Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones

Speaker 1 True Story Media.

Speaker 1 Hello, it's Andrea Dunlop. Welcome back to Nobody Should Believe Me case files.

Speaker 1 This is part two of our mini-series on the Jessica Jones case. Today is the first half of my interview with Derek Jones, the father of the victims in this case.

Speaker 1 I so appreciate Derek's candor about his relationship with Jessica and just his willingness to share his story with us. Our new season is coming out on January 2nd.

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Speaker 1 Now, here's the interview.

Speaker 1 Hello, I have exciting news. I am officially taking this show on the road next year.
I'm going to be doing a series of Nobody Should Believe Me live shows next March.

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Hey, it's Andrea.

Speaker 1 It's come to my attention that some of you have been served programmatic ads for ICE on my show.

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I am the daughter of an immigrant. I stand with immigrants.

Speaker 1 Immigrants make this country great.

Speaker 1 Derek, thank you so much for being here with us. So we are here today to talk about the Jessica Jones case, which we have also spoken to Detective Mike Weber about.

Speaker 1 And we just, I am very anxious to talk to you about your story and just your perspective on this. And

Speaker 1 so yeah, can you just start by telling us who you are and how you relate relate to this case?

Speaker 2 All right. So, my name is Derek Jones.
I'm the father of the oldest and the youngest victims in the case.

Speaker 1 You're also Jessica's ex-husband? Is that right?

Speaker 2 Well, hopefully soon. Okay, so been trying for a while.

Speaker 1 Oh, boy. Okay, so you're in the process of becoming Jessica's ex-husband.

Speaker 1 So how did you and Jessica originally meet?

Speaker 2 We met through Facebook, actually.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 and when was this?

Speaker 2 I want to say it was towards the end of 2016.

Speaker 1 So where or where or whereabouts do you live?

Speaker 2 I live around the Fort Worth area. At the time,

Speaker 2 I didn't. I lived over in Archer City, which was a good hour and a half from Fort Worth, roughly, I think.
Okay.

Speaker 1 And so you guys were chatting for a couple of months online. And what were your kind of first impressions of her and who she was?

Speaker 2 I mean, nothing stood out

Speaker 2 that was like alarming or anything like that. You know, I was like, hey, this is, you know, I was enjoying the conversation.

Speaker 2 It's hard because I look back at it now and I have a different perception. I looked, I was in a dark place back then.
And so I don't think that helped with my

Speaker 2 judgment very well.

Speaker 2 But I, I mean,

Speaker 2 Back then, I looked at it as I didn't see anything alarming and, you know, this nice girl that had her stuff together and like I said I was a single guy so I was like hey why not and then did she eventually suggest that you meet up in person and how did that piece of things develop we had both were like talking back and forth about meeting up in person and then

Speaker 2 finally I was able to have a free weekend when she had a free weekend and so then we finally just made plans to meet up And like I said, it was about three months after we started chatting that we finally met up.

Speaker 2 I came up to Fort Worth.

Speaker 1 I completely understand where you're at with all of this because it's really hard once you have the kind of revelations that you've had about someone to sort of put yourself back in that position where you're trying to remember what it was like when you first met them.

Speaker 1 And I think like one of the things that people sometimes don't understand about

Speaker 1 what being close to a situation like this does to your brain is that like it kind of splits your life in half, right?

Speaker 1 Like I, I feel like like not only do I sometimes have trouble remembering, you know, because

Speaker 1 I think you know, you know, I have a sister who's a perpetrator and that's what brings me to this work. And,

Speaker 1 you know, not only do I have trouble remembering like what she was like before. I knew all of this, I have trouble remembering what I was like.

Speaker 1 I have trouble remembering who I was before all of this happened because it feels like, you know, know, it feels like this, the situation sort of broke my brain and I just didn't look at the same, like I don't look at the world the same way.

Speaker 1 And so it's sort of like you end up like also questioning yourself a lot, right? Like, why did, you know, I think I can hear you kind of doing some of that.

Speaker 1 Like, why would I ever, you know, choose a person like this when reality is like a lot of people that, you know, are like.

Speaker 1 If you're a nice person and you're an honest person and you go through life, like not doing things like this, like it's not something that you're just on the lookout for, right?

Speaker 2 A hundred percent. Yeah.
It definitely makes you stop. And

Speaker 2 when everything came out, it made me and once I got clear-headed and understanding of everything and I was like, where was my judgment at, you know?

Speaker 2 But it also makes you stop and look at it. Like you said, it's like, it's hard to remember how I thought back then.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because I'm leaps and bounds ahead of where I was even back then.

Speaker 2 And so it's, yeah, it's, it's hard to think about it, like to the point of remembering exactly what were your thoughts. Cause myself nowadays, I'd have been like, what in the world?

Speaker 2 Something's off here. But at the same time, going through this has also made me heighten

Speaker 2 my awareness. Like little things will throw, you know, catch red flag, red flag, you know, and it's, it's made me harder to trust people.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because it makes you, like I said, it makes you question your judgment, but it also, it's like, you, you thought you knew yourself better than that.

