Detective Mike Weber
Appearances
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah. So it's also important to point out to people this can be done a lot of different ways. This this form of abuse. Right. I mean, this is over the counter Benadryl. She didn't have any nursing experience. We'll get into that later. No matter what she claims.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. Yes. Back to Jessica Jones. Jessica had no no nursing experience or anything, but it's over the counter Benadryl. Right. So I knew I was dealing with a serious bodily injury case. I knew this was going to be a first-degree felony, all that. And I'm still going through the interview with her. She starts to make admissions.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
She ups it to, instead of one or two, she eventually says three or four. Again, adult strength, 25 milligrams per pill. So 100 milligrams of Benadryl into a four-year-old. At some point, I switch gears with her and I tell her, we know this has happened. We just need to know why. Why do you do this? And that's when she tells me, I don't know. I'm an habitual liar. I'm tired of living life this way.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I'm tired of hurting my family. I'm tired of hurting my kids medically.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
It's only unusual because police rarely interview these offenders. Again, they present no different. You're liable to get admissions from these offenders as you are any other offenders. I know that probably goes against some literature, but that literature is written by psychologists, not by police officers, because we just... Unfortunately, not a lot of us interview these offenders.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Again, they don't present to me, and I've interviewed a lot of them, any different than anyone else. Now, I don't get confessions. Let me clarify. I don't get admissions. This is not a confession. This is an admission. She didn't admit her whole entire course of conduct. I don't get admissions from everyone I interview in any type of abuse situation.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
But the rate's about the same this for it is child sexual abuse, child physical abuse.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And she tends to- And she actually has a background in both medical and psychology. Okay, that's right, because she's a nurse, right? She's a child abuse pediatrician, yeah.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Or yeah, yeah, she was a child abuse nurse.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Right. I mean, I'm mainly dealing with advanced offenders. And maybe for the offenders who are not as advanced, right, who are exaggerating, maybe mildly falsifying, that treatment may be helpful. When you get to the point of induction... I don't think, and as when we get through this, as you'll see with Jessica Jones, those who induct, they're a lot like pedophiles. They don't stop.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
They keep going. The scary thing is what we don't know is if someone's falsifying. We don't know unless we catch it. We don't know if they're inducing or not. Right. It can be anywhere on that scale at any time. It can be all three at the same time. It's not necessarily a step letter where you go from exaggerating to falsifying to inducing. You can be doing all of it at once.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
So you just you have to deal with the facts of each case that come in. And, you know, number one, exaggerating that I'm not going to have a criminal charge.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
This is Up and Vanish Weekly.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
She's not telling that you're correct, but she's not telling the whole truth. She's still minimizing. And, you know, as I got further into the investigation, talk to people around her, it became pretty clear that she was the one thing. that she was completely honest about is that she was a habitual liar.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, and I told him, you know, if she, no matter what she tells you, no matter how true it sounds, you've got to verify it. Basically, if she tells you the sky is blue, go outside and look up.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
No, no, no, no. The twins were, were four years old.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
This is one of the four-year-old twins.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah, CPS has responded to the hospital. They wait until I interview her before they interview her. She talks to them also, and then they do a removal and are going to place with dad if he's protective. Okay. And Jessica is ordered to leave the hospital. Now, I did not arrest her. I could have at the time. I had a felony basically almost on view.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I had a confession, but I had done the interview without Miranda. And I wanted to let her walk out. And it's another good lesson if you, and I developed a little bit of a rapport with her. I also knew that she was, I didn't know at this time, I got the sense that she was used to getting away with things and that maybe she did not understand the consequences of her actions.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
So I wanted to have additional conversations with her and that would be better done out of custody. And which I did, I had additional phone conversations with her.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yes, they were married, and I guess it was a placement, right? But it was a safety plan that mom would not be around the kids and have no contact with the children. Gotcha, so with any of her children, right? Yes. Yes. With any child, basically.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I spoke with dad several days later after CPS had interviewed dad. He appeared initially to be protective. And, you know, this is a lot. I mean, this is the woman you love. You thought your kids were... very, very sick. Now you're being told they're not and that she caused it. And to his credit, he protected his children. And as you know, that is not always the case.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And it's usually more times than not that the dad falls in line right behind mom. Derek did not. I give him a lot of credit for that because it's a pretty shocking thing to see. But we had some evidence on this case. And normally, am I gonna tell a dad the evidence I have? No. But in these cases, and it's like I tell police, these cases are different.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And I shared some of the evidence that we had with Derek.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
If the parent appears to be protective, I share the evidence so that they will know that they're doing the right thing, right? So that they feel a little bit better about abandoning, basically cutting off their spouse from their children. And I'm sure anyone listening, think about if this happened with your spouse, how are you going to react? You're going to be protected.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
You should be protective of your spouse, right? So that's why it's important to let them know because family court, CPS, they're just, you know, CPS in my state has no policies on this abuse. They provide no training to any other investigators on this abuse, no mandated training. And they're often are lost. They're Obviously better on induction cases with proof like this case.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
This is not a hard case. Right.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Right. We, I mean, we have admissions, we have, you know, everything.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Sure. I am Detective Mike Weber. I am a detective with the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office in Fort Worth, Texas, and I investigate crimes against children.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Right. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's what are they going to do? Are they going to go into denial or are they going to address the problem?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah. It just depends on the individual.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I did, but being concerned about it, I asked him if he would be open to a conversation with someone who's been through this. Derek has told me this is extremely helpful for him. So I connected him with George Honeycutt and they had a hour and a half telephone conversation. And Derek said that really, really opened his eyes.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And I mean, he was never not on board, but as you can imagine, he's kind of like, what the heck? And after talking to George, dead solid. Wow. Never wavered and wanted her away from his children.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah, and like I said after that, Derek was great. Derek, you know, he told me that who all other kids involved. He told me about her previous father. I can't remember if they were married or not, but he told me about the previous father of her kid. I don't want to use his name without his permission. He was great. I talked to him.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
He had reported Munchausen by proxy twice to CPS in Denton County. Really? Yes. One of them was ruled out and one of them was ruled unable to determine. Little investigation was done. And they actually sent questionnaires to doctors. And that's a huge no-no on these cases because if you send a questionnaire to a doctor, all you're going to get back is what's in the medical history.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And the medical history is provided by Maul.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I reviewed them back at the time. I haven't reviewed them, but they were very, very initial. I know that he was concerned that she was medicating the kids when it wasn't needed. It was one of his major concerns that he reported. And because she would send medication to the house for his kids, and we'll get into all the kids, because they were all medicated by her.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
