Jessica McCord

Case record: Jessica McCord

Background

Jessica McCord and her ex-husband Alan Bates had a bitter divorce and an even more bitter custody battle over their two young daughters. Both Jessica and Alan had remarried: Jessica to a police officer she met while working as a secretary for the Birmingham Police Department, and Alan to a co-worker in a Maryland theater company.

In the seven years following their divorce, Jessica repeatedly tried to deny Alan visitation and contact with his daughters. She moved frequently and changed her phone number so he could not call.

When Alan flew to Birmingham from Maryland in February of 2002, he and Jessica had their final confrontation over their daughters. They met in a lawyer's office to hammer out a new custody agreement. Later that afternoon, Alan and his wife went to the McCord home to pick up the girls, but Jessica had a different plan.

At the time of the murders, Alan Bates sought permanent custody. Jessica McCord and Alan Bates were involved in a dispute over visitation rights with two children they had when they were married. Bates repeatedly was denied visitation with Gabrielle, now 12, and Madeline, 10, and was seeking permanent custody.

Jessica McCord was also previously granted physical custody of the girls and Bates was given standard visitation rights after they divorced in 1995. Jessica repeatedly violated orders for Bates to be with his daughters and talk to them on the phone. She spent 10 days in jail in December for refusing to comply with a custody order. In November, Bates sought custody of the girls, saying he had been denied contact with his daughters for more than a year, including court-ordered weekly phone calls. A March hearing date had been set on the issue of custody.

The McCords had met while both were working at the Birmingham Police Department two years earlier. The report indicated they got their marriage license in neighboring Shelby County in June 2000. It also stated that they pulled up their mailbox shortly after moving into their home in Hoover about a year ago and that mail was not delivered there.

The offence

On Feb. 16, 2002, Alan and Terra Bates were shot to death and their bodies were stuffed in the trunk of their burning rental car.

The Bateses flew from Maryland to Birmingham on Feb. 15 to give depositions in the custody case. They were scheduled to attend a child custody hearing in Atlanta. When they went missing, authorities later discovered their bullet-riddled bodies in the trunk of a rental car that had been set ablaze in rural Morgan County, Georgia.

According to accounts of the confrontation, Alan and his wife went to the McCord home to pick up the girls after the lawyer’s office meeting. Jessica lured them into the back of the house. Jeff Kelley McCord, Jessica’s husband, shot Alan and Terra multiple times; the report described that Jeff entered a room and fired four shots into each of their bodies.

After the shootings, the McCords set out to create an alibi. They bought theater tickets and visited Home Depot. They then drove the Bates rental car several hours into Georgia with the bodies in the trunk and torched it.

Investigation

Authorities discovered the bodies of Terra and Alan Bates in a wooded area in the small community of Rutledge on Feb. 16, 2002. The Bateses had rented the car in Birmingham, Alabama, and were scheduled to attend a child custody hearing in Atlanta when they went missing.

A Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab in Decatur conducted an autopsy and found that both Alan and Terra Bates had been shot repeatedly and died before the car was set on fire.

Jeff McCord had been identified by prosecutors as having driven the rental car and having followed his wife to an I-20 exit in Morgan County, where they searched for a place to dump the bodies.

A prosecutor described evidence used at trial, including:

• a partially burned scrap of paper towel that had blown across the road from the arson site, with a pattern matching paper towels found in the kitchen of the McCord home, with investigators believing the paper towel had been used to light the gas-drenched car;
• a bullet that penetrated a wall in the McCord home and had been hastily covered up, with ballistics tests matching the bullet with slugs found in the Bateses bodies;
• evidence of a cleanup at the scene.

It was stated that police discovered the bodies and traces of blood, a bullet that matched a bullet found in one of the bodies, and evidence of a cleanup, and that police traced the Bateses movements back to the McCord home after discovering the bodies.

Authorities believed the plot was planned for several weeks and was intended to look like a carjacking and murder.

