Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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.
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 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.
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Chapter 2: How did Derek Jones and Jesika originally meet?
I love audiobooks for the same reason I love podcasts. They can go everywhere with me, the car, the garden, on a walk. And with The Mother Next Door, I got to bring all my worlds together as I narrate one of my own books for the very first time. You can find The Mother Next Door wherever you get audiobooks. Here's a snippet.
When the nurse who was administering the test briefly left the room, Hope turned to Amy and asked if she could take her daughter to the bathroom so that Sophia could have a meltdown. It was bizarre. Amy explained to Hope that she could not allow her to be alone with Sophia. A short time later, the results of the sweat test came back. Negative. Sophia didn't have cystic fibrosis.
For almost any parent in the world, the news that their child didn't have a terminal illness would have brought tears of relief. But upon hearing the test results, Hope broke down in tears for a very different reason. She'd been caught. Thank you so much. I am the daughter of an immigrant, I stand with immigrants, immigrants make this country great.
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. 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?
All right. So my name is Derek Jones. I'm the father of the oldest and the youngest victims in the case.
You're also Jessica's ex-husband. Is that right?
Well, hopefully soon. OK, so you're trying for a while.
Oh, boy. OK, so you're in the process of becoming Jessica's ex-husband. So how did you and Jessica originally meet?
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Derek face during Jesika's pregnancy?
We met through Facebook, actually.
And when was this?
I want to say it was towards the end of 2016.
So whereabouts do you live?
I live around the Fort Worth area. At the time, I didn't. I lived over in Archer City, which was a good hour and a half from Fort Worth, roughly, I think.
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?
I mean, nothing stood out that was like alarming or anything like that. You know, I was like, hey, this is you know, I was enjoying the conversation. It's hard because I look back at it now and I have a different perception. I looked I was in a dark place back then. And so I don't think that helped with my conversation.
judgment very well but i i mean back then i looked at it as i didn't see anything alarming and you know this nice girl that had her stuff together and like i said i was a single guy so i was like hey why not and then did she eventually suggest that you meet up in person and how did that piece of things develop We both were like talking back and forth about meeting up in person.
And then finally, I was able to have a free weekend when she had a free weekend. And so then we finally just made plans to meet up. And I said it was about three months after we started chatting that we finally met up. I came up to Fort Worth.
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Chapter 4: How did Derek's perception of Jesika change over time?
I'm like, yeah, yeah. And then I'm going to I'm going to take some time and evaluate it and think about it.
Yeah.
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.
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.
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.
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 have kids from a previous marriage also?
I had one from a previous marriage. And I was just in that place in life where.
then i didn't know that i was in a depression and everything and i i really didn't learn how deep of a depression i was in until actually all this came out i didn't realize and how far i had had disassociated myself with family and everything else and so i i i look back now and you know like i said my judgment wasn't the best and i i could i will put 100 that it wasn't now that i look back but
You know, we started dating and we started hanging out and she would come up and see me and I would go up there and see her. And it ended up moving really quick. I want to say it was around April of 2017 that she had called me up to let me know that she was pregnant.
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Chapter 5: What were the signs of health issues in their daughter?
And she says, no, I'm not. I'm like, no, this is not funny. Like, you know, all joking aside, how did the appointment go? She's like, really, we're having twins. And I was like, wow, you know. And so I ended up making plans and moving up to Fort Worth with her. because I wanted to be here through the pregnancy.
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?
At the time, my work was where I lived. And then I found a job up in Fort Worth when I moved up here. Looking back on it, it should have been an alarm that, hey, she was in transition of houses. So she was staying at her grandmother's house. But she's like, you know, my grandmother said, you can move in here with me. And I said, I wasn't in the best mindset. And
So I ended up moving in there with her, with her grandmother.
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 had her act together. Like what did she did? What was she doing for work? Like what else did you sort of know about her?
What kind of came to light as just maybe even in this period while you were dating and she gets pregnant?
Yeah.
she told me she had been a nurse at cooks, but then she had told me when I moved in there, she was working at a nursing home. And then right before I moved in, she had been working at a nursing home. Once I moved in, pregnancy was getting hard on her. And she told me that the doctor said, Hey, If I don't start taking it easy, they're going to bed better. What is it? Bed rest.
Bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy. And this was way early on. Me being a young, dumb guy, you know, I didn't know nothing about it. And I fed right into it because I'm like, OK, you know, there's two. I've only been, you know. My first one was just one. And so maybe the twin pregnancy is different. Maybe, you know, it's a lot.
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Chapter 6: How did the family dynamics change with the arrival of twins?
And they were gonna, you know, Hey, we might have to keep you just to watch, you know, in case they try to come early. They ended up coming. I want to say it was 37 weeks.
So it's a little bit, a little bit early, but not too early.
They were tiny, tiny though. One was three, seven, I want to say. And the other one was four, one.
Oh, wow.
If I remember my numbers correctly. So they were tiny. They were at that point. I was like, I was scared to hold them. I'm like, I'm going to break them just if I move wrong. You know, I made a couple of the first doctor's appointments when we would go see their pediatrician and everything was fine.
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?
Yes, they – she had three other ones. They all lived with her. I – Met the ex-husband, you know, as a, hey, I'm Derek. Hey, I'm so-and-so. You know, other than that, never really chatted. Throughout all this, she had fed me stuff that put me against him. and made him, you know, Oh, he's like this.
And when you're, when you're in that situation, you're going to support your other half, you know, and no reason not to believe, or I didn't have any proof against it. So that's about the extent with him, you know, we didn't really care for each other. You know, I would meet him to drop the kids off or meet him to pick the kids up. But, you know, the oldest one.
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.
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Chapter 7: What led to the involvement of Child Protective Services?
And are they both girls or boy girl or?
Both girls.
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, they they were just, you know, small and we had to put them on the growth formula to help try to gain weight. They weren't really gaining a lot of weight still to this day. They are tiny, but their speech was behind and stuff like that. But they had a speech therapist that would come out to the house and help out. That was, I think, around two years old. I believe.
But other than that, we had we'd go to the doctor. They still saw the doctors for like trying to, you know, watching growth plates and trying to gain weight and stuff like that.
So were they having like failure to thrive issues? Kind of. Yes. Okay. Not, maybe not, not super. Did they have like feeding tubes or anything like that or just more mild? Okay.
Well, I believe they said it, you know, failure to thrive, but it was just no matter what you fed them or how many times you fed them, they just, they didn't, they wouldn't gain weight. I don't know where it went, you know, at least when I was there, they would eat all the time.
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.
She never went back to work. She was a stay-at-home mom. I was the one working all the time. I want to say when they were around a year and a half, two years old, I got another job. So it had been a year and a half, roughly, because in August of 2019, I got a new job. But I started traveling with this job. So, you know, she was at home with them all the time. I'd travel a couple days a week.
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Chapter 8: How did Derek react to the revelation of Jesika's manipulation?
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And remember that shopping our sponsors is a great way to support the show. I'd started noticing things, you know,
We had started growing apart. Me and Jessica.
You and Jessica. Okay.
But I'm one of those people that I would stick around. You know, I'm going to be there for my kids. And I just noticed little things that weren't adding up.
And when did you and Jessica get married? Did you get married before the kids came?
Before the kids. She was big on being married before the kids were born. So I found out, I want to say it was April, that she was pregnant, and we were married in June.
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