They all talked about being given Benadryl by her.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Every single one. Holy cow. Yeah. And so he reported it twice to Denton County CPS. And look, it is not CPS investigators' fault when they are not given any proper guidance. I've been... I have talked to that administration five times, tried to get them to enact policies. You know, sent them Arizona's policies on this abuse. Nothing ever happens.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And like we've talked about, it will take a very high-profile child death on this abuse that is discovered that remains in the news cycle for a very, very, very long time before anything is done. before any changes happen. Large government agencies change at a snail's pace.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And it's like banging your head against the wall.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I called Jessica back because Dr. Kaufman calls me and says, hey, we also found these two other drugs in the child's bloodstream. And we had found those two bottles in Jessica's purse. Something I forgot to say earlier is that after my interview, I searched Jessica's purse and we found two packages of Benadryl in there, one full and one partially used.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And, you know, obviously we collected that as evidence. So we also, in her purse, we found two bottles of medication that were prescribed to the oldest child, the 11 year old. One of them was trazodone. I don't remember what the other one was, hydro something or another. And so, you know, the trazodone was empty.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Sure. Jessica Jones had brought her four-year-old into Cook's Children's on several occasions. I got involved in this in June of 2022, but it started in March or April of 2022. She had taken the child to the hospital numerous times. And they ordered a blood test when she came in, either in March or April. She was presenting her child as having a seizure disorder.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Right. And, um, So both of those bottles we seized, the trazodone was empty. The other one was missing like 30 pills out of a 90 count. I talked to Dr. Kaufman and they had done another blood screen after removal, the day of removal. And sure enough, she had both of those medications in her system. The victim did. So, you know, that added another charge.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I filed on her for endangering the victim, endangering a child. It's a lower grade felony. It's not, you know, I had a serious bodily injury charge, but it was another charge put on her at the time. And I called her and I asked her, you know, and initially she had told me one to two pills of Benadryl. And I'd gone back and spoke with the doctors and they were like, that would not cause what we saw.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And Dr. Kaufman had told me that at least four adult strength Benadryls, 100 milligrams would cause it. And I asked her how many tablets she had given. And she said one to two. I'm like, well, the doctors say it would have to be at least four. She's like, okay, well, I gave her four or five at a time, which, you know, that's still a minimization, right? She's only going with what the doctor said.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
She probably gave her, I would guess, between six and 10 at a time to cause the symptoms. And again, that's between 150 milligrams and 10 times 25, so 250 milligrams.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I mean, that's, you know, like a lot of Benadryl.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
The interesting thing about Benadryl overdose is it doesn't make a child fall asleep. It actually has the opposite reaction and it makes you shake.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Which is why she was using it.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yep. So I had that phone call with her. She admitted giving, well, okay, I gave her one tablet of each. Okay, whatever, I'm charging you with that.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Of the other medications, yeah. Yeah, the trazodone and whatever the other one was. Which, as I recall, was something it wasn't clonidine, but something similar to clonidine. So after that conversation with her and after we forensically interviewed the victim and who said that mom would give her pink, pink or purple pills. And I can't remember the count. I don't think she gave us a count.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
She just said she would give her pink to purple pills and then she would feel like she wanted to throw up. And then we interviewed the 11-year-old. And the 11-year-old, and these are forensic interviews where I'm not talking to him. There's a forensic interviewer trained to talk to children and talk to him.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And the 11-year-old talked about how mom would have her keep secrets from dad, how she was basically taking care of the four-year-olds during the day. when Jessica would sleep all day and that she had seen Jessica give the children, the twins, on multiple occasions, Benadryl and the older child's Clonidine.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And she described one instance where she saw him give them both of them and the twins slept for two days.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yes. Okay. The oldest had no father in her life, which we're going to get, we can get to a bit later. Derek had stepped up and was basically her father figure and continues to be her father figure. And the oldest had said she watched Jessica give them clonidine and Benadryl, saw them sleep for two days after that. And it's a very traditional family, right?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And they became suspicious because it just didn't fit any pattern. All EEGs were normal. And they just had some concerns. So they did a blood test on the child and sent the blood test out in March. By the time they got it back, mom had left. the hospital with the child. She'd already been dismissed. And that one came back with Benadryl in the child's system. She came back in May. Same thing.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Derek works and Jessica stays at home with the kids. So he's relying on, again, the information coming from her about what's wrong with the children.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah, and you know, one of my frustrations with CPS attorneys is during this process, they basically made Derek managing conservatorship and then backed out of the case instead of terminating rights on mom.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And that is, I know that's easier. I know they probably have their legal reasons for doing it, but they need to understand Derek is a middle-class guy who's supporting three kids And has to obviously rely on daycare. And now they have saddled him with a legal bill of terminating her rights, which can be $20,000 to $30,000.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
The state is paying for that. Yeah, he has to pay, he has to, Derek has to pay an attorney 23, 23. Now the conviction definitely helps and may cut that cost down some, but what if there's not a conviction?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
That's correct.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And I was never contacted by CPS attorneys on this case.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And Derek also, yeah, Derek also has two kids with his first wife. And whenever they were at Derek's house, she also poisoned them with Benadryl also.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And one of his kids said that she at one point he took five Benadryl at a time. We don't know if it's adult strength or children's strength.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Correct. She had a Facebook account. The oldest child was a softball player. And so she had a lot of connections on the softball team. Family members had told me that she posted on that account about the child's health. Jessica herself had volunteered to send me the post that she made during the hospital stay about her posting about the child's health. medical history.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Again, law enforcement, I cannot stress this enough. I'd preserved that account before I ever went to the hospital and before I ever talked to her. I found her account on Facebook. I preserved it.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
They will immediately delete the moment they're contacted by CPS.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
So, yeah, so that was already preserved. She sent me her posts, which were about the health of the child, and that gave me, again, probable cause. Anything she says about the health of that child is evidentiary in this case. And so that gave me probable cause to get a search warrant for a Facebook account. And I got it for four years of the twins' life from their birth.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I probably should have got it all the way back from the 11-year-old's birth, but at the time I applied for the warrant, I didn't know at that time the 11-year-old was a victim at that point. But even just four years of Facebook records was 79,000 pages. Wow. Yeah. And so you may ask, how do you go through that? You use key terms, right? I use key term seizure, key term nurse.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I started talking with some of the people that Derek connected me with. some of her softball moms, and she had told numerous of them that she was a nurse. She told some she was a trauma nurse. She had told some that she was going for her nurse practitioners. She'd never had a class in nursing school ever. She'd never been a nurse.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
She came back again in June, and this time the doctors, knowing the previous history, and she gave a history of no Benadryl given to the child during both those previous hospitalizations. And in the hospitalization in June, she came in again. The neurologist in that hospitalization actually saw symptoms in the four-year-old where she was shaking and couldn't stand up.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Full-on fabrication. Another family member told me that she had told them that she had cancer, that she had leukemia.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yes, that Jessica herself had leukemia. And people think this is wild. This is pretty standard in these cases, guys.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
About half of my offenders have faith being a nurse and cancer. Interestingly, I mean, nurses can commit this abuse. I've only had one nurse on this abuse.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
One actual nurse.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
It didn't take any effort. They already had the information.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Now you just need to know how to Google the symptoms you need.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
The biggest ones was that she admitted to giving the kids the other drugs and that she upped it from one to two pills to four to six. So again – That's important because it just shows that she's still minimizing, you know, she's still lying.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
She's only admitting to what she thinks I can prove, which is what you see in these cases a lot. Right. I've only ever got one complete confession, I believe, from an offender, and that's because it was— an NG tube case, a nasal gastric tube. So it was a lesser felony. It was a bodily injury, injury to a child, bodily injury, felony in Texas, which was a third degree.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I don't feel I've ever gotten a complete confession from anyone else. I've gotten admissions. So yeah, that were the main things that came from her interview. And there was actually two phone interviews that I did subsequent. And those are the things that came from those phone interviews.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, she, on her Facebook post, she claimed to be a nurse. She wasn't. Multiple times to multiple people. She had already erased the leukemia post that someone had seen about herself. She also, a family member had told me they had seen a post about her presenting one of Derek's kids as having cancer. And that post had been deleted pretty quickly.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah. Yes. But what was in there was her continually presenting the kids as being ill. And there was a point where she was told, your children do not have epilepsy. Believe in the last hospitalization. And the same day, she sends a message to one of her softball mom friends that both of the kids have epilepsy. So, and again, for law enforcement, that's why those records are so good.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