Arrest

Jessica McCord and Jeff McCord were arrested at an Alabaster, Ala., home. The arrest was described as occurring in connection with the deaths of 31-year-old Alan G. Bates and his wife, Terra, 30, of Frederick, Md.

The McCords had been suspects since Sunday, when their home was searched by Hoover police. Jeff McCord had been dismissed from his job Wednesday after failing to report for a disciplinary hearing, and Jessica and Jeff declined comment after meeting later with David Cromwell Johnson in his Birmingham office. The report said the McCords had been staying with relatives in Florida and that police knew where they were.

Trial

A jury convicted Jessica McCord of capital murder in the shooting deaths of her ex-husband and his new wife in a child custody dispute.

The report stated that the guilty verdict came exactly a year after Alan and Terra Bates of Frederick, Md., were shot four times each and their bodies were stuffed in the trunk of a rental car, ditched in rural Morgan County, Ga., and burned.

Amy Pleasant, a longtime friend of the victims, said: “It's just a little bit of poetic justice,” and “It's a very symbolic day.”

Jurors returned in the penalty phase of the trial, and the jury was to recommend either the death penalty or life in prison without parole. The judge was not bound by that recommendation.

Prosecutors claimed Jessica was vindictive with a history of violence against her ex. The defense could find one character witness to speak for Jessica: her mother.

In testimony at trial, Jessica took the stand and tried to convince the jury she was a victim. She said Alan was trying to take the girls away from her and that she had frequently been subjected to Alan’s “dark side,” while she proclaimed innocence during sentencing.

Sentencing

On April 25, 2003, a judge sentenced Jessica McCord to life in prison without chance of parole. She did not speak on her behalf before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Virginia Vinson handed down the sentence. She refused to comment to the media about the proceeding.

The sentencing included a statement by defense attorney John Wiley, who said: “The death penalty is wrong in any case and this case is no exception, so we're very pleased and relieved that Mrs. McCord is delivered of that possibility of being killed by the state of Alabama,” Wiley said.

The report also stated that prosecutors claimed the judge did not set aside the jury’s recommendation for sentencing in favor of the death penalty, and that the defense would appeal the guilty verdict.

At sentencing, prosecutor Roger Brown said of the families: “Alan and Terra's families are pleased,” prosecutor Roger Brown said of the sentencing.

Appeals

The defense attorney said the defense would appeal McCord’s guilty verdict.

Other details

Jeff Kelley McCord pleaded guilty last week to avoid trial and the death penalty. He was given two life sentences and was eligible for release in 24 years. The report also stated that he pleaded guilty to the murders in Jefferson County, Ala., and was sentenced to life in prison.

After the plea, Jeff McCord met privately with prosecutors to describe how he and his wife killed the Bateses. He also promised to testify against his wife or anyone else connected to the case if needed.

The report described the daughters’ ages as 10 and 12 and identified them as Gabrielle and Madeline.

A separate report stated Jessica McCord was fired from a police job in 2000 after attacking her ex-husband. It said Birmingham Police Chief Mike Coppage fired her for being absent without leave and for a physical attack on Alan Bates. It also included a termination letter excerpt from Coppage: “You went to the home of your ex-husband and you admitted you hurt him to keep him from hurting you,” Coppage wrote in the termination letter.

That report also stated the McCords had been identified by Hoover police as primary suspects. It said they were shot to death and dumped in the trunk of a rental car found smoldering Saturday on the outskirts of Rutledge, Ga. It also stated that authorities said the two daughters may have been with McCord family members Friday afternoon when Bates was supposed to pick them up.

A report stated that Jessica McCord refused comment after meeting later Wednesday with David Cromwell Johnson in his Birmingham office, and that Johnson said he had not been hired by the McCords and that they had been staying with relatives in Florida and that police knew where they were.

A report also stated that Jessica McCord and Alan Bates were divorced in 1995, with McCord granted physical custody and Bates given standard visitation rights. It stated that in December she served 10 days in jail for contempt of court for refusing to comply with a custody order.

Multiple accounts described the rental car being traced back to a Mavis Car Rental in Birmingham, Alabama, after the burning car was discovered.