south of Birmingham. Montevallo is spread out now across a 160-acre main campus, bordered by rolling hills, golf course green lawns, groves and colorful flower beds. It is a beautiful spread of land. Montevallo’s academics and scholars are respected throughout the state. More than that, during Alan’s time Montevallo offered excellent fine arts and theater programs for him to think about building on an already wide foundation of study in the technical side of the stage.

Being away from Birmingham and Alan’s family was going to suit Jessica’s growing needs quite well.

“She didn’t like anybody who was close to Alan,” a former friend said. “She felt threatened by anyone in his family, any of his close friends, and she basically wanted to pull him away from his whole life.”

And here was that chance.

Jessica dropped out of school, with the intention of going back and getting her GED. As Alan got to know her better, he began to think that Jessica was either the most unfortunate person on God’s earth, or she was making up stories about a tortured childhood that never was. One friend later said Jessica could spin the best yarn you ever heard, and she had a knack for making whatever story she told sound unequivocally true. “But come to find out,” that same friend added, “she was nothing more than a pathological liar.”

With a wife and child, Alan needed a home. Philip Bates purchased a “fixer-upper” for Jessica, Alan and Sam. It was a one-hundred-year-old ranch-style house that needed lots of TLC. But it was located just outside Montevallo. Regardless of the condition, it was enough room for the three of them. Cozy. Homey. The perfect starter home. Alan was determined to get a college degree. Find a good-paying job. Raise his family. When he wasn’t going to class or studying, Alan was kept busy with odd jobs: landscaping, construction, anything else he could earn some quick cash from. He was still playing in a gospel quartet that paid, and it seemed the music became one of Alan’s true outlets for his growing artistic expression. Jessica, though, was insecure about the band and rode Alan constantly about groupies and screaming girls vying for his attention.

Jessica’s friend Naomi had Fridays off. Naomi often made the hour drive to Montevallo to visit with Jessica and the new baby. It was great to pop in and see how everyone was doing. Maybe help out. Bring a gift. Some food. Spread the love.

“I got a sense,” Naomi recalled, “that they were, of course, struggling. Young couple. Recently married. New parents. Alan’s in college. Working. In the band. It was hard.”

For Jessica, the focus quickly turned to a notion that Alan was out and about, meeting women at school and at his band gigs, bedding them down. She accused him of sleeping with any female he crossed paths with. The jealousy and insecurity consumed her. Ran their lives. Then it turned into chronic paranoia.

“He’s seeing someone at the college,” Jessica explained to Naomi during one Friday visit. Jessica said she was certain of it.

“Jessica, where’s your proof?” Naomi asked. “Unless you have concrete evidence of you watching him go out with someone else, catching him in the act, you have to trust him.”

What was a marriage without trust? Naomi stressed. If Jessica couldn’t trust Alan to leave the house, how could she ever expect the relationship to grow?

Jessica changed the subject. Ignored the advice. Instead, she carried on about how she believed Alan was cheating. Naomi knew Alan took his wedding vows seriously. There was no way he would do anything to hurt Jessica. It just wasn’t the person Alan was. If he wanted somebody else, Alan was the type to sit Jessica down and tell her it was over. Then go out and fornicate. But not while he was still married.

Nothing relieved Jessica’s suspicions. She even showed up on campus one day with the baby, while Alan was in the middle of a production. As everyone working on the play with him turned, she yelled and screamed. Made an ass of herself. It was a scene. In front of everyone she accused Alan of doing all sorts of outlandish, sexual things with some of the women he studied and worked with at the campus theater. It embarrassed Alan a great deal. He didn’t know what to do.

Finally he pulled Jessica aside, did his best to calm her down, then sent her back home.

Still, in many respects, during this same period, Naomi considered Jessica to be a “very good mother.” “Homemaker” was probably a better way to put it. Jessica cooked. Cleaned. Made meals stretch for days. She even went so far as to get cloth diapers so she could wash them and save money.

“She was very protective. A good mother. She tried to do everything she could. But at the same time, she was very insecure.”

By 1992, Alan was cruising on autopilot through college, following his dream of working in the theater, now that much closer to living it. Jessica made the transformation to stay-at-home mom complete. She gained weight, watched soap operas and let herself go.

