As the night progressed, the girls got high until the moon began to burn its midnight oil and the early-morning haze arrived. They’d pop pills, drink hard liquor, dance a little bit, smoke some weed, pass out, get up, and do it all over again. No one later mentioned anything about Bob whipping out his camera and taking videos, or that they had some sort of orgy. The perversion that had become Bob’s signature, and what he was known for within the circle of girls frequenting the house, had taken a backseat on this night to the celebration of Bobbi’s birthday.
According to Jen, the filming parties took place during what was a normal, regular course of Bob’s days and nights. And the way she described how these types of parties were different from, say, a get-together like they were having on the night of Bobbi’s birthday, it appeared that it was consensual among the participants. Still, if minors were involved (which they were, according to the MWPD, Bobbi, Jen, and Audrey), even if the minors agreed with what had been going on, it was never consensual. Never okay. And certainly never legal. Bob was committing an evil, criminal act, stealing the innocence of girls who didn’t know any better. Even worse, he was documenting it on film.
“People having a good time,” Jen said later, talking about a typical night of partying and filming. “Not just with their clothes on, but with their clothes off. Sexually, there were . . . Ah, sometimes people would get photographed being intimate with each other.”
Bob was the instigator, Jen claimed. Not Bobbi. But as far as “who kind of directed the action,” Jen later insisted, “Bob and Bobbi both did.” (This was an accusation Bobbi readily admitted to when I asked. “Yes, I did those things for Bob.”) Jen said she personally never got involved with “directing” (such an unusual choice of words here when describing what was going on inside that house).
“She would more just be, like, kind of the actor and director,” Jen said in court, speaking of Bobbi’s role. “And sit there and just tell you” what she and Bob needed. “And I would do whatever she asked me. If she asked me to pose for the camera, I would. If she asked me to take off my clothes, I would.”
Sometimes the three of them would get high and sit around, put the tapes on, and watch, laughing and joking at the action. It seemed as if Bob was some sort of Svengali or David Koresh character, wielding his experience, conning much younger and inexperienced prey. Often the films involved Jen and Bobbi having oral sex with each other. Or Jen having some fun with Bobbi’s breasts, and Bobbi reciprocating.
“It was just for fun,” Jen claimed.
Some of the other “fun,” Jen added, was a bit more risqué and dangerous.
“Sometimes we would just . . . just grab each other in the sexual body parts. Sometimes we would hold up items to each other, like a gun or a knife or something, and, you know, just pose for the camera.”
It was all part of the game—the act of getting high and engaging in risky, aggressive, and salacious conduct. The girls saw a way out of their own reality within this sexual exploitation by a male old enough to be their father. They didn’t think anything of it—especially Bobbi. It was simply what they did when they got high.
That is, until it became too much.
And then Bob Dow had to die.
CHAPTER 20
AS KRYSTAL LATER EXPLAINED, despite how fragmented and vague her words came across, the murder narrative of what happened back at Bob’s changed frequently as they drove out of Texas. She and the others kept going back and forth, not knowing what to believe.
“Basically,” Krystal recalled, “they said Bob was raping Jennifer and they got a gun. Basically, [they] had the gun loaded by somebody other than themselves, and [they] was going to go in and take care of it, and he (Bob) was not going to have [to rape] Jennifer at all. It was going to be taken care of.”
Krystal never placed the blame on one girl or the other; to her, Jen and Bobbi were equally responsible.
According to one story Jen told on the road, Bob had become so overpowering, abusive, and domineering—sexually harassing her continuously while she was at the house—it became unbearable to be around the man. But that was Jen, not Bobbi.
As one source later observed, “They weren’t in fear for their own lives at the time, right? I mean, they could have just moved away from Bob Dow. And if he pursued them, they could have gone to the cops and said, ‘We have evidence that this guy is having sex with underage girls.’ They could have gotten Bob Dow locked away for a long time. . . .”