Speaker 2 But now you're like, now that you've come out on the other side, you're like,

Speaker 2 before I'd have been just like, oh, yeah, no problem. Like, I believe you.
Now I'm like, yeah, yeah. And then I'm going to, I'm going to take some time and evaluate it and think about it.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I mean, I think, you know, one of my big hopes with the show is that for other people who are somewhere earlier along in that process, that by hearing it, you know, they may have that moment earlier and that that's helpful because it's just, you know, if you've never been through it, if you've never been through anything like it, if you've never heard about it, if you, you know, haven't spent years studying it like I have, then it's like, you're not gonna, you're not gonna see it coming.

Speaker 1 And I think it's, yeah, it's, that's just, that's just human. So I hope you can also find

Speaker 1 some grace for yourself. But so nonetheless, you guys end up meeting in real life and you start dating.

Speaker 1 And it was a tough moment in your life, which I'm sure also, you know, that's like, I think sometimes people think, oh, this would never happen to me. I would know what was happening.

Speaker 1 But the reality is that, like, we all have moments in our life when we're more vulnerable for whatever reason. So it sounds like this was kind of a moment like that for you, maybe.

Speaker 1 What was going on in your life? You had, I think, do you had kids? You had kids from a previous marriage also?

Speaker 2 I had one from a previous marriage.

Speaker 2 And I was just in that place in life where

Speaker 2 then I didn't know that I was in a depression and everything.

Speaker 2 And I really didn't learn how deep of a depression I was in until actually all this came out. I didn't realize how far I had disassociated myself with family and everything else.
And so

Speaker 2 I look back now and, you know, like I said, my judgment wasn't the best. And I could, I will put 100% that it wasn't now that I look back.

Speaker 2 But, you know, we started that, you know, we started dating and we started hanging out. And she would come up and see me and I would go up there and see her.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it ended up moving really quick.

Speaker 2 I want to say it was around April of 2017 that

Speaker 2 she had called me up to let me know that she was pregnant.

Speaker 1 So you hadn't been dating for very long and you were still kind of living in two different places.

Speaker 1 And so you were just sort of in that getting to know each other phase and then she calls you and tells you she's pregnant yeah she calls me and tells me she's pregnant and

Speaker 2 i was like well you know i'll be there i'm not going nowhere you know i'll be there for my kid

Speaker 2 we keep dating she calls me one day and she goes hey i just got back from the doctor and uh He says there's two of them. And I said, no, you're kidding.

Speaker 2 And she says, no, I'm not. I'm like, no, this is not funny.
Like,

Speaker 2 you know, all joking aside, how did the appointment go? She's like, really? There's, we're having twins. And I was like,

Speaker 2 wow.

Speaker 2 You know, and so

Speaker 2 I ended up making plans and moving up to Fort Worth with her because I wanted to be here through the pregnancy.

Speaker 1 And I mean, that must have been so overwhelming. So you're going from being like divorced out of one, sounds like, to dating a new woman.
Now you've got twins on the way.

Speaker 1 That's like, that's just a lot to figure out. And what do you do for work? Like, was your work based, I assume, where you live or was it sort of flexible?

Speaker 2 At the time, my work was where I lived. And then

Speaker 2 I found a job up in Fort Worth when I moved up here.

Speaker 2 Looking back on it, it should have been an alarm that, hey,

Speaker 2 She was in transition of houses. So she was staying at her grandmother's house.

Speaker 2 But she's like, like, you know, my grandmother said, you can move in here with me. And

Speaker 2 I said, I wasn't in the best mindset. And

Speaker 2 so I ended up moving in there with her, with her grandmother. And

Speaker 1 you'd said earlier that when you first met her via Facebook and sort of your first impressions of her, that it seemed like, you know, she like had her stuff together.

Speaker 1 Like she, she had her act together. Like, what, what did she did? What, what was she doing for work? Like, what, what else did you sort of know about her?

Speaker 1 What kind of came to light as just maybe even in this period while you were dating and she gets pregnant?

Speaker 2 She told me she had been a nurse at Cook's, but then she had told me when I moved in there, she was working at a nursing home.

Speaker 2 And then,

Speaker 2 right before I moved in, she had been working at a nursing home. Once I moved in,

Speaker 2 pregnancy was getting hard on her. And

Speaker 2 she told me that the doctor said, Hey,

Speaker 2 if I don't start taking it easy, they're going to bed, bed,

Speaker 2 what is it?

Speaker 2 Bed rest.

Speaker 2 Bedrest for the rest of the pregnancy. And this was way early on.
Me being a young, dumb guy, you know, I didn't know nothing about it.

Speaker 2 And I fed right into it because I'm like, okay, you know, there's two. I've only been, you know, my first one was just one.
And so maybe that twin pregnancy is different.

Speaker 2 Maybe, you know, it's a lot of different things.

Speaker 1 I mean, sure enough, they are. Like they, they are higher.
It is a higher risk pregnancy situation.

Speaker 1 I mean that that much is true were were you going to any appointments with her during this time or was this all kind of what she was reporting to you this is what she was reporting to me i went to one or two when they had the um ultrasound

Speaker 2 i was actually three or four it was only when they were doing the ultrasound okay um

Speaker 2 The regular doctor's appointments, I usually didn't make to. I was working.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 1 you have about a billion of them when you're pregnant. So that's not how you go all the time.

Speaker 2 Well, and I was the only one working since supposedly she had to take it easy.

Speaker 2 So it was hard to get off work. You know, I just started this job, didn't have a lot of flexibility of asking a lot of time off.