It shows the intentional lying by the suspects in these cases. And it was just lie after lie after lie. Um, I didn't have to go through those really hardcore because I had admissions. I picked and choose, you know, I choose cancer.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I choose, uh, chose, uh, different keywords to search and was able to come up, you know, with, with what I needed, um, to, uh, verify just that she, yeah, she is a pathological liar, just like she says.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah, the arrest, actually, I made that before I got the Facebook records, the first arrest. So I got the Facebook records after that arrest. And after the oldest child's interview, when she told me that she had witnessed Jessica give both children Benadryl and Clonidine and then sleep for two days,
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And she became suspicious because mom was taking the child into the bathroom with her purse. Jessica was taking her purse in with her. And then an hour later, the symptoms would onset. So they did a 24-hour turnaround, this time on the blood test, and kept her impatient. until they got the results back. And the results came back with Benadryl in the blood system.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
That allowed me to then go back on the other twin and I filed another case of endangering a child for that medication. And just, and then I rearrested her again several, I think it was in September, I rearrested her again.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
The first arrest was in mid to late July. She immediately bonds out. Family bonds her out. And then I continue my investigation. We forensically interviewed all of the children. All five? Seven. Seven. Okay.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Five biological and two stepkids. We forensically interviewed all of them. Obviously, that took time. But by September, the oldest, after she told me about the medication of the two twins by Jessica, the clonidine and the Benadryl. That's when I got a warrant for the other twin. And we arrested her in September 12, 2022. Again, Jessica again.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, she went to jail but bonded out pretty quickly. Her family again bonded her out. The good thing about this was is we had a good arraignment judge on this. He had been a prosecutor and he actually assisted in helping write one of the first attempts at the law we tried to get passed. So he was familiar with this abuse and he applied – conditions of no contact with any child under 17.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And that's a bond condition. So she violates that bond condition. That's actually a criminal offense.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Violating bond condition, it's called violating a bond condition or a protective order. Okay. They're both in and of themselves criminal offenses in the state of Texas.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
That becomes important later.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I mean, I don't know. I know that Derek has said that her mom and her uncle were protective of her.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, and I do know when we get later into this, like her last arrest, I know that when that boyfriend showed up to pick her up, because we used him to get her out of the house because she would always dodge, you know, she would dodge getting taken into custody. So we got him to take her to a barbecue joint she liked conveniently next door to the police department.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And she was arrested there because she had a warrant. But when he went to get her out of the house, uh, when you went to pick her up, her uncle's like, you know, this is a trap and they're going to arrest you. And you know what? They're family. They're supportive. I don't blame them for that.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, I wish they were all like certain families.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Right, so as anyone who's familiar with the criminal justice system knows, it is not a fast system. It works slowly. And especially, you know, 2022, we're coming out of COVID. They haven't really tried cases in two years. You have a huge backlog of things going on. We basically grind along CPS reasons to believe for physical abuse. And again, the child is, all children are separated from her.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And again, you know how with doctors, no one wants to think this abuse is happening, right? Even doctors the same way. They're taught to trust the parent. But on the third time, it was extremely suspicious. And she also had an 11-year-old that she had presented for years, her whole life, basically, as being epileptic.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
She has bond conditions of no contact with any child under 17. And her other two kids are with her dad. The three kids stay with Derek, including her oldest, who's 11. And you know, at that point, I forward my case to the DA's office. I kind of wrap up my investigation.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
There was a ton of other stuff that we had to go through, just interviewing multiple people, interviewing all of the softball moms, interviewing multiple family members of Jessica, several of which gave really good evidence. Don't want to say who, but members of her own family knew that she was a habitual liar and had concerns.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Right. Now, a lot of them, you know, obviously the softball moms had no idea. One of them was a nurse and she she was, you know, Jessica completely took her in. You know, she actually medicated the oldest when she stayed. And that obviously you can imagine as a nurse how much that bothered her that she'd actually medicated a kid that didn't need to be medicated.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Right, exactly. And talk to all of those people, get statements from them, written or recorded. You know, talk to family members. And then we just, you know, we kind of go along and we wait. The next thing that happened.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
She's out on bond. She's awaiting trial. And then in March of 2023, I get a call from Derek. He's like, hey, she's on social media. She's got a new boyfriend and he's got three kids and he's down in South Texas. Now, she was not required to have an ankle monitor. I feel she should have been.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
You know, the criminal justice system, I think they see a pretty female and they think, what threat could she be? Right? And they don't understand this abuse at all at the next level. At least that's been, and I'm dealing from personal experience. I'm sure there are people out there that do.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And as we know, I mean, female violence often looks a lot different than male violence. And I don't think the system is good at all at recognizing it. It is important to point out, injury to a child, serious bodily injury, which is what she was charged with, her highest charge, is the same degree as murder in the state of Texas. It's a first degree felony.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
So anyone at that level should be on an ankle monitor. Right.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Right. And she and she had, you know, she got this new boyfriend. She was allowed to move to South Texas, not out of state, but way, way, way far from DFW and and live down there with him. Yeah. It seems like you shouldn't be allowed to move. A lot of times you've got to have permission to leave.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
My understanding is, I don't know if it's a lot of times, but sometimes you have to have permission to even leave the county. So for whatever reason, she's allowed to go down there. Derek calls me. He's like, hey, you know, I still have people who are friends with her on social media. They say she's got a new boyfriend down there and he has kids.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Oh, gosh. She's in her early 30s, and she has two by a previous husband, the oldest by father not involved, and then she has twins with Derek Jones.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
No. Okay. And weirdly, the kids, he had three children. And they all had the same first letter name as all three of her kids had that were living with Derek. The new boyfriend's three kids all had unique names that, again, with the same first letter as Jessica's kids. And Jessica's kids all had unique names. So it was just kind of a creepy coincidence. I contacted the boyfriend.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
He's like, yeah, I just found out about from my ex-wife. No, she's never been around my kids. I brought him over as a surprise one time and she left. She got weird and left after five minutes. So I really didn't have a good bond violation at that point in time. I should have got his, you know, the mistakes I make, I should have got his ex-wife's number and talked to her.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Whether he would have given me her name, he probably would not have. I don't believe at that time because he was still kind of believing Jessica.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I didn't know at the time. I don't know every law in the state of Texas. I should have looked it up, but I didn't. I didn't know at the time that a bond violation was a criminal offense. Technically, she was with the kids for five minutes. It's a terrible criminal offense, but it's a criminal offense. I could have arrested her then, but I didn't. And then, that's in March of 2023.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Right. So they put her in a covert video recorded room and she is in the room overnight. There was an EEG done and that is recorded with a camera in the room. And the EEG recording showed her taking the child into the bathroom.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Right, again, after she went into the bathroom, an hour later, this child was shaking, could not stand, and was clearly having symptoms that the doctor, knowing that they just had the blood test come back, felt that was suspicious for Benadryl poisoning. And at that point, they placed them in the covert video room. Okay. And they contacted me at that point. I spoke with Dr. Kaufman.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Correct. You know, you have to balance on this between stopping the abuse permanently and and risk to the child. And we made the decision right or wrong to leave the child in the video recorded room overnight with everyone know what was going on to try to see what else would happen. And sure enough, there were two episodes in the video room. One where mom said the child threw up,