“They [were] a very young family,” Robert Bates said of his brother and sister-in-law, “starting off under very trying circumstances. They were struggling. They were trying to figure things out.”

On November 16, 1992, Jessica gave birth to her and Alan’s second child, McKenna, and that’s when things started to spiral out of control, members of Alan’s family suggested. After a calm period Jessica’s insecurities and abnormalities resurfaced on a new level—and Alan and his family were convinced now that maybe Jessica wasn’t exaggerating when she told those stories of growing up in a chaotic, abusive household. Perhaps the environment in which she came from had affected her psychologically and turned her into the thing she so much hated.

What’s more, one source noted, by this point in Jessica’s life, she’d had no fewer than five abortions, using the procedure as a means of contraception. It got to the point, Jessica told one friend, where “there [was] no doctor in Birmingham that will touch me because I’ve had so many abortions.”

According to a Forensic (Psychology) Evaluation Report conducted on Jessica in 2003, she claimed to have seen a mental-health professional when she was between the ages of nine and fifteen. She saw someone, the report indicated, because her father was abusive. . . .

Shortly before meeting Alan, Jessica admitted in that same report, she saw a couple of licensed professional counselors because of domestic violence. She was never hospitalized. Nor had Jessica been through any alcohol or drug treatment programs. This, despite admitting to having used LSD between 500 and 600 times in her past with no history of flashbacks.

“I agree with that,” said a high-school friend. “She definitely used a lot of drugs later on in high school.”

In addition, Jessica told the three doctors during her psychological exam, that she had a 50 percent hearing loss “bilaterally” since her teenage years, but she had never used a hearing aid of any type. She also reported having a history of “mitral valve prolapse,” with occasional irregular heartbeats—in addition to hypoglycemia.

Jessica sat quite lucid during her evaluation, demonstrating normal eye contact, the report noted. She showed no “unusual mannerisms,” and did not exhibit any odd gestures or facial expressions. In fact, doctors observed, Jessica appeared quite normal, with the exception of her tendency to—you guessed it—lie.

“Have you ever had any suicidal ideation . . . ?” one of the doctors asked Jessica at some point during the evaluation.

Jessica thought about it. “Not as an adult,” she said, then broke off into a story from her childhood, adding, “but between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, I did.”

“How so? Could you explain further, please?”

Jessica smiled. “I almost overdosed on Benadryl.” Then, a while later, “And [drove] a car off the road.”

The doctors weren’t buying it.

In the same psychological report, one wrote: She never required any medical attention and these should only be considered as gestures and judgment, if indeed they ever occurred.

It was as if Jessica made up conditions, ailments and problems as she went along—illnesses that seemed to suit her needs at the time. According to the evaluation, the three doctors agreed that Jessica came across as quite manipulative and self-ser ving. . . . She seems to be somewhat immature in her personal development and judgment but she had at least average intelligence.

“She is the absolute queen of manipulation,” an old high-school friend said.

 

 

There was no stopping Alan. Everybody around him knew the marriage to Jessica was wrong. Maybe even doomed. But friends and family could do nothing but support his decision and admire the guy for taking on the responsibility of being a father to his children.

One woman was hurt by the end of her friendship with Alan. All because Jessica would not allow them to speak to or see each other. It was a bit easier for this particular friend because she had moved away to another state to attend college. So the temptation to want to see and hang out with Alan wasn’t always there.

And then Alan called one day. It was a total surprise. “Listen, I . . . I . . . Jessica said it’s okay that we talk. And I really want you to see the kids.”

Alan’s friend was both appalled and excited. She didn’t know what to say. She was back home on a break from school. Of course, she wanted to see Alan’s kids. She and Alan were like cousins, brother and sister. She wanted to enjoy and share every bit of happiness Alan had in his life.

“But,” Alan said, “Jessica wants to bring them over to see you. She wants to talk to you.”

Jessica showed up at the woman’s parents’ house. They sat on the couch together. Jessica had failed to bring Alan. This first conversation was going to be just woman-to-woman.

“Here, hold the baby,” Jessica said with that fake smile she had all but mastered by this point.

Alan’s close childhood friend didn’t know what to make of this.

“Basically, Jessica sat there and told me that she was going to ‘allow’ us to be friends again.”