Mike Burns, the prosecutor who later became involved in the case, reiterated this same point: “There’s a lot of folklore in Texas about the ‘he needed killing’ defense, but the truth of the matter is, that’s really not a fact in Texas. Regardless of the status, whether they’re good guys, bad guys, whatever, a murder is a crime, and it’s one of the most serious crimes we have. That defense is still tried in . . . courtrooms . . . of an unsavory character being killed. But it doesn’t wash with the juries . . . because they understand, and it’s part of our job to make them understand that taking a human life—regardless of the circumstance of the victim—is still against the law and needs to be dealt with accordingly.”
The argument Jen presented to the girls on the road was, essentially, that she and Bobbi couldn’t take it any longer. Bob Dow was constantly in Jen’s face, constantly asking her to sleep with him, constantly demanding that she sleep with him, and constantly on Bobbi’s case to convince Jen to have sex with him.
Bobbi, Jen later insisted, kept telling Bob no.
But Bob kept pushing.
One thing led to another; and, well, after Bob made one final advance, Jen decided he needed killing.
As Jen sat in court during her sentencing hearing and retold this part of her story (the third version by then) about being on the road that first night, after stopping for a break somewhere before heading out of Texas, Bobbi fired up a cigarette, pulled her aside, and said, “Let’s talk.”
“What’s up?” Jen asked.
“We need a plan.”
“Yeah.”
They discussed what to tell the police if they were caught. (“It was Bobbi’s idea,” Jen recalled. “We . . . we were thinking that if we did get caught, that that was, you know, the safest plan that we could come up with. That we . . . we both wouldn’t get into trouble.”)
The plan was, Jen explained, “that he was trying to rape me. And that I was—it was self-defense that I killed him. . . .”
Jen was in “a state of mind” at the time, she claimed, within the fog of her relationship with Bobbi, that didn’t allow her to think on her own. Her feelings toward Bobbi were growing deeper every day; and now, from how she viewed the situation, they had this secret, evil act between them. Jen truly believed that she was falling under Bobbi’s spell.
“They were strong,” Jen remarked, talking about how intense her feelings for Bobbi were. “They were still in . . . a state of caring and loving and showing affection. I felt like I was afraid of losing her.”
Instead of heading south into Mexico, a decision was made to head northwest toward Arizona. The idea of crossing the Mexican border legally (or even illegally) didn’t seem so practical. There was the likely chance that immigration and border patrol had a description of the vehicle. Heading into Mexico was more or less akin to a spiderweb; whereas, heading into New Mexico and continuing west—the new plan—seemed to be a bit more pragmatic as far as bettering their chances of getting away. As long as they could keep their noses clean and obey some rather liberal speed-limit laws throughout the southwest, they were going to be fine. There had been no roadblock or army of law enforcement waiting at the border as they passed into New Mexico, near Ciudad Juárez, heading for Las Cruces on Interstate 25. They were free and clear to continue onto Interstate 10 and find their way to Arizona.
The drive through New Mexico was quick. By the early-morning hours of May 7, 2004, they had traveled some six hundred miles or more. After passing the border into New Mexico, Kathy suggested stoppi
ng somewhere to pawn the second gun.
“Bob gave the gun to Bobbi,” Jen said later in court. (This was another important fact to highlight—the gun was Bobbi’s to begin with, as Bobbi had later claimed.)
In town, after Kathy pawned the gun, they stopped for gas and something to eat. Kathy was growing increasingly impatient with Jen and Bobbi. She needed to know the truth about what had happened. Enough was enough.
“I need to know,” Kathy announced.
Bobbi and Jen looked at each other.
Jen explained how it started the day before Bob was murdered. Jen said she needed a ride home. No one else would pick her up. Bob came. And for that ride, Jen told her mother, Bob said his “payment” would be having sex with her.
The way she first told this story, Jen implied that she was alone when Bob picked her up. And then, when they got back to the party house afterward, “Bobbi Jo walked in,” Kathy said later, explaining how she had first heard the story from her daughter, “and [she] found Bob forcing himself on Jennifer. Bobbi Jo then knocked him away from Jennifer and he told them both to get their clothes and get out.”
“So we took our stuff and spent the night in Graford at Bobbi Jo’s grandmother’s,” Jen told Kathy.
