Saturday, December 22, 2007, detectives questioned Marcy Shepherd and Maysa Munsey separately and found consistency in both women’s versions of the events of Thursday morning. Both women insisted that they had not moved Jocelyn Earnest’s body.
The investigators were troubled, though, about Marcy’s admission that she’d been out to the house the night before. “If you were here last night, why did you come back today?”
“Because, Jocelyn was afraid of Wesley. She just installed a security system because she was afraid of him. If she thought Wesley was outside, she would go into the bathroom, lock the door, and stand frozen in the tub. She said he was still coming into her home and that she was afraid he would kill her. And I think he did.”
Detectives wondered if Marcy really believed that or if she was trying to divert attention from herself. Even more red flags were raised in their minds when they asked Marcy if she knew the identity of the “new love” referenced in the note they found near the victim’s body.
She looked down at her feet and didn’t speak for a moment. When she did, she said, “That was me. I loved Jocelyn Earnest.”
When pushed for further details, Marcy explained. “We started working together in August 2005 and developed a friendship. I started feeling something more and I asked her if she felt the same way and she said, ‘No.’ So, I said, ‘Okay. We’ll just be friends.’”
“But then it changed?”
“Yes, it became a romantic relationship.”
“Were you and Jocelyn intimate?”
“No. We had feelings for one another but we did not have a sexual relationship.”
“No physical intimacy?”
“After the company Christmas party the first year we worked together, I went to her home. We kissed on the sofa. But both of us were married at the time so we didn’t pursue it any further.” Marcy explained that as of April 2006, she and her husband had legally separated, although they continued to live in the same house in order to care for their young children without disruption. Returning to her relationship with Jocelyn, Marcy added, “We did develop a strong emotional attachment.”
“Was that the only time you two got physical?”
“There were a couple of times after that that Jocelyn kissed me—nothing more than that.”
The detectives exchanged a glance. Unrequited love or unsatisfied lust could be motive for murder, but it was generally a more personal homicide than a single shot to the head.
The relationship between the two women, however, could also be a motive for Jocelyn’s estranged spouse to have taken her life.
When Marcy told the investigators about the text messages she’d exchanged with Jocelyn on the last day of her life, the detectives wanted her BlackBerry. Marcy didn’t want to part with it. “I am afraid of Wesley Earnest,” she told them. “Jocelyn said that if he knew anything or found out anything, he would kill us both. He could be lurking anywhere. I am afraid to be without my phone.”
Was it a reasonable explanation? A diversionary move? Or was Marcy simply buying time because she had something to hide?
• • •
That same day, the medical examiner confirmed that Jocelyn had died from a gunshot wound to the head. Although it would be weeks before investigators received the final autopsy report, Dr. Amy Tharp did give them her preliminary findings that indicated it was not suicide and the death was instantaneous. Still, Tharp hesitated to officially define Jocelyn’s death as a homicide until receiving the toxicology and other test results.
While the detectives waited for evidence reports from the forensic lab to confirm their suspicions of murder, they reviewed the seventeen spiral notebooks filled with Jocelyn’s handwriting—some found in her home, others discovered when they executed a search warrant on her office at Genworth. Page after page, Jocelyn exposed her deepest thoughts, worries, and joys. The investigators tried to maintain a professional distance, but they felt themselves drawn closer to the deceased woman. It felt as if she were talking to them, explaining her life in intimate detail. They kept reading, hoping they’d find the key to unlock the reason for her death.
And then they did. One entry made in August 2005 jumped off the page. Jocelyn wrote of her growing fear of Wesley and urged her family to suspect “my cheating husband” if she were ever found dead. “Know that he killed me, because I would never kill myself. My guess is he shot me and then killed himself.” In another entry, she wrote: “If I die, Wesley killed me and he probably shot me.” It was a chillingly prophetic pronouncement about the means of death, but would it prove to be as accurate about the person who pulled the trigger?
Another observation became apparent as they read through the journals. The style and wording found in these notebooks was not consistent with what they’d seen in the note found on the living room floor. Did that point to a different author? Or was it simply because she was more depressed and stressed in the moments before she took her life?
Of particular interest to the detectives was another document they discovered, a timeline of the last eleven years of Jocelyn’s life, composed on oversized paper. All of the events listed were handwritten and in first person. Oddly, though, there were two distinct handwriting styles, indicating that the entries were authored by more than one person. Those entries were bracketed in red, and notably, all were statements that reflected positively on Wesley Earnest.
Some comments in this unfamiliar hand offered an excuse for any possible infidelity on his part. For instance, one entry in 1996 read: “Kept telling Wes to sleep with someone else and come home to me.” A year later: “Kept telling Wes, I don’t want to be with you sexually.”
Other entries praised Wesley. In 1998: “It’s okay. Wes took care of me as always.” Three years later: “Very understanding husband with me spending late hours at work.”
Still other notes in the unknown handwriting placed the blame for difficulties in the marriage squarely on Jocelyn’s shoulders. In 2005: “Wes kept trying to talk to me, but I just kept shutting him out,” followed in the next year by: “Wes wants another chance to make it work out but finds it highly unlikely because my family has too much influence and never fully embraced Wes and Wes’s mother has been left out of the loop.”
Who wrote those entries? It certainly didn’t appear to be Jocelyn. Could it have been Wesley Earnest? If so, when did he alter that document? Long ago, to aid him in contentious divorce proceedings? Or in the aftermath of murder, to diminish suspicion on the estranged spouse? As in many investigations, every new tidbit of uncovered information generated a roar of unanswered questions.