The Psychopath: A True Story(37)
Almost immediately, the form of Will Jordan’s conversation changed. Initially he used far more body language and shrugs, nods and hand gestures. Watching, I remembered what Dr Woodworth has said about spending time with a psychopath, that it is almost hypnotic and that a lot of the communication is through body language rather than individual words.
Will explained that it was completely understandable that she had mixed feelings and that he accepted that. That he could grovel but really he wanted her to see the bigger picture first, to know everything so he could then apologise for the right things because not everything he had told her was a lie.
He said that he could provide clarity but she would have to be in the right frame of mind, like when she was working at the hospital and having to tell people what was wrong with them and what wasn’t, what they needed to do and when they needed to do it. It didn’t matter what she said to those patients and how clearly she put it – if they were not in the right frame of mind they wouldn’t see it. He said that similarly if she wasn’t in the right frame of mind, no matter what he said she wouldn’t believe him.
Will was already reframing the situation.
He then brought up the idea of the relationship not ‘carrying forward’ – that it wouldn’t matter so much to him if he didn’t care, that it would be easy to walk away if things were ‘not balanced’.
Will was being deliberately vague and using unusually bland and vague terms for normal situations. This is done on purpose to keep the target focused on trying to understand what he is saying and distracting them from the point of the discussion.
Will admitted that he had already apologised for not telling Mischele the truth sooner and agreed that he should grovel about that, but that he didn’t want to keep going over old ground. Mischele agreed.
Then Will started to explain, using word salad, that he hadn’t done half the things he’d been accused of. That he was guilty of hurting people emotionally, yes, but that he’d been ‘trollied’ and set up. He wanted to break it all down into its basic parts so that Mischele could see the bigger picture and understand it all.
They then went on to discuss the situation between them and Will laid the groundwork of mistrust. He spent a good while talking about trust and knowing each other. He talked about being able to walk away, but then immediately stated that he had never done that. He had only ever stopped talking to someone and walked out of their lives after they had asked him to – he had never just disappeared. He had invested too much in Mischele to do that to her.
Mischele mentioned the paedophile conviction and that it was pretty hard for her to take – it was the last straw for her.
Initially, Will changed the subject to money. He said that his wife had had him over a barrel for twelve years after they were married and started to rant about how much money he had earned. That he had provided for his family and earned half a million, five times over, in the course of a year.
The distraction worked and Mischele moved on.
They then discussed the nanny who had committed suicide – the girl who had an affair with Will Jordan in the 1990s and, when rejected, had taken an overdose of paracetamol. Will talked about how he was there with her at the end and how she had been emotionally damaged by her own family. Her family were there at the end as well, and they blamed him, but he said that he just had to take that on the chin.
The conversation moved on to Will’s wife in England, the woman who had contacted me on 5 April 2006 and been married to him when he targeted me. Will then told the story of how they had got together, how she was fun and although seven years older than him was still quite young when they met. She had been hurting and in the process of separating from her husband who was physically abusive. He said that she was pretty thin and ‘very unremarkable’ physically but a really nice person. She was weird and fun. He described her as ‘very strong-willed, very loud-mouthed’ and when she clashed with her ex it would end in a drag-out fight, something that Will said he could never have done. However, despite knowing this, he said, they had got together. She had liked his ability to make money, and he had liked her maternal side.
A lot of what this woman did had been about giving back to people in her life that she felt she owed. Again, that had fed Will’s ego. They had bought her father a house, and a place for her aunt and uncle. They even took care of her mum. She had wanted him to make money and leave her alone to get on with her own life, and he had wanted the base and the challenge of getting out and ‘chasing the dollar’. He even described it as ‘better than sex sometimes’. It seemed like a good arrangement.
He explained that his wife in England liked the good life. She liked having the nannies, and to go travelling around the USA for a month – from one side of the country to another – and implied that she didn’t really want him around. Will was OK with that, because it meant more time to himself. They were married but they lived very separate lives.
He talked about how he had had his ‘partners’ and she had ‘played on the other side too’, but within the midst of that was her religion. It had never left her and being in an open relationship like that didn’t look good from the outside. Her family had got involved.
His wife had been fine with him having affairs as long as it wasn’t in her face, but when his sister-in-law found out, she was furious and came after Will for cheating on her sibling.