S31.E09: Taken Away (Jessie Bardwell)

[formerlyfreedom]

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The 2016 death of 27 year old Jessie Bardwell, who seemingly vanished from the Texas home she shared with her boyfriend, is investigated.

[biakbiak]

Holy shit, I don't think I have seen such a dramatic transformation for a defendent in just slightly over a year, I had to recheck the date of her murder and the trial.

[mythoughtis]

As usual, there was a lot left out of this. I only half watched his testimony- did he explain how Jessie was  badly beaten as part of this ‘accident’? The autopsy described the injuries. 

Only toward the end did we hear about Jessie’s pregnancy early in the relationship (if that was true) and that he (this guy) had thrown her out of the house shortly after moving to Texas. If Jessie was pregnant by someone else- I wouldn’t have called it an affar’. She only met this guy shortly before the move to Texas. They probably werent even a true couple when she got pregnant. 

Edited November 19, 2017 by mythoughtis

[SunnyBeBe]

There did seem to be a lot that was not revealed about the victim and I get that.  Regardless, of what she did, she didn't deserve to be mistreated and murdered.  I did pick up on the fact that she seemed pretty unconcerned about her family and friends.  She knew they worried, yet she continued to live without having a cell phone to speak with them?  Seems odd.  Also, did you catch the part about where a friend waited at an airport to pick her up for 7 hours, but, she didn't even bother to let them know she wasn't coming.  This was after her dad had arranged for her to fly home.  Just so odd.  I suspect severe drug addiction by her, but, there was no evidence of that, except her odd behavior.  It seemed more than being a battered woman.  It would explain a lot though.  It did seem clear to me that she was intentionally murdered by the defendant though, although, they both were likely using drugs at the time. 

I wonder if the state ever questioned the alleged drug dealer, who allegedly helped load the body into the car. 

I thought it odd that while they were using drugs, especially, the defendant, who admitted it, this nice couple just lets them house sit!  Why did they so suddenly adopt this couple as their own?  Seemed very odd. 

I didn't make much of the mock jury the defense used. It seemed to me that they were biased in favor of the defense.  Setting them up with lunch boxes and then the time to vote seemed ill conceived. lol   Plus, all they got was the attorney speeches, not the testimony of the defendant, which obviously didn't go over well. 

Edited November 19, 2017 by SunnyBeBe

[txhorns79]

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I didn't make much of the mock jury the defense used. It seemed to me that they were biased in favor of the defense.  Setting them up with lunch boxes and then the time to vote seemed ill conceived. lol   Plus, all they got was the attorney speeches, not the testimony of the defendant, which obviously didn't go over well. 

I don't how this mock jury went, but typically, the lawyers will try to go through the entire case, complete with someone playing the defendant giving something that approximates his testimony.  It's not just attorney openings and closings. 

[SunnyBeBe]

Yeah, but, I'm not sure that's what they did. It looked like it was wrapped up pretty quick.  lol  

Do you recall them saying that either Jesse or the defendant had a job?  How were they supporting their drug addiction and paying bills?  They had already sold Jesse's car, so, I wonder if they were just living day to day on whatever they could sell. 

[AZChristian]

22 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

I wonder if they were just living day to day on whatever they could sell. 

Or whoever.

[rwgrab]

1 hour ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Do you recall them saying that either Jesse or the defendant had a job?  How were they supporting their drug addiction and paying bills?  They had already sold Jesse's car, so, I wonder if they were just living day to day on whatever they could sell. 

I think they said that he had moved to Texas for a six-figure salary tech job.  I'm not sure if he was still working when all this went down, but he at least had a job at one point.  I also thought they might have sold the car for drug money, but I guess it could also just be one more thing he was doing to isolate Jessie from others.

I think the guy's terrible, and I believe the accounts from his ex-girlfriends that he could be dangerous and violent.  I'm just not sure I could look at what the prosecution presented and definitively say she was murdered.  That jailhouse FaceTime session to his friend seemed like he felt from the beginning that it wasn't intentional, so I guess it's not surprising that's the story he went with for the defense.    Maybe there were more injuries noted on the autopsy that showed that something more serious had happened.

2 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Also, did you catch the part about where a friend waited at an airport to pick her up for 7 hours, but, she didn't even bother to let them know she wasn't coming.  This was after her dad had arranged for her to fly home.