Speaker 2 And so time goes on. We get later on in the pregnancy.
She starts having more

Speaker 2 at risk, you know, in and out of the hospital. And they were going to, you know,

Speaker 2 we might have to keep you just to watch, you know, in case they try to come early. They ended up coming, I want to say it was 37 weeks.

Speaker 1 So it's a little bit, a little bit early, but not

Speaker 2 too early. They were tiny, tiny, though.

Speaker 2 One was 37, I want to say. And the other one was 4-1.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 If I remember my numbers correctly.

Speaker 2 So they were tiny. They were at the point.
I I was like, I was scared to hold them. I'm like, I'm going to break them just if I moved wrong, you know?

Speaker 2 I made a couple of the first doctor's appointments when we would go see their pediatrician and

Speaker 2 everything was fine.

Speaker 1 And how were you guys kind of settling in as a couple? Like, did she, because she, she had also some other children from a previous marriage, is that right? Did they live also with her?

Speaker 1 Or like, what was this? Did you meet the ex-husband? Like, what were kind of the family dynamics that were coming together as as you were settling in?

Speaker 2 Yes, they, she had three other ones.

Speaker 2 They all lived with her. I

Speaker 2 met the ex-husband, you know, as a, hey, I'm Derek. Hey, I'm so-and-so,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 other than that, never really chatted.

Speaker 2 Throughout all this, she had fed me stuff that put me against him.

Speaker 2 and made him, you know, oh, he's like this.

Speaker 2 And when you're, when you're in that situation, you're going to support your other half, you know, and no reason not to believe, or I didn't have any proof against it. So

Speaker 2 that's about the extent with him, you know,

Speaker 2 we didn't really care for each other. You know, I would meet him to drop the kids off or meet him to pick the kids up.

Speaker 1 But, you know, the old so you kind of just had the impression that that was not a good, that they hadn't had a very good relationship and they weren't on like, sounds like they were on like okay terms but just a generally sort of negative vibe yes ma'am you know um i would go

Speaker 2 or i would help out and watch the kids when she'd have to take the oldest one to her

Speaker 2 you know neurology appointments and stuff and

Speaker 2 i would i tried to make some of those but the ones that i would make were few and far between like i said i was still doing my job and

Speaker 1 yeah and you said the older one was going to neurology appointments what was what was the health did the old oldest child also have health issues supposedly had epilepsy okay um apparently it supposedly had epilepsy since

Speaker 2 i was told by her one year old since she was a year old looking back on reports and stuff it looks like she started reporting it around like three months

Speaker 2 okay

Speaker 1 And then the middle two, did they have any health issues? The middle two?

Speaker 2 One had some gastro issues. The other one, no.
The oldest one, you know, like I said, I was told she had epilepsy. You know, she'd have, she could have seizures and had had them here and there.

Speaker 2 She was on, like, she was taking, dude, I want to say at times it looked, I think it was like anywhere from five to seven pills,

Speaker 2 you know. I can't remember if it was morning and evening or per day.

Speaker 2 There's quite a few. We had to heal things set out for each day.

Speaker 1 And so it sounds like, so that the eldest lived with y'all full time, and then the two middle ones that were from her ex-husband, because they were from different dads, is that right?

Speaker 1 And so the two middle ones, they were sharing custody?

Speaker 2 Yes. The two middle ones were sharing custody.
The oldest one was with her full-time. So as time went on, the girl started getting older.

Speaker 2 And, you know, they had some speech problems and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 And one was always closer to me and one was always closer to her.

Speaker 1 And are they both both girls or boy girl or?

Speaker 2 Both girls.

Speaker 1 So it sounds like in the beginning, you know, they're born like a little bit early, but not super scary. They're a little on the small side, probably have some issues because of that.

Speaker 1 And then, so maybe had like a few developmental delays, but like nothing super serious right in the beginning.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they

Speaker 2 were just, you know, small. We had to put them on the growth formula to help try to gain weight.
They weren't really gaining a lot of weight still to this day.

Speaker 2 are tiny but their speech was behind and stuff like that but they had a speech therapist that would come out to the house and help out that was I think around two years old I believe but other than that we had we'd go to the doctor they still saw the doctors for like trying to you know watching growth plates and trying to gain weight and stuff like that so were they having like failure to thrive issues kind of yes okay

Speaker 2 not maybe not not super did they have like feeding tubes or anything like that or just sort of more mild okay well i believe they said it you know failure to thrive but it was just no matter what you fed them or how many times you fed them they just they didn't they wouldn't gain weight i don't know where it went you know at least when i was there they would eat all the time and and it sounds like you were you were so you're working full-time is she a stay-at-home mom at this point does she go back to work at any point or she's just she's sounds like she's the primary caretaker She never went back to work.

Speaker 2 She was a stay-at-home mom. I was the one working all the time.
I want to say when they were around a year and a half, two years old, I got another job.

Speaker 2 So it'd have been a year and a half, roughly, because in August of 2019, I got a new job, but I started traveling with this job. So, you know, she was at home with them all the time.

Speaker 2 I'd travel a couple days a week. Sometimes I'd be gone a full week.
As far as I knew, you know, everything was going all right. You know, they were doing their speech and everything.

Speaker 2 The oldest one was you know

Speaker 2 she was up and down she'd have her good times and she'd have her bad times she had behavioral depression um looking back on it now i i see why and i don't blame her you know taking medicine that you didn't need and

Speaker 2 all that i'm sure played a major role in it

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Speaker 2 I'd started noticing things, you know,

Speaker 2 we had started growing apart.