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And Jessica later told me in a subsequent interview that the child threw up in the bed, which obviously never happened. It's not on video ever happening. And then another episode that Jessica reported that the child was shaking, but the video was a little bit less clear on that because the lights were out, but we never saw the victim move. It was like 5 a.m.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
in the morning when she reported it, and the victim appeared to be asleep the whole time. So, you know, with that additional evidence, I felt it was something that I could confront her with in an interview and maybe get some admissions.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, yeah, correct. All of it, right? Oh, and the blood test. And the blood test and then her presenting symptoms that are not there.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
It's always a balancing act in these cases. I encourage law enforcement and for law enforcement listening, if you have an induction case and they are still in the hospital, go to the hospital, confront the suspect at the hospital. That was going to happen no matter what evidence I had. That was going to happen the second day. I'd already made that decision. For A number of reasons.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
I don't know if I want to give up everything on the podcast, but law enforcement, contact me. I'll let you know why. There are certain investigative reasons that I do that. I think there's the chance to lose evidence if you don't. I'll put it that way.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Right. And you could have evidence that the hospital lets you leave.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
So they had an empty hospital room that I could use, and we had body cameras so I could record it. And they escorted her, whatever reason they gave her, and she agreed to come into the room. She agreed to talk to me. She was free to leave. She had clear access to the door. Again, cops out there don't block their pathway. Told her she was not in custody.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And unlike CPS in my state, I do not have to read them their rights if they're not in custody. By the way, that's crazy. We'll get in, we can talk about that later. But CPS has to read offenders a full page of rights, even though they're not police, even though their investigation is completely separate from ours.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Anyway, so when she came in, I talked with her, asked for a complete medical history of all of her children, which took some time. And, you know, after that, and have, you know, having her tell me, no, yeah, she threw up and, you know, all these things. And no, I haven't given, she said she hadn't given her Benadryl. She hadn't given her Benadryl before the hospital, coming to the hospital.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
She hadn't given her Benadryl in the hospital. And then I was able to start, you know, kind of laying out the evidence that I had, which led to her making admissions.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
She initially denied. Right. And again, this is every offender interview in any type of child, sexual, child, physical abuse, any other types that I've ever done. They present no different in an interview room. Another point to drive home to police. She initially lied and said, no, I didn't, I didn't do that.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And then, you know, I roll out the evidence slowly to her and she says, well, okay, I gave her one. Okay, well, I gave her two. And as I just keep rolling out the information, she makes more and more admissions.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah, and you know, that's not even specific to child abuse. That's every criminal offender ever. Right, it was just the one.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Only time I ever did it. Right, yeah, this is not a string of behaviors, yeah. And also, I'm speaking specifically of denial. You know, deny the accusation. You get hit with some additional information. You make admissions, but you never tell the whole truth. That's every criminal offender, pretty much in any criminal offense.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
But I think it's also important to point out that shows that demonstrates really in spades that they know what they're doing is wrong when they're doing it. Right. Right. Because they're lying. Otherwise, they just say she'd say, no, I poisoned my daughter with Benadryl because she needed it.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
Yes, it's very, I mean, it's very, very clear. That difference is stark in nature. Yeah, no, and the neurologist had told me, just so I don't want people to think, oh, you're putting a mom in jail for one or two pills. The neurologist told me that the amount of Benadryl that it would take to cause the child to shake could have killed her.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And we also had a case, a previous case involving Benadryl that was not medical child abuse, but when I was at the DA's office, we actually worked the case for another DA's office as special prosecutors because this lady ran a home daycare and she was the greatest home daycare ever, according to people. And a lot of judges and attorneys had their kids with her.
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Case Files 06: Jesika Jones Part 1 with Detective Mike Weber
And what she would do is the kids would get there and she would dose them with Benadryl and make them go to sleep. And she actually killed one of them.
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Case Files 10: The Psychology of Perpetrators with Dr. Cathy Ayoub
From the team that brought you Up and Vanished comes an all-new podcast that brings you a weekly dose of true crime cases. Join me as I talk through cases with special guests and true crime experts.
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Case Files 10: The Psychology of Perpetrators with Dr. Cathy Ayoub
And I'm Maggie Freeling.
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Case Files 10: The Psychology of Perpetrators with Dr. Cathy Ayoub
Up and Vanished Weekly is available now. Listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Revisiting Season 3: Shelter
Her concern was merely administering ketamine over and over more and more and more. She was belligerent. demanding.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
A lot of times the justification is money and resources. They don't have the resources to try a case. It's going to be this complicated to pay experts, to bring in a bunch of witnesses. They don't know how, right? They don't have a template for it. It's never been done. The thing is, it has been done in Tarrant County, which frustrates me. But in other jurisdictions, it hasn't been done.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
I just did a training for the Alaska Child Advocacy Center statewide conference, and they have no criminal case law on this abuse. And attorneys are extremely hesitant— to create criminal case law. It takes someone who is very secure in their job, knows they're not going to be fired for losing the case, which is a real thing at my DA's office, has been since 2015.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And in fairness to the new DA, that culture was cultivated over eight years, where you could be fired if you lost the case, and they're having to go through and try to eradicate that culture. That's hard to do once that sets in with someone. Right? So there's a lot of human nature involved in these cases.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Do I want to do this much work for a little outcome and maybe even a loss and spend this much money? Am I allocating the county's money correctly? And what they never consider in that equation is this child will be abused the entirety of their childhood if they make it out of their childhood and they're not killed.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah, spring of 2024, April 2024. She bonds out. Low bond. It's a Class A misdemeanor. I think she had to pay like $100, $200 to bond out. She has family members who are supportive and keep bonding her out. She bonds out. And thankfully, she lives in a small community north of Dallas. And a detective up there had helped me arrest her on the first bond violation.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And so in July of 2024, I get a call from the detective of that small department who helped me on this case previous. And she tells me, hey, I just got a CPS report that says Jessica has a new boyfriend and is around his child. his children. And so the CPS report was from that dad's ex-wife. Thankfully, she was quite the investigative journalist herself. She met Jessica.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Something seemed off about her. So she started Googling her name. She has, you know, she spells her first name J-E-S-I-K-A. And she started Googling it and realized that it was She found the Jessica Jones article. Because at that time, she was going by Jessica James, a previous last name of her. She had met this guy on a dating app, had very quickly got in with him and his 12-year-old daughter.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
She met him at a community pool with kids all over the place. So she's obviously not abiding by bond conditions again. And she really quickly became attached to the 12-year-old, which I believe is her plan. You know, stayed at the boyfriend's house. The boyfriend lived with his mother, who was an RN. Jessica told her she worked at JPS. She was an RN, a trauma nurse.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
She's never been a nurse in her life. She was extremely convincing in what she told him. She showed him pictures of the inside of JPS, showed him pictures of a trauma room with a bunch of blood, how she got them, I don't know, probably online somewhere. Had knowledge of the JPS hospital. She'd never worked there. So I get that report. So I call dad. He's cooperative. I tell him everything.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
He's like, I'm done with her. She's done. I call him in for an interview. And he tells me, like, really concerning stuff. Her sentencing hearing was set for August 9th. Of course, she had told this father that her kids were with their dad currently for the summer month and that she would get them back on August 1st.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And her oldest was going to go play in a softball tournament on August 1st and ask this dad, can I take your daughter with me when we leave? And obviously she has no access to her older daughter, right? So obviously that's concerning that she's going to, you know, abscond with this guy's daughter. You know, even if you can't go, can she go?