Kathy stared at the two of them. Something seemed off with the story. It had holes. Details were missing. It was too prepackaged. It felt as if they were trying to sell it more than tell it.
“The next day, we went back to the house and broke in by the window in the back,” Jen continued.
Kathy believed this. She looked down as they drove and realized Jen “had small cuts on her hand.”
“You did that breaking in?” Kathy asked.
Jen held up her hand. “Yes.”
From there, Jen said, she and Bobbi walked into Bob’s mother’s house and found Bob “passed out on his bed.”
“And what happened next?” Kathy pressed.
CHAPTER 21
THE MORNING AFTER BOBBI’s birthday party, Thursday, April 29, turned out to be a fairly significant day by global standards—beyond, that is, the boundaries of Bobbi and Jen’s Mineral Wells bubble. The fallout from several disturbing images of U.S. soldiers allegedly abusing Iraqi prisoners at a jail near Baghdad was fueling shock and anger around the globe. It was all over the news.
For Bobbi and Jen, both of whom were totally oblivious to what was happening in the world, the morning started late (around noon). After another night of partying at Bob’s mother’s house—this time with Jen’s mother and sister—Bobbi and Jen wound up back in Graford at Bobbi’s grandmother’s house.
“Can you come up and get us?” Bobbi asked Bob over the phone.
“I guess,” Bob said.
Bob Dow drove from Mineral Wells to Graford. From there, the girls went with Bob to his friend’s house to have lunch.
After that, Bobbi asked, “Can you stop off at the store for us?”
In what seemed to be the normal course of the day for the past several weeks, Bob stopped at the liquor store and went in and bought the booze Jen and Bobbi needed to get through the day.
It was party time all over again.
They spent the afternoon at Bob’s drinking.
“I took half a Soma and fell asleep,” Jen said in one statement she later gave to police. Soma is the trade name for the prescription drug Carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant designed to treat pain from muscle injuries and spasms; it’s definitely not a good companion to alcohol. It’s safe to say Jen passed out. She certainly had not fallen asleep.
Nevertheless, Jen didn’t say what time, exactly, but she claimed to have opened her eyes to Bobbi standing bedside, staring down at her.
“Grace (pseudonym, Bobbi’s cousin) and Charlie (pseudonym, a friend) are outside,” Bobbi said, according to Jen’s recollection. “Get up. Let’s go.” Bobbi shoved Jen’s arm. “Come on.”
Jen never argued with Bobbi. Plus, Jen wanted to be with Bobbi, wherever Bobbi went. When she talked about this day later (if we are to take anything Jennifer Jones says in her first statement to police as truth), Jen said she wanted out of Bob’s house, regardless of whether Bobbi Jo left, too. Bob had turned from a man who had been providing the girls with drugs and alcohol into this weird, forcefully perverted character who creeped Jen out. Bobbi, by then, was used to his antics. But Bob had been coming on to Jen since she started staying at the house with Bobbi, especially when Jen was alone with him. He was obsessed with Jen—according to only Jen. Bob had gotten used to having the women Bobbi brought home, but Jen was different. There was something about her that turned Bob on in a way Jen could not figure out. Maybe it was the simple fact that he couldn’t have her. Either way, it was beginning to turn into a problem for Jen, who said in court (her third version of events) that Bobbi had become incensed that Bob was making advances toward her.
I felt obligated to care for him and his needs, Bobbi explained in a letter to me when I asked about this. I did bring all kinds of women to him in exchange for money and drugs. Women loved me—how I looked, how I was. I’d take them over to “party” and [Bob] would do the rest. That went on for two years before I even met Jennifer. . . . I have not cared less if Bob wanted Jennifer or had sex with Jennifer. It didn’t matter to me. I wanted to drink and do drugs. If not with Jennifer, I’d find another girl.
According to Jen (during her sentencing hearing, the third version), all Bobbi had asked in return for those years of service to Bob was that he stay away from Jen.