Speaker 2 Man, Jessica.

Speaker 1 You and Jessica. Okay.

Speaker 2 But I'm one of those people that I would would stick around. You know, I'm going to be there for my kids.
And I just noticed, I noticed little things that

Speaker 2 weren't adding up. You know.

Speaker 1 And when did you get, when did you and Jessica get married? Did you get married before the kids came? Or?

Speaker 2 Before the kids, she wanted, she was big on being married before the kids were born. So

Speaker 2 I found out, I want to say it was April.

Speaker 2 that she was pregnant and we were married in June.

Speaker 1 So that is, that's a quick,

Speaker 1 that's a quick trajectory all the way around.

Speaker 2 Like I said, I look back and I play a part of not being in the right mindset on that because nowadays I would have never done that.

Speaker 2 But I was right along with, hey, I'll do what, you know, I'm on board. I'm all in.

Speaker 2 And like I said, so down the road, I started noticing some, you know, things, like I said, little things not adding up. We weren't getting along as much.
And I noticed that she would lay around.

Speaker 2 I'd come home and clean the house. I'd come home and cook dinner.

Speaker 2 Um, I was doing the laundry, and it was the more and more that I was working, the more and more it was frustrating me because it was like, Hey, I'm working.

Speaker 2 The least you can do is help out around the house. You know, I don't expect you to do it all.
Just, I'm asking for some help. I'm wore out.

Speaker 2 And so we started, you know, we were, we were stressed out with each other and

Speaker 2 we started arguing more and more. And around three and a half years old, the youngest one started showing signs, you know, like it was like she was slowing down.

Speaker 2 She wasn't, she's, she was never really super vocal. She was always the quiet one,

Speaker 2 but she just was more and more not herself. And I'm like, maybe she's just having a rough patch, you know? I started noticing things more and more with Jessica.
And I'm like, hey.

Speaker 2 The rougher we got, the more she started almost like backpedaling to try to find things.

Speaker 2 Like she came up with that she had cancer and like that she had a current cancer diet.

Speaker 1 So so things are things are getting tough with you guys. And then she tells you that she's been diagnosed with cancer?

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 What what like what type of I mean that that must have been

Speaker 1 that must have been really okay. So she says she tells you she has leukemia.
I mean that's that's very serious, especially as an adult. Actually, I have an adult cousin that died of leukemia.

Speaker 1 So I mean that must have been terrifying.

Speaker 2 the crazy thing was is her mom had actually had cancer and so

Speaker 2 looking back on it it was like

Speaker 2 you you're so messed up because like your mom actually had it and you ended up making up this fake thing of having but at the time she made it real believable because she

Speaker 2 i started noticing more and more bruises on her And it, you know, she'd wake up with two new bruises. And I mean, she was covered in bruises head to toe.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, something's wrong and then that's when it came out you know hey she went to the doctor and she had leukemia

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 1 and this is are you still living with her grandmother or had you guys moved out into your own space by then we had we had our own space um

Speaker 2 and i was like you know

Speaker 2 I didn't know a lot about leukemia. I'd never known anybody that had it.
I knew of leukemia, but I didn't know a lot about it. So I was Googling them, you know,

Speaker 2 you can get bruise easy and stuff like that, and

Speaker 2 so it was she was playing it all to where it was very believable, you know.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's that's really scary.

Speaker 1 Like, you have two little kids at home, you're you're already sort of like super stressed just because it's stressful, and you have you know, other kids that are living part-time with you, and you're working full-time.

Speaker 1 And so, um, I mean, did she start treatment? Like, what, what happened next?

Speaker 2 She said that they were, had caught it on early, and they were trying this new,

Speaker 2 they wanted to try her on this new thing they had for her. It was like a pill-based thing.

Speaker 2 And supposedly, she was taking those.

Speaker 1 Like a drug trial or something like that? Yes.

Speaker 2 Before they went to chemo or radiation, they wanted to try this.

Speaker 2 And it had gotten so bad that at one point, I think she had like 98 bruises on her. I don't know.
Looking back, I don't know if she was just

Speaker 2 because at this time,

Speaker 2 we still weren't getting along great. A lot of time, most of the time, I was sleeping on the couch.

Speaker 2 And I don't know if she was just hitting herself in the night.

Speaker 2 I really don't know how she was making it happen.

Speaker 1 But it sounds like it was pretty dramatic. Like, she really

Speaker 2 awful. Yeah.
I was scared to go out in public thinking that somebody thought I beat her or something. You know, I said, I'm not, when I say head to toe, I mean arms,

Speaker 2 chest, legs, and

Speaker 2 that, or she was taking something to lower maybe iron or I don't know to where she bruised easier because all she, all you had to do is barely, I mean, if somebody walked up and like tapped her to like get her attention, she might have bruised there.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 And she had never really been like that before. And so I was, like I said, it played hand in hand and was real believable.
I had no reason not to believe it, you know, at that time.

Speaker 2 I'm like, why would it, you know,

Speaker 2 it never crossed my mind of why would somebody lie about having cancer of all things?

Speaker 1 Most, most people, most people wouldn't, but so yeah, it's not something that you're watching out for, not something that you see coming for sure.