Jessica had once taken anything Alan’s friend had ever given him—cards, stuffed animals, photographs, gifts, mementoes of their childhood together—and discarded it all in the trash because she wanted to wipe her out of Alan’s life.

 

 

By the time Alan and Jessica were raising two kids, Alan worked full-time, while still managing a jam-packed schedule of classes. With that, Jessica milked her role as the stay-at-home mom, using the excuse of being young and strapped for money and home all the time as a means to drain Alan of any energy or serenity the man had left over.

Kevin Bates liked to spend time with his older brother and nieces whenever he could. He loved the children, of course, and was often driven to Montevallo on the weekends by his parents or Alan to help his brother work on the house. One weekend Alan made plans with Kevin to do several repairs to the front porch, which was in a state of rot and ruin. The two of them could knock it out on a Saturday and Sunday. Alan had a day off that weekend. He had been working himself ragged with school and a construction job. Just to hang out with his little brother and do some work on the house would be great.

Hammers. Nails. Laughs.

Man stuff.

But Jessica decided she needed to “sleep in” on Saturday. When Kevin showed up, Jessica went right at him and asked if he would watch the kids for her while Alan worked on the porch by himself.

“I’m not well,” Jessica said, playing it up.

“Sure,” Kevin agreed reluctantly. It was disappointing. He had so much looked forward to hanging out with Alan.

Jessica, Kevin explained, was well aware of that.

“Sorry about her,” Alan said to Kevin, who sat in the living room, keeping the children busy, while Alan worked out front. “I’m really sorry. I’ve been trying to get her to get out of bed. But I’m not having much luck.”

It was a recurring problem, expanding by the day. Jessica was getting lazier and more withdrawn, not wanting to do anything.

“It’s okay,” Kevin said. He understood.

“All she does is sleep, or want to sleep.”

Kevin took care of the kids most of that day while Jessica slept.

“Whenever she could,” Kevin recalled years later, “Jessica took advantage of a situation. She saw an opportunity that day and took it.”

Alan never played into the drama of his wife’s supposed “ailments.” He internalized a lot of what bothered him about Jessica, realizing that bad-mouthing his wife or complaining about her behavior was not going to do anybody any good. It certainly wasn’t going to help her or solve the problem. Part of Alan believed that it was a postpregnancy phase of depression Jessica was going to snap out of at any time. She would wake up one day and be an adult and a loving wife who wanted to participate in the marriage and raise the kids on a level compatible to Alan’s busy lifestyle. Alan believed in her. She would want, someday, to work together with him to raise their family.

Inside the theater department of the university, there was a cot and an area where, at times, Alan slept. As much as he wanted to comfort his young wife, he just couldn’t take her some nights. It got to a point where the idea of going home was too much to handle. He and Jessica, as the year 1993 came to an end, were having more problems. She was not getting better. Or so it seemed. Alan didn’t know what to do. Was Jessica playing this game for attention? Was she truly ill? Did she need psychiatric help? He was willing to get her the help she needed, but enough was enough.

Something had to be done.

 

 

By the time Jessica sat and talked to three psychologists in 2003, she’d given birth to five kids: two with Alan (one of whom she’d later say wasn’t his), one with a guy she met after Alan, and two with Jeff Kelley McCord. Not that having children is a crime, but Jessica seemed to blame the way her life had turned out on her own childhood, and then on the men she dated and later married. It was always somebody else’s fault. She claimed her marriage to Alan began to suffer problems when Alan “wanted her to sleep with his friends.”

It was an outrageous lie. So far removed from the person Alan proved himself to be. Jessica offered no proof whatsoever to back up this claim. It went totally against the grain of what Alan stood for and believed morally. What was more, every one of Jessica’s and Alan’s friends claimed otherwise: Alan had done whatever he could to save the marriage, while Jessica had done whatever she could to see that it failed.

 

 

If what Jessica said is true, and there was always a fine line between fantasy and reality, truth and lies, where Jessica was concerned, she had no ethical teaching growing up. Jessica was raised in Hoover, in the same house her mother, Dian, and stepfather, Albert Bailey, lived in at the time Alan disappeared and was found dead. The neighborhood was the same as any other middle-class locale in Hoover. Not a bad place to live out your formative years as an Alabamian. Yet, even though Jessica later said she hardly recalled much of her first five years, she claimed her life was nothing more than a wild, unstable and terribly abusive ride. She said her mother was constantly running away from an offensive, violent husband, a man locked in a perpetual pattern of destroying lives.

