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On April 25, 2003, shortly after Jeff formally pleaded guilty, Jessica was sentenced to life without parole. In the end the judge took the advice of the jury and signed the Sheriff’s Commitment Order, sending Jessica to prison for the remainder of her natural life. She was never going to see freedom again. After Judge Vinson handed down the sentence, she asked Jessica if there was anything she had to say for herself. Maybe some explanation? Sorrow? Remorse?
Jessica declined.
Asked later on by a reporter if she wanted to make a comment, Jessica “smiled,” Carol Robinson noted, and said, “Not hardly.”
Before being whisked off to prison, Jessica was allowed to spend some time with friends and family, including her mother and grandmother, who were in court for the sentencing. Jessica laughed as she chatted with her family. What was so funny, no one actually knew. But the fact that she would appeal her case was probably fueling Jessica’s hostile, defiant attitude. It was still all a joke to Jessica McCord. There’s no doubt she saw herself getting out of prison one day when the appeals court heard her plea.
John Wiley was a bit more grounded in reality. He showed professionalism as he left the court, telling reporters, “The death penalty is wrong in any case and this case is no exception, so we’re very pleased and relieved that Mrs. McCord is delivered of that possibility of being killed by the state of Alabama. “She gets to turn her attention now to her appeal, and, hopefully, one day she’ll have a new trial and a more favorable outcome.”
Jeff and Jessica McCord ended up on the same bus heading out to prison later that day. There was one bus. All prisoners boarded. The males were separated from the females by a fence, but they could still speak to one another.
As Jessica stepped up onto the bus, shackles clanking, a cocky smile across her face, she noticed her husband sitting in the back among a group of inmates.
In her sarcastic way, quite mean-spirited and vile, Jessica stopped, smiled and looked at Jeff. By this time she knew Jeff had come clean with his version of the murders and had cut himself a deal. Up until this point Jessica had had nothing but good things to say about Jeff.
“Hey, everyone,” Jessica said as loud as she could, the entire bus stopping to look up, “that’s my husband.” She pointed Jeff out. “He’s a cop!”
Jessica sat down and faced the front.
Due to how high profile my case was, it is rather safe to say that virtually everyone in metro-Birmingham knew that I was a police officer, Jeff McCord wrote to me after he was asked if this verbal assault against his character by Jessica had caused him any problems later on when he got to prison. It’s no secret that inmates are not too fond of cops as cellmates.
Overall, I have had no real problems as a result of it or in relation to my former profession. . . . I have been housed in either protective custody or administrative segregation depending on my placement.