Speaker 2 So time goes on, and the youngest starts, you know, showing more signs and stuff of

Speaker 2 not being

Speaker 2 okay.

Speaker 2 Her health is, you know, lacking some. And I want to say,

Speaker 2 it was

Speaker 2 right before

Speaker 2 trying to remember when it came out that she didn't have cancer I want to say it was right before the youngest actually started going to the hospital really for

Speaker 2 you know seizure like symptoms and it came out that I finally had people point it out to me they're like hey

Speaker 2 you're not looking at this right like where's her paperwork you know where's this where's that

Speaker 1 and then every time so some other people sort of who weren't as close to the the situation

Speaker 2 were seeing that, yeah, yeah, yes,

Speaker 2 and so during a lot of the

Speaker 2 reverse for a little bit, she had had me so brainwashed that I'd quit, I quit talking to my family, my side of the family for,

Speaker 2 or at least my mother and stepdad, I quit talking to them for a year, year and a half. Wow, what brought that on?

Speaker 2 She they had some disagreements, and I was backing her, you know

Speaker 1 I look back and she had me pretty dang brainwashed So it sounds like it became kind of a like us and them like if you're either with me or you're against that, you know like that kind of thing and maybe they had some questions about her and

Speaker 1 She turned you on them basically.

Speaker 2 I look back. Well, I look back and there's I should have left a lot.

Speaker 2 I should have left a long time ago. There's things I'm not proud of.

Speaker 2 The biggest thing that caused the rift between her and my parents was they had a, they had let her borrow a handgun one time

Speaker 2 and they kept asking for it back and kept asking for it back. And well, come to find out she sold it.
So he filed a police report that, you know, it was

Speaker 2 it turned out as a stolen gun simply because she had sold it and it wasn't hers to sell

Speaker 2 so i should have left then

Speaker 2 but i can't even remember the whole scenario but somehow this came out i want to say

Speaker 2 right before the twins were born or right after somewhere right in that time frame

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 1 somehow she got me to stay Well, I mean, we all like to think that we're making these sort of, you know, logical, rational choices where we like evaluate the evidence in front of us and act accordingly, right?

Speaker 1 But I mean, the emotional reality there is like you're in this relationship that went from zero to 100, and you either just you either have brand new babies in the house or you have twins that are about to arrive.

Speaker 1 That's not,

Speaker 1 that's, that's a place where you have a lot to lose if you

Speaker 1 decide to do that, right?

Speaker 1 Like, I mean, there's a lot of reasons why you would want to believe whatever her story was about the gun rather than that she just did something that seems dishonest and shady and questionable, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 She was, she was a very good liar. I will say that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And like, I'm sure, even if you don't remember exactly what her story was, I can, I can imagine in my head, I'm sure there was a story of like why she had to do it or why it wasn't what it looked like, or, you know, some big long explanation about like how she was the victim actually, because, you know, your stepdad filed that police report and how could he do that?

Speaker 1 And, you know, that was so mean to her.

Speaker 2 And like, it's like, I can really, I can, I can hear the whole thing it turned out it was so you know it's either me or them like we we're not seeing eye to eye and i had these babies right there and i'm like i told my parents i'm like it's not what y'all think you know and i i took her side

Speaker 2 exactly what you just said you know it's one of those where you look back and you're like man

Speaker 2 if i was somebody else listening to my own story, I'd be like slapping myself up beside the head. Like, what in the world were you thinking, man?

Speaker 2 You know, but they're so good at manipulating you and lying to you. I look back and I'm like, because once this all first came out, I'm going to fast forward for a second.

Speaker 2 When it all first came out, it was a real hard on it. I took it really hard.

Speaker 1 About the leukemia?

Speaker 2 Or once everything came out about what she had done overall, because I was like, I felt like I didn't protect my kids and how could I stick around through all this?

Speaker 2 And what kind of dad was I or man was I

Speaker 2 and so looking back yes it's like

Speaker 2 through everything so we'll go back to the leukemia um

Speaker 2 so she says she has leukemia and then it comes out she don't you know started asking for paperwork and stuff and she's like I'm waiting on them to email and I kept on and I kept on and I'm like okay you know something's not adding up and then finally it came out that she didn't And did you confront her on this?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 what was her explanation for the fake leukemia?

Speaker 2 She said that was just in a really dark place and we weren't doing good

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 she just something was off with her,

Speaker 2 you know, health-wise and

Speaker 2 she just,

Speaker 2 it wasn't the right decision. She knows that,

Speaker 2 but she wishes she could change it, but she couldn't. So I ended up, I went and filed for divorce.

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Speaker 1 so that was that was it for you like that the fake leukemia you were like this is not a normal thing to do this is yeah like, I mean, that's a, yeah,

Speaker 1 that's an understandable next step, right?

Speaker 2 Well, that's, that's where I, that's where I really start to judge myself because

Speaker 2 then I'm trying to, we're still living in the same house at the time.

Speaker 2 Um, I'm trying to save up money to get my own place. She says she's going to counseling, shows me this counselor she's going to and everything.

Speaker 2 You know, she

Speaker 2 wishes she could take it back, but she couldn't. And she's trying to work on herself.
And

Speaker 2 then

Speaker 2 the oldest starts getting, you know, starts having more seizure stuff

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 everything.

Speaker 2 And I just get, I got roped back in.