Yeah, wasn't that strange?  I get that Jessie was in crisis, but the friend hung out at the airport for 7 hours just kind of hoping she'd step off the next plane that landed or whatever?  Seems like there must have been something more to that situation that the show didn't dive into.

[Ohmo]

On 11/19/2017 at 1:12 PM, rwgrab said:

I think they said that he had moved to Texas for a six-figure salary tech job.  I'm not sure if he was still working when all this went down, but he at least had a job at one point.  I also thought they might have sold the car for drug money, but I guess it could also just be one more thing he was doing to isolate Jessie from others.

There was a definite undertone that Jessie had her own issues.  College was not for her, and while college isn't for everyone, she didn't choose anything like the military or some sort of technical training either.  Waiting tables is not the way to long-term financial stability if that's your only plan and you're 27.

I felt badly for her dad.  He seems like a nice guy who adored his daughter.  Maybe that was part of the reason that the show didn't focus on Jessie's issues that much and just hinted at them.  Her dad still seems to be grieving deeply.

[biakbiak]

On 11/19/2017 at 8:39 AM, SunnyBeBe said:

Yeah, but, I'm not sure that's what they did. It looked like it was wrapped up pretty quick.  lol  

I think that was just for the show, they wanted to show the defense with the actual court footage not the mock trail. When they showed the preview clip of him saying to the jury that he was going to do something he had never done in his 40 plus years as a defense attorney, I thought of it was on that jury I would assume he said that every trial but then it turned out it was the mock jury and he was talking about conducting the mock trail. I thought him saying that actually probably biased the jury somewhat.

They hinted that he came from money and I have to imagine that's true because things like mock trials aren't cheap.

[Christina]

Another episode that was diluted and made it hard to see why the jury voted the way they did. It's like the show thinks that we, the viewers, know the person was guilty for other reasons discussed on the show, so there is no need to show what the jury heard. Obviously, they can't show an entire trial in the 40 minutes they have per episode, but I'm not sure I understood why the jury came to the guilty verdict, even though I think he killed her and she didn't die as a result of that stupid story he told.

 

On 11/19/2017 at 4:25 AM, biakbiak said:

Holy shit, I don't think I have seen such a dramatic transformation for a defendent in just slightly over a year, I had to recheck the date of her murder and the trial.

My guess is that he was started on a psychotropic drug, and almost all of the mental health drugs cause weight gain and, I think, premature aging (don't think that is an actual side effect, just personal opinion). On top of that, he no longer had access to his drugs and the food in prisons is crappy, with most inmates gaining weight. George Zimmerman, the man who killed Trayvon Martin, also had a drastic weight change very quickly after his arrest, and he was also on mental health medications, prescribed while he was in jail. 

 

On 11/19/2017 at 10:43 AM, SunnyBeBe said:

There did seem to be a lot that was not revealed about the victim and I get that.  Regardless, of what she did, she didn't deserve to be mistreated and murdered.  I did pick up on the fact that she seemed pretty unconcerned about her family and friends. 

[SNIP]

I suspect severe drug addiction by her, but, there was no evidence of that, except her odd behavior.  It seemed more than being a battered woman.  It would explain a lot though.  It did seem clear to me that she was intentionally murdered by the defendant though, although, they both were likely using drugs at the time. 

Even though I understand why they wouldn't want to bash the victim by listing her poor behaviors, it makes the episodes choppy and I always feel like I'm missing something. It becomes a "read between the lines" exercise, and sometimes, I don't want to think about what I'm watching. It looks like the viewers did pick up on her drug use, at least as far as this forum is concerned, so they must have included enough information for us to reach that conclusion, but I was doubting myself until I read this thread, thinking that it was just abuse victim behaviors and I was reading too much into it. Now, I think my initial belief that it was a combination of abuse and drug use, is the explanation for her odd behaviors.

[magicman]

I agree that this was a frustrating episode to watch because of the missing pieces of the timeline. It bugged me so much that I dug up the trial tweets of Valerie Wigglesworth from the Dallas Morning News to understand wtf may have happened here. This is a long document and I haven’t actually read through it entirely, but if anyone’s interested: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwA3Nou9Y-iYdTF1d1Vxdmxod28/view

Jason Lowe is definitely not credible and has obvious drug and mental issues but it sheds some light on the drug aspect of this case that many of us picked up on. 

Here’s an article about the two ex girlfriends who didn’t end up testifying. Pretty chilling to read the similarities. 

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2017/09/22/2-ex-girlfriends-convicted-murderer-jason-lowe-say-killed