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And then she tells the daughter and dad together, jokingly, right? According to her, well, according to them, she made it as a joke, right? tells them, you know, if anything ever happens to your dad, I'll just kidnap you. And that is extremely concerning.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah, ha, ha, ha, right? When she's already laid out a plan to kidnap her. And so I, you know, I talked to both dad and the 12-year-old. That day, I got a warrant for her arrest for violating bond conditions again, because it was the second time it was now bumped up to a third-degree felony. And This is language I should never have to put in a warrant.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
But I put it in there because I wanted someone held accountable if she bonded out again. And around the last paragraph of that warrant, I put in there that if she is allowed to bond out of jail again, she will be a continued threat to the children of Tarrant County, Texas. And it just goes to show that if you're an attractive female in this abuse,
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
I don't even think you have to be attractive at this point. It's very easy to get away with continuing this abuse.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
You say in your podcast all the time people believe their eyes, and they do. And, you know, female beauty is also a powerful tool for women in a courtroom setting or in a criminal setting also. It shouldn't be. I don't think it should be, but it is, and it's just a fact of life.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
She's also presenting herself as a nurse who are, who are, you know, she's playing the nurturing role. Right. It's like a whole archetype. Right. Yes. Well, and what that 12-year-old also told me in that interview is that Jessica had medicated her multiple times. And that whenever she was medicated by Jessica, she felt weird. And she didn't feel weird when she was medicated by dad or grandma.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Jessica had nothing to do with that. She was scheduled for that. She had nothing to do with giving medical history for it or anything like that. She needed a tonsillitis.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
So she goes in and she has that and she was medicating her after that. And she asked that if she could stay with her, you know, and take care of her after that. Um, and yeah, so, uh, she indicated that she would feel weird and, and tired after Jessica medicated her and Jessica had access to all sorts of medicines. She went through and actually stole some of dad's medication. Um, it's my opinion.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
I think she has a pill problem herself. Um, dad, that dad said, you know, one of the first things she did is go through and reorganize his medicine cabinet. Um, Yeah, and so I arrested her again. I loudly let my opinion be known at the DA's office that she does not—they need to do something.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Thankfully, at that point, the judge had had it with her, you know, because she'd already delayed her bond condition twice, claiming she had medical issues in herself, which she did not. And I tell them, she doesn't have that. Well, you know, we're just, you know— So the judge at that point held her in jail.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And I really want to thank the detective up in that small jurisdiction because they got the warrant. And thankfully, that dad said, hey, let's go eat lunch. And he took her to lunch at the barbecue joint right by the police station. And the detective was waiting inside and arrested her.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And again, that was for the bond violation, and that was a third-degree felony, 2 to 10 in Texas, but the higher charge was much, much better.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
The very good thing about this case is... the pre-sentencing investigator who was assigned. I know Derek thought it was a cop. He's not a cop. He is an impartial investigator of the court. So he is employed by the court. He's actually a court probation officer. And I mean, he talked to everyone I suggested that he talked to. He talked to Dr. Catherine Ayub.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
He talked to the ladies down in South Texas whose kids she had been around. And he put all of this in the PSI report. Without him, we don't get the sentence that we got on this case. It didn't have anything to do with the attorneys involved.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, we arrest her in late July, and their sentencing is on August 9th. And during the sentencing, we had the last dad testify and the 12-year-old testify and the grandmother testify from that household. We didn't have the others from South Texas testify because they were included in the PSI, the Pre-Sentencing Investigative Report. And so they testified to everything.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
The defense did not call a witness. And the defense asked for probation. Did she plead guilty? She pled guilty in January of 2024. And her bond violations happened after she had actually pled guilty and was awaiting sentencing. So she obviously had no respect for the court or for court rules. Obviously showed that she could not rehabilitate herself.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
She was allowed to move to South Texas. She didn't have an ankle monitor. I mean, keep in mind, this is a first degree felony, same level of a felony as murder. Any other case like this would not have been handled like this. That I can tell you. If it was an abusive head trauma case. And look, a lot of it is because attorneys are familiar with those cases. And they know the risks.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Right. And the March 23, 2023 bond violation. It was technically a bomb violation, but it was very bad. I mean, she left, according to the boyfriend, after five minutes. I should have talked to the ex-wife. Then I would have gotten a lot more information of the new boyfriend, to be clear. But after that, things rocked along until March of 2024.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And on these cases, they're not. And like I said, I'm fine with not knowing. But when you're hostile to learning, I have an issue with it. And that office's administration has made it very clear that they are hostile to learning. We are trying to work some things out. We will see. You know, words, words, words and actions.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
So, yeah. So we have the hearing. They testify. They don't need me to testify because they have, you know, everything's in the PSI. I go to the court because with everything going wrong with this case, I want to make sure that they do the proper thing at the end. And they did. They called everyone they needed to call. She didn't call anyone.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Our prosecution asked for 20 years minimum, and their attorney asked for probation.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
In her case, it was because she only had one previous conviction for a misdemeanor DWI. So she didn't have an extensive criminal history.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, it didn't work out for her because the judge thankfully had taken the time to read a 60, over 60 page PSI, a pre-sentencing investigative report. That's what the pre-sentencing investigator told me the report was. And he said the longest one he'd written before that was like 12 pages. Wow. And the judge took the time to read it.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And in talking to her at the end, he called her a determined recidivist, which is absolutely on point. He said the PSI disturbed him and sentenced her to 60 years in prison. Six zero years in prison. Wow. And it is what we call a 3G offense in the state of Texas. So she should have to serve 30 years in prison. Now...
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
There have been some paperwork mistakes, and the DA's office tells me they don't have a box to check for this, so a lot of times they'll have to call down to the jail and clear up, look, this is a 3G, they're not eligible, because the last time I checked, this was a couple of days ago, she shows to be eligible for probation in 2031 or 2032. She's not. That should be fixed.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
I will make sure that is fixed. The thing is, Andrea, I'm getting really, really tired of having to, I mean, check everything on these cases to make sure people do the right thing.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, and, you know, it's going to affect other cases. Anything you do takes time, and you only have so much time in the day to do your job.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, yeah, for four more months.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah, because of the prosecutor handling the case. Because he had done it before on the Krista Carroll case.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And in March of 2024, I didn't have to reach out to that boyfriend's ex-wife because she reached out to me. And she informed me that, no, she's still living with him. He didn't take your warning. I obviously warned him. I told him to fill him in on her charges and everything. He chose to believe her. And he left her around the kids. And the ex-wife told me that she...
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Right. And, you know, we're going back to the legislature again this time. We are going to try to
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
uh move alyssa's law through and i think derek will be very instrumental in that um i've had multiple attorneys tell me you know these cases are hard the laws don't address them well you know what get behind the law that will change the laws change the law yeah and like i i would hope and like to you know i know we do have attorneys listen to the show so to those attorneys that might find themselves in this position you know i understand like that there is uh
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
I use the laws that I can use. And, you know, if prosecutors say these cases are too hard, well, then go fix the law to make them not so hard.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, and here's the thing. When you don't have a separation period, these cases become tougher to try. Right. Every case does come down to the evidence. In Jessica Jones, the evidence was overwhelming and probation should have never been on the table.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Jessica Jones was presenting nursing badges to schools when she went. She would go to the children's play. She was always in contact with the kids. She was living with them at the house with the children. And she had just recently found the article on her and freaked out.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
There's got to be something at the heart of that evidence that they've got.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
I'm Payne Lindsey.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
This is Up and Vanish Weekly.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
They gave him managing conservatorship. They did not terminate rights. So now he has to pay an attorney to go back and terminate rights in family court. How hard is that? It shouldn't be too hard with this, with the sentence and the conviction that she got, but it's gonna cost him money. And he's not a rich man.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Yes, her initial arrest was covered in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and maybe a couple other outlets. But so she had seen the article, did the right thing as a parent and said, you're not going to be around my kids as long as that lady's in your house. She ended visitation against court orders. But I told her, you know, if you need an attorney, if he files on you, have him contact me.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And that's another thing that really frustrates me on this case when CPS attorneys don't do their job. They are leaving these dads in financial ruin just to try to protect their kids. And I don't see an excuse for it in this case. You have an induction, you have a confession, and you have evidence in blood and purse. In that type of situation, you should move for termination.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
The state should do their job and not put that responsibility on a dad who is middle class, you know, and is facing huge legal bills. Now, the other part of this is he is adopting the older child, the 13-year-old. There's nothing really the CPS attorneys could do about that. He's going to face a huge legal expense on that end. Adoptions are not cheap.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And they first have to terminate mom's rights on that child before he can adopt her.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
It should not be hard, but it's going to cost money.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
I can testify this is the right thing to do. And then I began working on a warrant for her arrest for bond violations. You know, I had a recorded interview with her. She didn't have any communications, not a lot of communications with dad about it. She had a couple.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Absolutely. And it's just... Dads who try to do the right thing in this abuse are treated so terribly, so consistently by family and criminal courts. And, you know, there's a lot of dads who don't try to do the right thing in this abuse. And, again, a lot of that's education. You know, the last two articles in the Juvenile Family Court Journal on this abuse were in 1990.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
So they don't have any education on what this is, and all they see is a dad complaining of this and want to just dismiss it as a custody issue a lot of times, if dad is being protective and trying to protect his kids. And I tell them all the time in training, you investigate it until you don't need to investigate it anymore. Can this be used as a custody issue by a dad?