Speaker 2 I stuck around. I look back now and

Speaker 2 I know why I did it. I did it for the kids.

Speaker 2 I didn't do it for her. I did it for the kids.

Speaker 2 But I was still in such a shaded place that in me nowadays, I would would have been 100 miles down the road.

Speaker 2 Oh, I don't care if I had a place to live or not. I would have been living in my vehicle.
Like I said, when we first met, I was, you know, looking back, I was really depressed.

Speaker 2 I never got out of that because

Speaker 2 of everything we had went through.

Speaker 1 Yeah, then you just start piling on like stressor after stressor after stressor. And like, it's not like, it's not like she came out the gate with the leukemia lie, right?

Speaker 1 It's like there was like this and this and then and this and this and this, then the gun, then the, you know, we're like, yeah, you know, three and a half years in

Speaker 2 and four years in, somewhere along those lines, and we're, we're on thin ice.

Speaker 2 I still have the paperwork turned into the court. I ended up pulling it out.
And I tell her, like, hey, you've really got to show me that you're going to change.

Speaker 2 Like, I don't want to have another set of my kids growing up in a broken family, but I can't stick around.

Speaker 2 You do anything like this again.

Speaker 2 I can promise you, I'm high-telling. Like, this is your last saving grace.
And deep down inside,

Speaker 2 I just doing it for the kids. The love, I felt

Speaker 2 this is me being true and honest. Now, it's the love was already gone.
But growing up, I always want, I grew up in a broken family.

Speaker 2 And I was like, I don't, you know, I already have one kid with a broken family. I don't want mothers if there's any chance that she can turn her life around.
You know, people make,

Speaker 2 we're all human. We all make mistakes.
I know that, but it was like, that was a pretty big mistake, you know.

Speaker 2 But I'm like, hey, this is your final shot. So I went back, and then the youngest starts getting sicker.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 November 2021, I should be,

Speaker 2 that's when the youngest went into the hospital the first time for seizure-like symptoms. And that's where everything started

Speaker 2 falling into place

Speaker 2 of things happening she started you know becoming a kid over the next couple months after that that i didn't recognize it was that's my daughter but she's completely different now

Speaker 2 how so sleeping all the time

Speaker 2 just less vocal just it's hard to even explain it's as a parent when you see your kid like and you something's off you can tell and i knew something was off and it but it was like and that's where by saying like that like it was my kid but it wasn't like

Speaker 2 it was off like she wasn't her normal self and it just kept getting further and further from her normal self

Speaker 2 and so she was going you know she back and forth and to the hospital and the er and did she have to your knowledge at this point did she have like a diagnosis or just like she's having these symptoms and we don't know what's wrong with her she was having these symptoms they couldn't figure it out but they wanted her to start

Speaker 2 She would send, you know, she'd be like, hey, she's having seizures. I'm going to take her to ER.
I need you to come home and stay with the kids. So I'd leave work, come home.

Speaker 2 And first couple of times, they didn't know.

Speaker 2 So they started telling her like, hey, when you witness these episodes, please record it and send it to us or bring it into her next doctor's appointment so we can view it.

Speaker 1 Right, because part of the problem with things like seizure disorders is they can put them on, you know, the machine you were talking about before before with the older child they can put them on an eeg for observation in case they happen to have a seizure during that time but it's very it can be really hard to catch it so it can be hard to sort of get that information which is why they ask parents to record so the doctors can look at look at what the episode actually looks like right

Speaker 2 so they had done a

Speaker 2 I want to say, I can't remember if it was a 24 or 48 hour at the hospital EEG.

Speaker 2 She told me they caught a few little ones, but it wasn't enough for them to find, you know, go off of anything.

Speaker 2 And so they, you know, they had moved us over to neurology at Cooks to start seeing them so that, you know,

Speaker 2 you see the doctor once or twice while you're in the hospital, but they wanted, you know, where they could get on a more personable level.

Speaker 2 The doctor said, hey, I want you to video if you see anything.

Speaker 2 So time goes, you know, month or two goes on.

Speaker 2 She's getting worse. One day I get a video from her and she'd send it to my mom too

Speaker 2 of this episode. And growing up, you know, never being fully around somebody

Speaker 2 that had had seizures other than her older sister. But I'd only witnessed a very glimpse of that also of the older one.

Speaker 2 So when I see it on the video, my assumption is, hey, she's shaking and stuff. I think that's a seizure.

Speaker 2 I full-heartedly, you know, when your daughter's sitting there like this, you know, I'm thinking she's having a seizure. To me, that's what I figured it looked like.

Speaker 1 Well, and sure enough, there can be a pretty big range of what a seizure looks like, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's not, hey, one set standard, you know, there, you know.

Speaker 1 But something in the video, when you saw it, that something was something.

Speaker 2 Something. She was laying on the couch, shaking, you know, she was getting to the point where she was having these episodes of peeing on herself more.

Speaker 2 It was her, like I said, her.

Speaker 2 health was declining. And I'm, you get more and more concerned.
As a parent, you're

Speaker 2 something's got to be done. You know, we need to figure something out.
If it's not this, it's got to be something.

Speaker 2 And a week or two after that video, she ends up having more seizures.

Speaker 2 She's like, hey, I called the emergency number.

Speaker 2 They want me to take her in when you get home because she's had a couple today.

