27

Alan and Terra enjoyed the serenity of being in a mature relationship. They respected each other. Cared how the other felt. Talked things through like adults. This was new to Alan, who had lived a life of “romantic” hell for as long as he could remember.

Jessica, meanwhile, was busy holding on to Cupid’s arrow for dear life, following it wherever the path led. If Alan had gone out and landed himself a catch with Terra, Jessica needed to find herself a man. Someone she could flaunt in Alan’s face. Someone who could help her achieve whatever goals in life she now had.

Near the fall of 1995, Jessica visited the Lion & Unicorn Comics Games & Cards store on Lorna Road, not too far from her mother’s house. It was one of those hobby shop/comic-book stores that sold various types of fantasy gaming items and other collectibles. It also advertised a line of vintage comic books and baseball cards.

Jessica later said she hung out in the store because she got involved in playing a game called Magic: The Gathering. (The game falls in line with the idea behind Lord of the Rings.)

It was a role-playing game—an appealing proposition to those who partake in fantasy, but also have an inherent need to control things. Essentially, Magic was the genre-breaking first in a series of card games that involved an ongoing plot, forcing players to buy additional products in order to continue playing the game competitively. An ingenious invention, in terms of marketing. The game was introduced in 1993 by a mathematician. The game revolves around your typical “good versus evil” plotline, in which wizards go up against “the dark side.” Some liken it to an updated version of the popular 1980s phenomenon Dungeons & Dragons.

Jessica had other ideas, however, for heading into Lion & Unicorn. A man worked behind the counter, Brad Tabor (pseudonym), in whom she apparently saw potential. Brad lived alone and was content in his job at the card shop.

No one could understand why Jessica was attracted to the guy—that is, until it was later learned that Jessica believed Brad was going to one day inherit some money. Then it made sense: that “entrepreneurial” side of Jessica, in a perpetual state of looking for a free ride, a sugar daddy.

From Jessica’s perspective, Brad fit into that mold.

Near January 1, 1996, Jessica and Brad started dating. Brad was taken with this attractive young woman who seemed to be not only full of herself, but confident, strong-willed and full of sexuality. To his surprise and delight, she was also into him.

Jessica knew how to manage what she had; she could doll herself up to look eye-catching and trashy hot. She owned the spotlight when she walked into that store, unafraid to shake her “thang” and play into whatever sliver of sexual sparkle she could conjure.

When Brad asked, Jessica said she had been married once and went through a divorce “several years prior.”

It would be the first of many lies that Brad would soon hear.

Brad got Jessica a job at the Lion & Unicorn. They began spending time together. Brad liked Jessica. To him, she was a hot chick without kids who seemed to be interested in the same things he was. What was there not to like?

Indeed, Jessica failed to mention up front that she had two kids at home (or, rather, staying at her mother’s house). Brad never suspected she was lying. Why would he?

In the years following, like most things in her life, Jessica viewed her relationship with Brad in a different light: “We slept together and dated,” she said in court, “and the order varied. It was an on-and-off thing.”

Not true. According to one of Jessica’s former friends, as soon as Jessica and Brad started hanging out and working together, and Jessica found out Brad was going to “come into some money,” she was all over the guy. She started sleeping with him voluntarily. He didn’t need to work at it.

Ask Jessica, however, and you come up with a different version of how they met. “I worked there. And he worked there on occasion and came in basically to see who the girl was that was working in the store, because it was very unusual. And we became associated because we both played a game called Magic.”

Setting aside the truth of how they met, regarding the idea that Jessica failed to tell Brad she had children, she said: “That’s not true. I had been warned not to date him because he did not like children.”

She never gave a reason (if it were even true) why Brad disliked children. Or why she would consider dating a man who felt that way.

“I didn’t make it a policy,” Jessica stated further, “to take people I went out with around my children. I thought it would be hard for them to have people, you know, going in and out. And . . . I had no intention of just getting divorced and dating one guy and getting immediately remarried. I didn’t want the kids to suffer from a constant change of people.”

Some wondered if that was motive enough not to share with a man that you allegedly liked that you had children. Like many things Jessica later said, her excuse for a particular behavior made little sense.

Brad lived in an apartment in the Five Points region of Birmingham. He had a simple life.

Work. Home. Work. Home.

Magic.

Jessica moved in with Brad. Her clothes and all. Six weeks went by, Brad later said, before she finally admitted she had two kids living at her mother’s house. Two kids, in fact, who needed their mother and were not seeing their father on a regular basis because Jessica was so darn bent on spiting Alan.

This manner of conduct turned into a vicious circle. Jessica would leave the kids with her mother for long periods: weeks, a month, two months. Days, certainly. She would not see them—and sometimes, a friend later said, she rarely ever called them. She didn’t care. Jessica wanted what she wanted, and nothing—not even her own flesh and blood—was going to stand in her way or stop her.

And now she had Brad.

Naomi called Jessica once in a while to see how she was doing. After learning Jessica was leaving the children with her mother, Naomi was upset. She wanted to reprimand Jessica and scold her into feeling guilty about it—and then demand she get over to her mother’s house and take care of those kids.

Forget about Brad. The kids need you. This was a recurring thought, Naomi said.

Jessica got mad. Gave Naomi some excuse as to why she wasn’t at her mother’s with the children.

Then, as Naomi and Jessica were talking, Jessica came out with it: “I’m pregnant now, anyway.”

Naomi expected to hear that Jessica was planning a trip to Mississippi or another state to get an abortion. Jessica claimed to have already had one abortion (Brad’s child) after miscarrying twins.

But not this time. “I’m keeping it,” Jessica stated.

From the sound of it, Jessica was looking at the new baby as a means to an end: another child support check from a guy who was, she believed, going to come into a healthy sum of money someday. Thus, all things considered, it would appear babies were a source of income for Jessica.

Not long after she moved in with Brad, Jessica went to him and announced that she was pregnant, adding, “I’m keeping the baby.”

According to Jessica, Brad did not want anything to do with being a father. “I was not going to have an abortion,” Jessica said years later in court, recalling this period of her life, “and I was not going to have my baby and give her away. I would never.”

But that’s exactly what she did, Brad later explained. “Well, the first child. She aborted it.”

About five or six months later, Jessica went to Brad again. “I’m pregnant.”

This led to problems with the relationship. Brad and Jessica were not on the same wavelength about anything. So they split shortly before the child was born. Jessica moved out of the apartment and back into her mother’s house—now back with her two kids . . . and pregnant with another child.