No One Can Hurt Him Anymore. Scott Cupp
noticed that she immediately contradicted herself.
Jessica: A.J.’s mother used to call HRS. Patsy, her daughter, she used to call HRS even from Fort Lauderdale. I mean, I was on the abuse line so much it was ridiculous. And they’d come out every time. It started when Jackie was still in diapers. They checked all the kids, and they’d keep the investigation going for a while; then they’d drop it, and then it would happen again.
(Jessica nonchalantly referred—once again—to the broken nose and black eyes that A.J. had suffered.) The last time, it was with the nose. Somebody said I did it to him, so they came. A cop with a gun and the HRS investigators took Jackie away—I mean fast—into A.J.’s room and talked to her and looked at her. But Lauren wouldn’t go. She was pissed. Very pissed, asking why we always have to go through this. She wouldn’t talk to anybody. She just sat there and said, “I’m not going to talk to anybody. You have no right to come into my house and talk to me, and I’m not saying a word.” So she was just pissed off.
Cupp wondered if Waites could hear the distinct difference in the attitude and tone she exhibited toward her two girls, Lauren and Jackie. Cupp heard pride, affection, and involvement. As Jessica rambled, Cupp tried to put words to her feelings about A.J. Even though A.J. was dead, all Cupp could hear was irritation, exasperation, and a general feeling of distaste and disapproval. He wondered if he was being too cynical or judgmental.
Jessica: She was very pissed off. She said to A.J., “Why does this always happen? Why do we always have to go through this?”
Cupp could hear just how much Jessica liked the fact that her ten-year-old daughter was “pissed” at the cops and the HRS investigators.
Jessica: And Jackie just babbled everything to the cop. I mean, she just yapped her mouth off. . . .
Cupp listened to this part again. A complete reversal of feeling. Here she was angry and disgusted with her younger daughter for “babbling everything” to the investigator, as if she were betraying her mom with every word. Now he couldn’t wait to watch the videotape that Detective Calloway had made of Jessica alone with her daughters in the police interview room. All Calloway had told him about the tape was, “You’ve got to watch it. Amazing.”
Jessica continued—without prompting from Waites—to talk about the incident involving A.J.’s broken nose. By all accounts, including his own, A.J. had fallen against the handlebars of Jackie’s bicycle. None of the neighbors seemed to believe it. A.J.’s guardian ad litem didn’t believe it.
Jessica (ranting): They (the HRS investigator and the detective) brought A.J. into the garage and made him show them how it happened, because I didn’t even see.... His hair was longer then, and he had a bruise here, under his bangs. I didn’t even see it. And the cop, you know, said to the HRS people, “Let’s go. He did it. He did it. She didn’t do it.” So then I got called in to talk to HRS. They said it was a neighbor who called them. And a girlfriend of mine who lives over on the next block, she said HRS had called her about me. And I said to her, “I’m so sick of HRS! You tell them—the next time they call you—that I watched Silence of the Lambs, and that I’m that crazy doctor, that crazy man that eats people. You tell them that I’m eating my children because I’m so sick of all the accusations. It’s ridiculous.” And she . . . it was . . . you know . . .
Jessica hesitated, as if suddenly becoming aware of what she had just said. All Waites said was “Yeah.” He was leading her.
Jessica gushed something about A.J.’s half sister, Patsy, and his natural mother, Ilene, and how “that family is whacked.” Then she ran out of steam.
Waites gave her one last chance, asking, “Okay, is there anything else you can think of right now?”
Scott Cupp wasn’t expecting anything worthwhile, and he was sure Waites wasn’t either. They were both surprised.
Jessica mumbled, “No. When we do . . . when we do find out about A.J. . . . all I know . . . oh, all I know is, it’s gonna be a zoo at my house, and I know I’m gonna react. I know I’m gonna end up in jail for hitting somebody.”
“Damn!” Scott listened to a stretch of silence and tried to picture the expression on Waites’s face. Eventually he heard him say, “Well, let’s conclude the interview at this time.”
Cupp rewound the tape, staring at the spools as they spun around. Now the work started.
CHAPTER 4
I believe Jessica probably did throw up, but the cause wasn’t remorse—it was the combination of committing murder with her bare hands on a belly full of beer, and then having half of PBSO pouring through her house on a Sunday morning when she’s usually sleeping it off.
—Scott Cupp
After the initial investigation on Sunday morning, the whole Schwarz family—David, Jessica, Lauren, and Jackie—had been asked to come to the sheriff ’s office to be interviewed. While Detective Waites conducted his interview with Jessica, Detective Calloway took Lauren to a room in the Juvenile Unit to wait while he questioned Jackie.
Jackie was two months shy of being five years old and had long, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail that reached past her waist. Calloway gently told her that maybe she could answer some questions for him about what had happened earlier in the day. The little girl told him that she “didn’t know any questions,” and that she “only knew her ABC’s.”
He then spoke briefly with her about telling the truth and telling a lie. It was apparent to him that she knew the difference between the two.
Jackie revealed that A.J. had been grounded the day before his death. So while the rest of the family attended Sunfest, an annual celebration held in nearby West Palm Beach, A.J. spent the day confined to his home. When Calloway quizzed Jackie about why A.J. had been grounded, she said that he had been playing with some green dye or paint near the family’s dryer.
When Jessica found some of the dye on the dryer, Jackie said her mother became “very mad.” Jessica had poured the dye over A.J.’s head, and then she “spanked him with a strap.”
According to Jackie, both her mother and her father spanked A.J. a lot—with a strap and a belt.
Later in the interview, Jackie told the detective that earlier that morning she heard a splash in the swimming pool that woke her up. She went outside to the pool, climbed up the ladder, and saw A.J. in the pool underneath the water. Upon further questioning about this story, it became clear to Calloway that she was not telling the truth. He noticed many inconsistencies in her story, and when he pointed them out to her, she admitted that it wasn’t true. When he asked her why, she replied, “Because I have to lie.” Again he asked her why, and she replied, “Somebody doesn’t get in jail.”
He then asked Jackie to just tell him what really happened. Crying, she told him, “I’m going to get in trouble. I just don’t want anybody to get hurt.”
He tried to soothe her and told her that nobody would get hurt. She said, “Somebody already did get hurt.”
When he asked her who had gotten hurt, she replied, “My brother.”
He learned that Jackie had no idea how A.J. had gotten into the pool, and when he tried to question her further about her brother, she stated, “I’m going to run away.”
From time to time, during the course of the interview, Calloway noticed that Jackie was looking behind him and laughing. When he turned to see what she was laughing at, he heard footsteps running away from the interview room. He got up and looked out the window and saw Lauren running down the hall, back to the waiting room, where he had stationed her prior to his interview with Jackie. Lauren had been watching her little sister as she was being questioned.
He asked Jackie if her mother had told her what to tell him—in reference to the fabricated story she had told him earlier. She said, “Yes.” He asked her exactly what her mother had told her to tell him, and