Bobbi vehemently disagreed with this statement, saying that the relationship she had with Jen wasn’t like that one bit. Jen was just one more in a long line of girls Bobbi slept (and partied) with at that time. If Jen developed a fixation on Bob Dow wanting her, it was in her own mind. Yes, Bobbi said, Bob had made comments about Jen and she and Jen agreed to try and make this alleged “rape” story fly; but no, it wasn’t true. Bobbi didn’t care what Jen did—least of all with Bob. Because if it wasn’t Jen providing for Bobbi’s sexual needs, it would have been another female. And, Bobbi insisted, Jen had had sex with Bob a few times, anyway, for money and for dope.
It was all part of Jennifer’s fantasy that I would be angry with Bob for coming on to her, Bobbi concluded. Jennifer . . . hated [Bob].
Bobbi’s friend Charlie lived in Millsap, a twenty-minute drive from the party house. There’s some indication that Jen planned on moving into Charlie’s house to get away from Bob; but in her first statement to police, she never finished explaining why she didn’t, or how much thought she had actually put into the idea.
Bobbi and Jen wound up staying at Charlie’s house, likely partying, until the following day, April 30, a Friday.
“Then they took me back to . . . get my clothes, so I would not have to go back over there [to the party house] alone,” Jen said of Bobbi and Charlie.
If Jen wanted to move out of Bob’s, so be it, Bobbi felt. Go for it. Bobbi didn’t care if the girls she brought over to the party house hung around or left. There would always be others.
Bob Dow’s sexual bombast, coupled with several overt sexual advances Jen later claimed he made toward her, had reached the point where Jen couldn’t take it anymore. She was beginning to feel as though it wasn’t safe being around Bob, with or without Bobbi (a factor that would become very important in Bob’s murder).
Jen grabbed her clothes.
Bobbi Jo’s family—grandmother, aunt, and uncle—were in Mexico, set to return on Saturday, May 1. In Jennifer’s version of this day, the plan was to hang out in Graford at Bobbi’s grandmother’s house and wait for them to return. From there, Jen could decide where to go next.
Jen later claimed Bobbi wanted to stop by and pick up Kathy, Jen’s mother, so Kathy could meet Bobbi’s grandparents.
“Not true,” Bobbi later said. “The last person in the world I would want to introduce my grandparents to was Kathy Jones.”
“I don’t recall this taking place,” Kathy later told me when I asked her about the day and Jen�
��s recollection of a plan to meet Bobbi’s grandparents.
A few weeks before, on April 6, 2004, Bob Dow stood on the porch outside his mother’s house and talked with ex-wife Elizabeth Smith. Elizabeth and Bob had had casual conversations in the past. On this day, though, according to Elizabeth’s memory, Bob was in one of his moods, feeling sorry for himself. The girls, he explained, were getting to him. They were becoming a pain in the ass. Bob didn’t know what to do.
“I like Bobbi Jo,” Bob told Elizabeth. “She’s a chick magnet, you know. I can have all the young women I want, as long as I keep her happy. She’ll bring in lines of them, as long as she’s taken care of.”
Elizabeth didn’t know what to think, or how to respond. She knew Bobbi was a lesbian, and she said she didn’t have a problem with it. However, Elizabeth had never really met any of the girls Bob was referring to (so she claimed). Elizabeth would leave the house before the “parties” started, she later testified. She’d call Bob and hear loud music in the background, lots of girls talking and laughing and making a racket, and he’d explain what was going on. To her, it was wrong; though, she said, what went on inside the house was “Bob’s business.” She had no idea Bob was exploiting underage girls. She assumed they were all consensual adults.
In addition, Elizabeth wasn’t close to Bobbi and later claimed she had never even met Jen. Not once. (A comment that lends itself to Bobbi’s version of the relationship she had with Jen.) Elizabeth had heard a lot about Jen while at Bob’s, but she had never been introduced. And Elizabeth was no dummy. Bob had what Elizabeth later described as “a weakness for the flesh.” She learned this firsthand while married to the guy. However, she stayed out of the way when it came to what he did when she wasn’t around.
“That was him,” Elizabeth said. “I mean, Robert wasn’t perfect, and my belief is, none of us are, if we really looked in the closet.”
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