Speaker 2 And she's real lethargic right now.

Speaker 2 Okay, I'm rushing home.

Speaker 2 She takes her up there. They end up admitting her for a day or two to officer Vader.

Speaker 2 And then I was like, did you show them the videos? And she's like, yeah, they see it. You know, they said those are small ones, but she never had one in there.

Speaker 2 So they ended up, they're like, hey, we're going to send her home and do a 72-hour EEG at home where she's more relaxed, more comfortable.

Speaker 2 Where if, you know, where they've been happening, so maybe we can catch one there.

Speaker 2 so here she comes home she has to keep this backpack on her for three days has her you know all the stuff on her head all gauzed up and they'd even

Speaker 2 went in and done a

Speaker 2 mri

Speaker 2 was it mri of her brain they had to put her to sleep and do food tests her while she was asleep they put her asleep and everything which that was hard to witness the first time because she started shaking a little bit, you know, when she went to sleep.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 72 hours, they go back in, take it all out, or take it all off.

Speaker 2 Next day, they tell you it's going to take like two days to get the full readings of everything for the doctor to look at it. She calls me when they get it.

Speaker 2 She said they saw a few little ones on there because we had a button every time we thought we'd see one. We had to hit it.
You know, we're supposed to hit it.

Speaker 2 And she was supposed to, I believe, log it all.

Speaker 2 Also, every time she thought she saw one in that 72 hours.

Speaker 2 And supposedly, she was doing all that on her phone.

Speaker 1 Jessica was supposed to do that.

Speaker 2 Jessica, yes. Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I'm thinking, okay, now they know there's a few. She's like, hey, they said they're going to call her and they call in this medicine to put her on to start.

Speaker 2 They want to start on this low dose of the, I can't even remember what it was called. And a week or two later,

Speaker 2 I'm this whole time.

Speaker 2 Right before she got caught in June of 2022,

Speaker 2 May,

Speaker 2 April, May, I'm like, I'm really on her. I'm like, hey, we need to get with these doctors.
Like, I'm losing. I felt like I was losing my daughter.

Speaker 2 Like, I felt like if this kept on, she was going to die. Like, that's how much she was declining.
Like, she was just,

Speaker 2 she was pretty much a vegetable at home most of the time. She wanted to sleep all the time and just having accidents.
Like, we were going backwards, but she just didn't really talk.

Speaker 2 And she just lay on the couch, you know, and she was just out of it.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, and she's like around four years old at this point.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she was four.

Speaker 2 And so I was like, you know, this is, I'm losing my daughter. Like, they've got to figure, I was starting to get mad.
I'm like, they got to figure something out.

Speaker 2 And so she takes her in at June for more seizures. And they admit her.
She tells me, you know, that they're observing her.

Speaker 2 They move her up to this room that where they could have cameras on her watching her, you know, to see how she reacts and stuff like that. They're running tests.

Speaker 2 I would get calls saying, hey, she's doing better. You know, she's starting to improve.

Speaker 2 Then I'd get calls saying, hey, she went to the, you know, she went to the bathroom and she came back in here. And now it's like been an hour or two and she's starting to go down.
And I'm like,

Speaker 2 so she's up and down. Like, what are they thinking? She's like, they're wanting to run more tests.
They just took, came and took more blood.

Speaker 2 And this is Jessica is reporting this to you from this is just yes just goes reporting this to me from the hospital because i went up there once because it was hard for me to go with all the kids yeah um i wasn't going to take them into that setting you know you could only have like two people in the room at once anyways um she was in there for four days i get a call from her or text from her saying hey Somebody from CPS is about to be calling you or going to be getting in contact with you.

Speaker 2 And I was like, whoa, whoa whoa whoa whoa what are you talking about she's like they'll explain everything i'm like the

Speaker 2 what's going on like that's serious how do i go from my daughter's up and down you're in here in the hospital with her to now cp like what i need some background um she said i gave the youngest one too much medicine and i'm like what do you mean you gave her too much medicine I'm going back and forth with text because she won't answer her phone.

Speaker 2 So I get a call from CPS and they're like, hello, Mr. Jones.
is this Mr. Jones? I said, Yes, it is.
And she's like,

Speaker 2 Has Jessica reached out to you? I said, She texted me saying somebody from CPS was going to be reaching out to me.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I'm trying to figure out what she just said, she gave her too much medicine. She said,

Speaker 2 She's been giving her medicine when she didn't need it, and she's been overdosing her on it. She's been making her have these symptoms.
And I'm like, froze, and I'm like, whoa.

Speaker 2 Like, it just caught me off guard. Like,

Speaker 2 what do you mean? Like,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 come to find out, you know, she was giving her Benadryl.

Speaker 2 That's all I knew of at that moment.

Speaker 2 And she's like, she's going to be removed. I need you to come.
You're going to need to come up here to the hospital to stay with her, the youngest, so that,

Speaker 2 you know, she's not, you know, or she'll be here by herself. You know, we'll have, you know, somebody from CPI.

Speaker 2 I was like, no, I'll find, I'll get somebody to come sit with other kids and I'll be up there.

Speaker 1 And I mean, what's, what's like going through your mind with this information? Because this is, it sounds like they're pretty like,

Speaker 1 at least the piece of sort of like the, the connection is, is fairly clear, right? They're like, she's been giving, she's been over-medicating her.

