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Authors: M. William Phelps
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she had much more free time on her hands than was good for her. If she would have just stuck it out, Jennifer Jones could have likely graduated within a year’s time. However, she wanted to get out on her own and fend for herself. School, Jen felt, was holding her back. So she moved to Santo, Texas, about a half-hour drive from Mineral Wells, explaining in court later, “I went to Santo and it’s just . . . it’s just the peak of my life where, you know, I felt like everything was falling apart.”
Jennifer did that sometimes: She would use the wrong word. “Peak,” at least here, would lead one to believe her life was running full speed, heading somewhere.
It was not.
This move to Santo culminated in what was a long list of homes Jennifer had set her boots down in over a period of about a dozen years. All of the shuffling around had taken its toll on her, or so she later claimed. Not so much physically, although she was rather tired and stressed from frequently moving and changing schools. Psychologically and emotionally, Jen was feeling the effects. She was a wreck. Always waking up, wondering where or when her next home would be. Leaving behind friends she had made. There seemed to be constant change in her life.
“It hasn’t been very easy,” Jen said of her childhood as a whole. “Not only moving from place to place, making new friends, the relationships that I’ve had with guys in my past, losing my virginity at the age of fourteen, trying drugs at fourteen, my parents separated, my grandmother dying. It’s been very testing.”
This statement clarifies the fact that Jen suffered from not having enough direction or discipline. She had very little support when it came time to begin living outside of the nest on her own. She had hardly any social skills to survive on her own and fend for herself as an adult. All Jen knew, one could argue, was disappointment, loss, and instability. On the other hand, one could also contend that Jennifer had completely given up on not only herself, but on life in general—because she did have a support staff to lean on when she needed to, a loving and caring aunt and uncle.
“As the girls [Jennifer and Stephanie] grew up,” Jen’s uncle told me, “we did things like buying them an entire roomful of furniture, clothing that was appropriate, and whatever else they really needed to ‘fit in’ with other kids. Most of the time, Kathy was in jail (thankfully).”
Jennifer’s uncle (not by blood) and his wife, Jerry’s sister, said they believed in and practiced “a simple ‘rewards’ system. When the girls achieved milestones, we offered damn nice rewards— several cruises (Jamaica, Bahamas, et cetera), ski trip to Vail.... After we had purchased the girls’ furniture, and painted and fixed up their rooms, hung curtains to make them proud to have guests at their rented trailer home, we learned that Jerry was being evicted.”
It was a great disappointment to Jennifer’s aunt and uncle. They had worked so hard showing the girls how life became about the choices one made. Time and again, they had given the kids a fresh start.
“All the . . . work we put in [went] down the drain, and the furniture [was] put out on the curb as trash,” Jennifer’s uncle explained. “That was the last straw for us, and we took the girls into our home.”
If her aunt and uncle couldn’t save Jennifer and her sister from a distance, they thought, their influence on a daily basis, inside their own home, and the overall inspiration and example they could set daily, would achieve far better results.
“We had clear rules, simple to follow, easily understood,” Jennifer’s uncle said, recalling the time the girls moved in. “No drugs. No pregnancies. No drinking. Other than that, it was pretty much just ‘Don’t be stupid.’”
Practical, sage advice. Or maybe just common sense.
The girls’ aunt and uncle started construction on a 6,200-square-foot home and lived in a
Jennifer did that sometimes: She would use the wrong word. “Peak,” at least here, would lead one to believe her life was running full speed, heading somewhere.
It was not.
This move to Santo culminated in what was a long list of homes Jennifer had set her boots down in over a period of about a dozen years. All of the shuffling around had taken its toll on her, or so she later claimed. Not so much physically, although she was rather tired and stressed from frequently moving and changing schools. Psychologically and emotionally, Jen was feeling the effects. She was a wreck. Always waking up, wondering where or when her next home would be. Leaving behind friends she had made. There seemed to be constant change in her life.
“It hasn’t been very easy,” Jen said of her childhood as a whole. “Not only moving from place to place, making new friends, the relationships that I’ve had with guys in my past, losing my virginity at the age of fourteen, trying drugs at fourteen, my parents separated, my grandmother dying. It’s been very testing.”
This statement clarifies the fact that Jen suffered from not having enough direction or discipline. She had very little support when it came time to begin living outside of the nest on her own. She had hardly any social skills to survive on her own and fend for herself as an adult. All Jen knew, one could argue, was disappointment, loss, and instability. On the other hand, one could also contend that Jennifer had completely given up on not only herself, but on life in general—because she did have a support staff to lean on when she needed to, a loving and caring aunt and uncle.
“As the girls [Jennifer and Stephanie] grew up,” Jen’s uncle told me, “we did things like buying them an entire roomful of furniture, clothing that was appropriate, and whatever else they really needed to ‘fit in’ with other kids. Most of the time, Kathy was in jail (thankfully).”
Jennifer’s uncle (not by blood) and his wife, Jerry’s sister, said they believed in and practiced “a simple ‘rewards’ system. When the girls achieved milestones, we offered damn nice rewards— several cruises (Jamaica, Bahamas, et cetera), ski trip to Vail.... After we had purchased the girls’ furniture, and painted and fixed up their rooms, hung curtains to make them proud to have guests at their rented trailer home, we learned that Jerry was being evicted.”
It was a great disappointment to Jennifer’s aunt and uncle. They had worked so hard showing the girls how life became about the choices one made. Time and again, they had given the kids a fresh start.
“All the . . . work we put in [went] down the drain, and the furniture [was] put out on the curb as trash,” Jennifer’s uncle explained. “That was the last straw for us, and we took the girls into our home.”
If her aunt and uncle couldn’t save Jennifer and her sister from a distance, they thought, their influence on a daily basis, inside their own home, and the overall inspiration and example they could set daily, would achieve far better results.
“We had clear rules, simple to follow, easily understood,” Jennifer’s uncle said, recalling the time the girls moved in. “No drugs. No pregnancies. No drinking. Other than that, it was pretty much just ‘Don’t be stupid.’”
Practical, sage advice. Or maybe just common sense.
The girls’ aunt and uncle started construction on a 6,200-square-foot home and lived in a
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