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah, it'd be probably the worst thing ever to use in a custody case if you're a dad.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
That's correct. One other thing I wanted to say, you know, from the Jessica Jones case, there's a lot of learning lessons to it. But you've got to be willing to learn. And the office says that they, the DA's office says they are, you know, words and actions. When you've gone 10 years on this abuse and you're regressing instead of progressing. I have my doubts. I have hope.
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Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
I always have hope I'll work with anyone anywhere on this. But like I said, when you have someone in the administration that is specifically very hostile to learning on this abuse, it makes it hard. It makes it hard for people underneath that person to do their job.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Yes. And thank you so much for having me on.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
That's correct. And what she, in later conversations with that boyfriend in 2024, He believed her. She told him that, oh, this is all just a big misunderstanding. The charges are going to be dismissed. I'm going to get my kids back. She had just basically lied to him about the whole thing.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
I believe she even told him that she was going up for visitation to Fort Worth when she had no contact with these children. And she was down near the Houston area, which is a good four, four and a half hour drive from Fort Worth. But that ex-wife also then said, oh, by the way, this new boyfriend has another baby mama, and she's been around her kid.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And she's like, I think she may have text messages. Well, I contacted that lady, and she not only had text messages, she had a picture of Jessica holding her child in a park. Thankfully, it was only ever supervised. She met him in a park. She was there. the whole time with them. But she sent me text messages from Jessica. She was still presenting. Her own children are sick in those text messages.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Sending photos of the victim in the hospital in those text messages, the four-year-old victim. I call my main victim the highest charge, the Benadryl poisoning that I was able to prove. And she talked about wanting to be in the child's life, how she's going to have two moms. She was obviously trying to manipulate herself into the lives of these people to get access to their children.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
extremely familiar behavior for those who have ever dealt with pedophiles. This case really strikes me as being so similar to pedophilia behavior as far as the grooming and trying to get in and trying to develop trust with adults to get access to their children. And just really compulsive. Very compulsive, extremely compulsive.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And, you know, a lot of that, I know Derek talks about, you know, no one had ever held her accountable for anything. And I think that's another, I don't think she ever thought she was gonna be held accountable for these actions at all.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
So I get a warrant for her. Violating bond conditions is actually a criminal charge. It's a misdemeanor, first time. So I get a warrant for her, and I file the warrant, and I let the DA's office know, look, she's violated. She's around kids. Y'all need to take it seriously.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
They let her bond out, and they never filed a motion for a bond revocation hearing.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Oh, no, there's a market difference here. And it's not just with criminal prosecutors. It's also with CPS attorneys. You know, the CPS attorneys on this case They gave dad managing conservatorship, didn't terminate rights and never called me. Like I say all the time, we're fighting that perception of motherhood.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And this is this abuse from an understanding perspective, especially for attorneys, is about where child sexual abuse was in the 60s. They don't get it. And I understand not getting it.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
The thing I have a problem with is when you have administrative people at a DA's office who are hostile to learning about this abuse and want only their, instead of believing experts, they believe their own opinion. And to me, that's completely unacceptable.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Well, they're all owned by like three or four media companies.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
You know, I mean, you don't have any interest in actual local reporting anymore.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And when Derek told me that they had... In the first meeting, tried to sell probation to him. I immediately contacted the attorney handling the case and his boss and said, this is not a probation case. And I'd had issues with that attorney on a previous case of this abuse.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
I don't get a justification from them. They don't feel the need to justify anything to me. law enforcement. And I want to keep it specific to this. I want to be very clear that it's specific to this case and specific to the people that we dealt with. There are good people at that office who will try these cases if given the time to do it.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
Another issue is you have these cases assigned to, you know, an attorney who's got 50, 60, 70 cases on his caseload. This one should have been a lot easier, right? But they are, you know, there's a lot to these cases. And when you talk with Don Ferguson, you know, when she prepared for the sheriff's case, she took three months to do it. And that's what these cases require.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
And they should not be just with a regular court team. They have attorneys at that office that pick and choose their cases. They have three or four of them. And that's where this should be because they have the time to devote to them. I don't think they even realize... until they get into it. And a lot of times, they won't even look at a case until two, three weeks before trial.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
You can't do that on these cases. You simply can't. You will lose every time. What happens is when they do that and they open it, then they find a reason to dismiss it, right? Yeah. So that's happened on very good cases of this abuse that were falsification cases that were much harder than this. Yeah, I want to be very clear.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 09: Jesika Jones Part 4 with Detective Mike Weber
When you dismiss one of these cases, for any attorneys listening, and CPS hasn't done their job and that child's still in the home, you are sentencing that child to a childhood of abuse. That's what you are doing. That is your responsibility. Own it.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
Right. I don't either. And it's funny the way she, depending on who she's talking to, the way she tries to kind of couch that, right? I mean, some people she'll say outright terminal. Some people she'll say, well, we just never know how long she's going to live. And then in her journal, she's wanting to give this child to God.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And she's just all over the place, which is what you see in these cases. It really strikes a chord with me from what I've seen in past cases.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
Well, she did. Now that I know that she has a Facebook record, she did everything right. I can tell you where this case really went wrong, and that's where we see cases go wrong all the time. You know, they separated the child when the child was impatient at Seattle Children's. Child was recovered, was healthy, had had no episodes, was doing great.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And then family court places her with family members who do not believe that the offender is guilty. And this, you cannot do this in these cases. And look, that's not fair to Sophie's sister and Sophie's mother either, right? Because it is their daughter. They're going to be biased. They're going to have that internal bias to believe their daughter has not done this.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And they may think they see things that are simply not there, even if they're trying to be as honest as they possibly can, because Sophie is in their ear. You know, so if you can't contact with the have contact with the victim, she can she can have contact with her mom and her sister all day long. Right.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And, you know, they're going to be looking for any little thing in this child in order to justify what what Sophie has done. So that is that again. And we see it all the time. Family court is terrible. at understanding what this is and what to do about it. And you cannot make that placement with a family member that does not believe this is occurring. You will have failure every single time.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
If she's ready for discharge, she would not necessarily go to a medical foster family. That's the court's decision on where the child goes once she's ready for discharge. But, I mean, this child did not have any symptoms while in the hospital. And no symptoms. One thing... I hate to see this, but I know why they do it.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
But they left the feeding tube in, even though she had shown she could eat with no issues. And when you do that and you release back out, now you're leaving access to an offender, right? And CPS is not sitting on the doorstep making sure that Sophie is not coming over to the house, right? Right.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And again, it just goes to show how lost family court is on this. You don't allow them to bring anything. I mean, Sophie could have poisoned food to cause symptoms. She could have been medicating the food. And the thing is about dystonia, which is one of the main complaints by Sophie, you can also get dystonia through massive medications that you don't need. I've recently had that in the case.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