Speaker 1 I was in, were you just shock and like you not even processing yet? You're just in like, in it, like just in sort of crisis mode.

Speaker 2 Yes. I was in shock.
I was in a fog. I was like, it was like the one thing you never think you're going to get hit.
You know, up until this point, this whole disease,

Speaker 2 I had never heard, the only thing I'd ever heard about it was, you know, the Gypsy Rose. And I'd only seen a little bit of that.

Speaker 2 I'll tell you now, most people don't know much about it at all, if anything. And so I was at, I was one of those people.
And I'm like, I didn't even know this is what it was really,

Speaker 2 you know, going that way.

Speaker 2 But so Jessica didn't have a vehicle with her. So I had to go pick her up.

Speaker 2 And she couldn't be around the other kids either so she had to go to a hotel room her uncle got her in a hotel room i went and picked her up from cooks and took her over there the whole way over there i'm like i'm i'm like questioner i'm like what what do you what what is like why

Speaker 2 um

Speaker 2 so at this point when all this happened we were living with her aunt because we had to be supervised Really, she had to be supervised because one time when I was out of town for work, we'd been living with her aunt about a year, not even quite a year, eight, seven, eight months.

Speaker 2 I was out of town. I get a call from her saying, hey, I had to run to Dollar General.

Speaker 2 We were at the grandmother's house at the time. She said, hey, I had to run down the road to Dollar General.
And while I was gone, the youngest got a hold of some of my grandmother's ambiences.

Speaker 2 And so we're rushing her to the ER to get her stomach pump.

Speaker 2 Well, because of that, the hospital has to report. So CPS is like, hey, since you left her with your grandmother and your grandmother isn't in the best of health, you're not making good judgment.

Speaker 2 You either we're going to take the kids or you can go stay with somebody that we approve that will supervise you.

Speaker 1 So they say it was like it was like a neglect, like a neglectful supervision type of finding. Okay, so that had happened like a year previous to this.

Speaker 2 Yes, maybe a few months less than a year, but somewhere around in there. Okay.

Speaker 2 So we went and stayed. We moved into the aunt's house so we could be supervised for

Speaker 2 i can't remember how long it had to be for six months to a year or something like that so now fast forward on the ride to that hotel i'm like why and she's like i've been telling you like i just need we need to i need to get out of there i can't stand my aunt like she's on me and i was depressed and This is the only way I knew how to act out and get people's attention.

Speaker 2 And it got me out of the house, taking her here. And I'm like, that's, that is no reason at all.
Like, that's no excuse.

Speaker 2 So instead, you want to harm your kid to get everybody to get away. Like, okay, say you need to get away.
I will watch the kids go.

Speaker 2 But, you know, that's all I ever got.

Speaker 1 Then she's trying to sort of justify the behavior, which is completely unjustifiable, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah. It was, it was my fault because I didn't get us out of there.

Speaker 2 Um,

Speaker 2 I think six or eight months we had to do it. So we'd, our time had you you know, been out for a month or two.
I was trying to find a place, but we hadn't found one yet.

Speaker 2 And so I'm like, you're not putting this on me.

Speaker 2 You're not putting this on me. Like,

Speaker 2 never in a million years could I do this. Never in a million years did I think you would do this.
Like,

Speaker 2 who would harm their kid?

Speaker 1 Right. And not like not in any universe, a normal like stress response, right?

Speaker 1 To start harming your child so you can get out of the the house that's i've been stressed before what i'm trying to say yeah but

Speaker 2 i never in a million years would go to like thinking about harming my kids so i go up get to the hospital and i'm sitting there and she's doing a lot better my youngest is doing a lot better

Speaker 2 she wants to go to the playroom we go the playroom we play the nurses say she's doing a lot better So the way they found out was

Speaker 2 they were doing blood tests and it they did one it came back with Benadryl in the system and it came back they did a second just to verify and there was still Benadryl if it was like a one you know had given her something before she came in it would have been out of the system for the second one so that's how they knew so they started watching video

Speaker 2 and every time she would take her to the bathroom she would carry her purse with her so every time they would come out of the bathroom 30 minutes to an hour later is when she'd start declining so my

Speaker 2 I get her, you know.

Speaker 2 So I'm there that night. Next day, the next afternoon, we get to leave.
I get her home. And from that point on, she's just, she kept getting better and kept getting better.
She wasn't on any medicine.

Speaker 2 It was a few days later, two days, I had to go up there and meet with

Speaker 2 I had to take them all up to Cook's. The three girls, I had to take them, the oldest and the two youngest, up to Cook's to meet with.
um

Speaker 2 it's this doctor they have in there and she she's checking them out making sure you know like how they're doing oh like the child abuse pediatrician uh yeah dr uh dr kaufman kaufman yes um so go in there she's talking to them she's checking them out and she pulls me to the side we go talk and she's like starts telling me these things that The video that she had sent me and my mother, she never showed the hospital when she said she did.

Speaker 2 The actual EEGs didn't show anything.

Speaker 2 Come to find out, the oldest one, they had never really

Speaker 2 saw much of anything on any of her tests. So for, at this time, she was 12.
So for 11 years, she's had epilepsy that she didn't have.

Speaker 1 Nobody Should Believe Me case files is produced and hosted by me, Andrea Dunlop. Our editor is Greta Stromquist, and our senior producer is Mariah Gossett.
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