According to Jessica, George Callis, her biological father, was a brute of a man who seemed to think the answer to disciplining his children was to scare them into submission. Jessica related once that her father liked to lock her in the closet for hours when she was unruly or disrespectful. There was one time, she later explained in medical documents, when George displayed “snap judgment” anger. The Callises’ dog, Champ, was down the block from their home, tearing it up with another dog, rolling around on the ground, biting and grunting.

Jessica ran home to get her dad, hoping he could do something to stop it.

George jumped in the family car, drove down the block, asked Jessica where the dogs were fighting.

“There . . . hurry,” she said. Little Jessica was terrified that Champ was going to get hurt. Or worse, be killed by the other dog.

George drove into the yard and ran over both dogs, according to two reports of the incident, crushing them to death in front of several neighborhood kids.

This sort of violence has a lasting effect on a child; they learn quickly to contend with stressful situations by resorting to violence themselves.

One of the Callises’ neighbors, Dottie Gillispie, told Birmingham News reporter Carol Robinson that George hit Dian, but that Dian didn’t want to do anything about it because she feared the man so much.

“He had beat the hell out of her,” Dottie was quoted as saying.

George was abusive, no question. There is a paper trail of evidence left in the man’s wake to support the fact that he liked to beat on women and children. Dian and George were divorced on March 6, 1978. Jessica was almost seven years old. George moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, after living in Semmes, Alabama, for a short time. He drove into Birmingham every other weekend to pick up the kids for visits. As it was, Dian took George to court in hopes of him fulfilling his obligation as the kids’ father and paying child support. She also wanted him to pay medical and “other” bills he was responsible for, per a court order—which was where the tug-of-war, the children at the center, started between Dian and George.

George used the kids as a means to seek revenge on Dian for the obvious hatred he harbored against her and the legal issues surrounding the demise of their marriage. Part of the divorce decree stipulated that George shall pick up the children on the front porch [of Dian’s home] when exercising his rights of visitation and shall not enter the premises unless explicitly invited therein.

It sounded familiar, as Jessica later insisted on the same language in her divorce with Alan. The major difference, of course, was that when Alan Bates said he was going to pick up his children, he showed up. In Jessica’s case, as a young girl of seven and eight, unaware of the bitterness involved in some divorce and custody matters, reports claim that it wasn’t uncommon for Jessica to sit on the porch and wait for a father who never showed up. And when he did, he was loud, violent, drunk and accusatory, threatening that if the children—Jessica, her brother and sister—were unruly in any way, he would never pick them up again.

George’s true madness unveiled itself after he and Dian separated. He kicked Dian and the three kids out of the house they lived in and sent them packing without any of their clothes, no money or accommodations. The kids missed school. Had nowhere to live. Very little food. No means of support.

George laughed at Dian. Made her look bad in front of the children whenever the opportunity presented itself. According to a civil action case Dian filed some years after the end of the marriage, she claimed the reason they’d separated was because George beat her. She was scared for her life. There were times when George struck Dian in front of the children: in the face, slapping and beating her on her arms, back, and other parts of her body, one court filing contended.

Dian sensed George would one day murder her. That killer instinct was there in his eyes. He was a wife batterer, sure. A drunk, no doubt. But there was something else about him when he snapped into a violent rage. He blacked out. His aggressive behavior escalated. And Dian’s fear meter went off the charts.

Dian was able to get George kicked out of the house finally so she and the kids could move back in.

George moved to Tennessee during the late 1980s. It was then that he met a sweet woman, Olivia, who soon became his wife. Within no time, however, Olivia was now bearing the burden of George’s insanity and violent nature as he started to hit her.

The guy could not leave women alone. It was something inside him. One drink led to two, which led to George walking into the home and abusing his wife.

But then, George took things to a new level one night. This happened just as Alan and Jessica, in late 1993, began to experience major problems themselves. Jessica had long ago written off her father as a deadbeat dad with whom she wanted nothing to do. But she was about to be rattled by a telephone call explaining what George had done—a crime that would turn out to be, in many ways, a prelude to what would take place in Jessica’s own life.