So all of that, I mean, it just, the family court handling of this was just butchered beyond belief. And I don't blame a CPS investigator for that. Who I blame for that is family court judges or CPS attorneys who did not bring the proper evidence to family court judges to make a decision. And, you know, we see it all the time. You know, I yelled and screamed at the top of my lungs about it.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
and CPS in my state doesn't seem to care. So I really don't know what to do about it.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
Right. And, you know, it may not even be anything intentional. And another thing, another issue you brought up, you know, we don't have the medical records, but I didn't see anything noted in detectives or work support report about the days that the victim was in the hospital after separation. There was no defiance issues. There was no no issues like that at all.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
So why is she now having defiance issues when she's in her placement home? Could it be that a six-year-old has no other way to act out when she knows that things are happening that should not be happening to her? And, you know, again, is Sophie telling him to give her medication? What is going on? It's very easy for Sophie to direct care. Very easy for Munchausen by proxy by proxy.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
to happen in these cases when you place with a family member that believes that their daughter could never do this. And that seems to be kind of where Sophie's mom kind of ends up on this.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
That should eliminate them from placement right there. Right.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And, you know, if you have a family member that you know is protective, yeah, sure, that is a proper placement, right? Derrick Jones is a good example. That was a proper placement. He was protective of his children. He did not let her around them. But the health and safety of the child has to come first. And I don't know what we have to do to drive that through family court's head on these cases.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
We have made some progress in my county with family court, but it's very dependent on who the judge is still to this day. And across the country, we are not making that progress. And that that is something that I don't know how you change it. You know, the. Say all the time, the last two articles in the Juvenile and Family Court Journal on this abuse were in 1990. And so they are just lost.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And I wish they would seek education on this. I've gone down that road and just hit dead ends every time I try.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And the detective consulted with the DA before that charge. Right. So they they said, yes, we are going to take this case. Go ahead and get the warrant.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
It does not. It's very dependent on from agency to agency on whether that occurs.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
Basically, if you take the case, you shouldn't just then throw your detective in the grease. And when things get hard, say, oh, well, you know, family court didn't do the right thing. So we're not going to go forward with prosecution. But but that's what appears to have happened in this case.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
Oh, I say all the time that they're at their core, they're con artists. It's just a different type of con. You talk about the resource suck of what the offender's taking up for other children, you know, the cost to the child. This is a child that's going to be abused the rest of their childhood. If this is occurring, that's going to happen.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And then probably about 80 to 90% of my cases are Medicaid cases. So this is also a cost to the public. And it can, I mean, it is an extreme cost to the public. You know, these cases can get over a million dollars, easily over a million dollars in Medicaid costs to the taxpayers. And so you have all of that. So when you make that decision as a prosecutor,
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
you're basically protecting yourself over all of those other things.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
Those are two very valid concerns. And I think if you talk to some other members of the committee, they will back those concerns up. They want their child to not only be medically fragile, but also to be very specially medically fragile in a lot of cases. And what's better than that than an extremely rare disease that hardly any children have? Right. It's always the worst of the worst. Right.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And so, yeah, these doctors are highly susceptible to this. And again, they don't have any training on medical child abuse. And it goes back to the old medical adage, you know, when you hear hoof prints, you know, think a horse, not a zebra. And unfortunately, a lot of the very specialist doctors who deal with these very rare conditions don't.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
often think they found the zebra when, you know, it's just a big old horse with medical child abuse on its side riding their way. There's an image.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
You know, I just wish prosecutors' offices would seek education on this and learn how to address these cases so they're not intimidated by everything when it comes to them. And God, please, family court judges, I don't know that we have any listened to this show. But talk to your organizations. Get a training on this abuse. It certainly doesn't have to be me.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
There are plenty of other people with, you know, the impressive letters behind their name that your organization may want to bring in that can train on this. Any member of the committee for sure.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
Right. Get training on what you should do on these cases, because to be very blunt, you're doing a terrible job by these children, family court judges, to be very blunt. Again, I'm talking nationwide. We've gotten better in Tarrant County. We're far from great. We're far from good, but we're better nationwide. with some of our judges. So I want to give them that grace.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And thank you for kind of helping me along to that published author status.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
I'm good. I'm in the great white north and just enjoying a little vacation on my time away from work.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
I am officially retired, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to work. It's just kind of shifting to another aspect in another part of the career. I don't see myself ever not working ever.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah. And, you know, I read through the entire police report. And really the only thing that I see missing in this is and there could be many, many reasons for this. You know, the detective actually preserved the social media records when the case first started. I didn't see anywhere where they were. They were obtained by warrant.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And yeah, that's, I mean, it kind of struck me odd that I didn't see that in her report. But again, we may not, I was just about to say, we may not have everything and we certainly don't know everything. Everything else was done just what she should have done. She got her devices. She found her actual journals and,
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
Something I noticed was in Detective O'Rourke's interview with the gym teacher, the gymnastics, to be very clear, teacher in her supplement, was the gymnastic teacher that said, said that the victim had told her, when she approached the victim about joining the gymnastics program, the victim had told her, no, I'm no good. I'll never be good enough.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
And that is, I mean, you see the same thing in Sophie writing about herself. And, you know, you just wonder how much of this abuse, you know, is multigenerational. I'm not a psychologist, but I just found it very striking that Sophie's writing that she's not good enough. And now her daughter is now writing that her daughter is not good enough.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah. When we talk about the evidence in this case, it's really, really strong. It's circumstantial. But when you deal with falsification cases, they're all going to be circumstantial. And you have to put every piece of the puzzle together.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
her statements that would be admissible at trial and i'm going to clear let me put an asterisk by this in the state of texas i'm going by texas law sophie's statements in her journals about pinching and hitting her children how she's a bad person for doing that would absolutely be admissible because that goes to show the relationship between uh the the suspect and the offender um
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
I say absolutely admissible by law. You know, that depends on what judge you get. Depends on the judge's relationship with the defense attorney. Is the judge going to go by the law or is the judge going to try to even out the trial and make things fair for, you know, make it a 50-50 proposition for each side? And I've seen both of those things happen. Yeah.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
You know, of course, you know, the major thing that stuck out is how she calls herself. I remember she said pathological or what word she used, but a pathological liar, basically. And, you know, that's something I've gotten in interviews with several offenders. And it's really the one true thing I think that I get out of interviews. I mean, I get a lot of minimization, right? I get a lot of...
