![]() ![]() To Bradford, Logan is “Butterball.” Only Jessica if she’s in trouble: Jessica when she cut class Jessica when she was arrested for shoplifting as a teenager Jessica when she got caught joyriding her father's Chevy and showed up at Bradford’s doorstep. It was an unofficial adoption after Logan’s biological mother died of cancer. Hope Bradford, a mother of three with eyes that smile before her mouth can catch up, took in Logan, her son’s then-girlfriend, when she was 17. The case against Jessica Logan - reconstructed here from dozens of interviews, videos and audio recordings, as well as more than 1,000 pages of internal emails, text messages, police reports, court filings and other records - illustrates the fragility of long-established legal protections meant to guard against junk science and its impact on families. Listen to more of Jessica Logan’s 911 call His interpretation of her 911 call that day would come to play a profound role at almost every turn of the case that followed, while Logan’s family, already shattered by one unspeakable loss, reckoned with the possibility of another. He documented his findings and then got to work sharing them. And when asked if Jayden was beyond any help, Logan said, “I think he’s gone.” She had “already accepted that Jayden was deceased,” Matthews noted in his report.Īccording to the detective, almost everything Logan said - and didn’t say - was evidence of her guilt. She was more focused on herself than her son: I need my baby instead of I need help for my baby. She repeated herself several times with “attempts to convince” the dispatcher of Jayden’s breathing problems. ![]() She gave information in an inappropriate order. These, the detective noted in a report, are “indicators of guilt.” She did not explain precisely what had happened until almost a minute into the 911 call, and she never explicitly asked for an ambulance for Jayden. Today there are hundreds of police officers, prosecutors, coroners and dispatchers nationwide who have taken the course and could now present themselves as experts, able to divine truth and deception - and guilt and innocence - from the word choice, cadence and even grammar of people reporting emergencies.įor Matthews, Logan presented a textbook case on which to apply his newly minted skills. Pitched exclusively to law enforcement, others in the justice system, including defense lawyers and judges, often learn police have used the technique for the first time in the courtroom. The instructor, who is the chief architect of the discipline, promises those who attend his classes they’ll leave with the power to solve murders by listening to a 911 call.įor more than a decade, the training program and its methods have spread across the country and burrowed deep into the justice system, largely without notice. Credit:įive months earlier, he had taken a two-day law enforcement training course called “911 homicide: Is the caller the killer?” that was held at a nearby community college. Jayden, the younger son, died nearly 17 months later. Matthews, a veteran on the Decatur police force with buzzed hair and an even temperament, didn’t reach this revelation by applying some tried-and-true police method or proven science. He had the evidence right there on tape, and now he was going to build his case against her. There were only screams.Īll of this, the detective concluded after the recording stopped, was an act: The 25-year-old mother of two had likely staged the scene to cover up a murder. For the final two minutes of the call, Logan could no longer speak. Rigor mortis had already begun to set in by the time Jayden’s grandmother and her husband rushed into the apartment. She had found her 19-month-old son Jayden tangled up in his bed sheets, face down and stiff, one arm bent above his head and white foam spilling out of his mouth. ![]() “I came in my son room to try to give him a breathing treatment because he needs breathing treatments,” Logan said as she sobbed. Fact-based, independent journalism is needed now more than ever. ![]()
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