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
admissions, but never a whole true confession. Out of those writings, that's the thing that really struck out to me. She calls herself an habitual liar, I believe. Which, interestingly enough, Jessica Jones did the same thing.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
Yeah, that really struck out to me. And obviously, all of her admissions about her illness, her own illness falsifications, which showed just a pattern of behavior. You know, I'm not an attorney. It'd be interesting to see what an attorney had to say about those being admissible, specifically an attorney from the state of Washington. I think you may have problems getting them in.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
in the guilt innocence portion of trial, but they would absolutely come in in punishment phase, right?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
The main thing they would have done is there was no way her defense attorney would let her take the stand because she makes one statement that she's an honest person. She makes one statement that I don't lie about anyone's health or I don't lie about health. She makes that statement on the stand under cross-examination. That comes in. Right. All those statements from her from her journal come in.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
So and people mess up whenever they're under cross examination all the time because they don't know. They don't know the legal system. No matter how much you coach them as a defense attorney, when they get up there, you never know what they're going to say. And it would have kept her absolutely from testifying. at the minimum.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Season 5 Breakdown with Detective Mike Weber
But one of the things she says in the journal is, you know, we need a feeding tube. I need to push for this. So she can't... Those journals, again, eliminate the defense of just saying, well, you know, I'm just following what the doctors tell me to do.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And so it sounds like so that the eldest lived with y'all for full time and then the two middle ones that were from her ex-husband because they were from different dads. Is that right? And so the two middle ones, they were sharing custody?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And are they both girls or boy girl or?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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. And then so maybe had like a few developmental delays, but like nothing super serious right in the beginning. Yeah.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
So were they having like failure to thrive issues? Kind of. Yes. OK. Maybe not. Not super. Did they have like feeding tubes or anything like that or just more mild? OK.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Please let me know your thoughts and questions at helloandnobodieshouldbelieveme.com and we will bring my co-author, Detective Mike Weber, on for a little book Q&A and post-retirement tell-all special. Thanks for your support. 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.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
It can be so daunting to make an appointment for something. First, you have to call, then they call you back, inevitably right as your six-year-old absolutely needs to ask you a next essential question. And then you have to coordinate your hot mess of a calendar.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Okay, parts of that example were very specific to me, but scheduling appointments with dentists, doctors, therapists can be a real hurdle, which is why I lean on ZocDoc for help. ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high-quality in-network doctors and click to instantly book an appointment.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
You can book in-network appointments with more than 100,000 doctors across every specialty, from mental health to dental health, primary care, and more. ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high-quality in-network doctors and click to instantly book an appointment.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
So stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to ZocDoc.com slash nobody to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. That's ZocDoc.com slash nobody. sockdoc.com slash nobody. You can find all of that info at the link in our show notes. And remember that supporting our sponsors is a great way to support the show.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And when did you and Jessica get married? Did you get married before the kids came?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
So that's a quick trajectory all the way around. Mm-hmm.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And we just, I am very anxious to talk to you about your story and just your perspective on this. And so, yeah, can you just start by telling us who you are and how you relate to this case?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Like that she had a current cancer? So things are getting tough with you guys, and then she tells you that she's been diagnosed with cancer?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Okay. What type of cancer? I mean, that must have been... That must have been really... Okay, so she tells you she has leukemia. I mean, that's very serious, especially as an adult. I actually had an adult cousin that died of leukemia. So, I mean, that must have been terrifying.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And this is are you still living with her grandmother or had you guys moved out into your own space by then?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
I mean, that's, that's really scary. 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. And so, um, I mean, did she start treatment? Like what, what happened next?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Like a drug trial or something like that?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
You're also Jessica's ex-husband. Is that right?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
But it sounds like it was pretty dramatic. Like she really looked awful. Yeah.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And so most, most people, most people wouldn't, but so yeah, it's not, not something that you're watching out for, not something that you see coming for sure.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Oh, boy. OK, so you're in the process of becoming Jessica's ex-husband. So how did you and Jessica originally meet?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Wow. What brought that on?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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 she turned you on them. Basically.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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. 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.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
That's not that's that's a place where you have a lot to lose if you decide to do that right 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 yeah um
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Yeah. 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?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
So whereabouts do you live?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And, you know, that was so mean to her. And like, it's like, I can really, I can, I can hear the whole thing. Yeah.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
About the leukemia? Yeah.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And did you confront her on this? And what was what was her explanation for the fake leukemia?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Okay. 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?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
What does she have to gain from this?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
So that was it for you? Like, the fake leukemia, you were like, this is not a normal thing to do. This is, yeah, like, I mean, that's a, yeah. That's an understandable next step, right?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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. It's like there was like this and this and then and this and this and this.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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 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.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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 what the episode actually looks like, right?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Well, and sure enough, there can be a pretty big range of what a seizure looks like, right?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
But something, in the video when you saw it, something was happening.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Jessica was supposed to do that.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And she's like around four years old at this point?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And this is Jessica's reporting this to you.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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. And I think like one of the things that people sometimes don't understand about relationships
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
I mean, what's like going through your mind with this information? Because this is, it sounds like they're pretty like, at least the piece of sort of like the connection is fairly clear, right? They're like, she's been giving, she's been over-medicating her. I was in such a- Were you just shocked and like you're not even processing yet? You're just in like, in it, like just in sort of crisis mode.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
So it was like a neglectful supervision type of finding. Okay. So that had happened like a year previous to this.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
what being close to a situation like this does to your brain is that like it kind of splits your life in half, right? Like I feel like not only do I sometimes have trouble remembering, you know, because I think you know, you know, I have a sister who's a perpetrator and that's what brings me to this work. And, you know, not only do I have trouble remembering like what she was like,
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Right. And not like not in any universe, a normal like stress response. Right. To start harming your child so you can get out of the house. I've been stressed before.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Oh, like the child abuse pediatrician?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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. Administrative support from Nola Karmouche.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
before I knew all of this, I have trouble remembering what I was like. I have trouble remembering who I was before all of this happened because it feels like, you 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. And so it's sort of like, you end up like also questioning yourself a lot, right?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Our new season is coming out on January 2nd. And a reminder that if you subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Patreon, you will get the entire season
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
True Story Media. Hello, it's Andrea Dunlop. Welcome back to Nobody Should Believe Me Case Files. 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. I so appreciate Derek's candor about his relationship with Jessica and just his willingness to share his story with us.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
all eight episodes on the launch date and i have to tell you i think you're going to want to binge this one we are getting these episodes in the can now and my team has just really knocked it out of the park with this season subscribing is a great way to support the show and if monetary support is not an option leaving us a review on spotify or apple helps a great deal as does telling friends about the show on social media or wherever you talk to people
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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 listening.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
studying it like I have, then it's like, you're not going to, you're not going to see it coming. And I think it's, yeah, it's, that's just, that's just human. So I hope you can also find some, some grace for yourself.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
But so nonetheless, you guys end up meeting in real life and you start dating 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. But the reality is that like, we all have moments in our life when we're more vulnerable for whatever reason.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
So it sounds like this was kind of a moment like that for you, maybe. What was going on in your life? You had, I think, do you had kids from a previous marriage also?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
So you hadn't been dating for very long and you were still kind of living into different places. 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.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
I mean, that must have been so overwhelming. So you're going from being divorced out of one, sounds like, to dating a new woman. Now you've got twins on the way. That's just a lot to figure out. And what do you do for work? Was your work based, I assume, where you live, or was it sort of flexible?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And 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. 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?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
You can watch a video of this episode on our YouTube channel if you like to see faces. And on Instagram, you can follow me at Andrea Dunlop and the show, which is at Nobody Should Believe Me Pod. Now, here's the interview. Just a quick reminder that my new book, The Mother Next Door, Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy, is on sale right now wherever books are sold.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
What kind of came to light as just maybe even in this period while you were dating and she gets pregnant? Yeah.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
I mean, sure enough, they are like they are higher. It is a higher risk pregnancy situation. I mean, that that much is true. Were you going to any appointments with her during this time or was this all kind of what she was reporting to you?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
Yeah, I mean, you have about a billion of them when you're pregnant. So that's not how you go all the time.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
And how were you guys kind of settling in as a couple? Like, did she – because she had also some other children from a previous marriage. Is that right? Did they live also with her? Or, like, what was the – did you meet the ex-husband? Like, what were kind of the family dynamics that were coming together as you were settling in?
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
The book was an Amazon editor's pick for nonfiction, and the Seattle Times called it a riveting deep dive into MVP. And if you are an audiobook lover and you like hearing my voice, which I'm assuming you do since you're listening here... You should know that I narrate the audio book as well. If you have already read the book, which I know so many of you have, thank you so much.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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.
Nobody Should Believe Me
Case Files 07: Jesika Jones Part 2 with Derek Jones
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?