Backing Up Towards The Balcony
So much of Jared’s behavior is even scarier in retrospect. One of those moments took place within Ellie’s first two months.
Ellie’s delivery had been extremely traumatic and left Chrystal with a lot of difficulty with mobility. Chrystal had also experienced a hypertension emergency shortly after getting home which required additional hospitalization. She was two months into motherhood and already sacrificing every which way for her daughter.
It was around 3 a.m. and Chrystal was sitting in bed breastfeeding Ellie. Jared insisted on taking her blood pressure even though she had asked him multiple times to wait until she finished so that the reading would be accurate. He stood over her and tried to force the cuff on her arm anyways so she pushed his arm off of her. She saw something change in him as soon as she did it.
Jared snatched the baby out of her arms and started yelling at her for “attacking” him. As he backed towards the balcony with Ellie, she pleaded with him to give the baby back but he said he couldn’t. “You’re abusive,” he yelled at her. “I don’t trust you with the baby. You just hit me. You might bash her head in.”
Chrystal couldn’t walk, but she fell out of bed crawling towards him on hands and knees as he kept backing up with a smirk on his face. She cried and pleaded as he held the baby up high out of her reach and continued to berate her. Suddenly he ran into the other room and woke up Chrystal’s mom, who had been staying over to help. He asked her to keep the baby away from Chrystal because she was dangerous, repeating over and over that he was worried that Chrystal was going to bash the baby’s head in.
Jared later recounted this story to myself and several other relative. Each time, the acts of violence he alleged that Chrystal committed against him got more and more severe. He told one version to my mom over the phone, which I overheard because we were sheltering in place together in a relatively small home. She responded with absolute incredulity and anger at him, not believing his story that Chrystal had attacked him at all. She had visited recently and seen the condition that Chrystal was in so his claims didn’t seem possible. During that visit, my mom had also witnessed the manic behavior that I wrote about here. Her generous interpretation of events was that Jared was sleep-deprived and possibly even leaning into paranoia. She encouraged him to get some sleep and told him that it was unacceptable to terrify his mother-in-law like that.
When I heard the story from him, it had escalated to Chrystal punching him in the face again and again and again. I didn’t buy it at all. I had already talked to Chrystal about the stories he was sharing and gotten her version of events. I had also seen that she could barely stand up on her own at that time. She was completely horrified, especially as he had left out the psychological torture of even hinting that he might drop the baby over the edge.
Jared’s choice of words had always been unsettling.
“Bash the baby’s head in.”
Even when most afraid that Jared would hurt the baby, Chrystal had never spoken like that. It was so graphic, so needlessly crass.
Chrystal had always extended the invitation for me to come visit her and I never took her up on the offer. I acted like I didn’t come because I was swamped with work or busy with life. Really, I was scared of Jared’s reaction if he found out. Since this was the outcome anyway, I wish I had showed up.
I knew that invitation was still open, but not how to navigate the social norms surrounding visiting in such a situation. I wanted to be there for her but not in any way that would be an imposition or make her feel like she was required to support me because I couldn’t keep it together. There was still so much we didn’t know and I was so scared to find out more.
I decided to fly up there and get settled in first before announcing my arrival. I could then take some time to process my own emotions but also be available on much shorter notice if needed. Even if Chrystal didn’t want company, I’d be able to drop off food.
It seemed like a good plan but it almost didn’t happen. A few minutes before boarding started, Chrystal called. Of course I answered.
A breakdown in the bathroom ensued.
It absolutely wrecked me when she said that she was grateful to me for the three years that she got to spend with her daughter. That she might not have even had that much time if I hadn’t helped her leave. I felt no joy or pride in how things went down or my role in the matter. All I could think about was what had been taken from Chrystal, what had been taken from Ellie. It was so sad that she could even conceptualize things like that in that moment.
Having Chrystal on the phone with me, it was hard to resist the temptation of asking what I wanted to know most. I was hesitant but curiosity got the best of me.
“Do they know if she suffered?”
I didn’t have great service in the airport so I misheard her response. She said that they didn’t know the cause of death yet, but that they didn’t think it was violent. I thought she said that they did think it was violent, and started to cry harder before she corrected me.
It feels silly to admit, but every step of the way I had been hoping for the best. When she was still missing, it was that she would be found safely. That he had handed her to a stranger, left her on the doorstep even.When her body was found, it was that he had killed her peacefully, as if such a thing is even possible. That she had been asleep. That he had given her some medicine. That she didn’t die scared and never found out about her father’s betrayal.
This revelation brought enough comfort for me to regulate my emotions long enough to make it back to the plane. I was the second to last person to board, though my group had been called much earlier.
After a few days of gathering my strength, I congregated with other supportive figures at Chrystal’s home. She had not been able to spend time in the actual apartment among Ellie’s belongings, so instead we all shuffled around the various common areas in the building. Chrystal was in a daze, cycling between denial, rage, and devastation. I’d never seen a human being so broken. She shared that she was existing, not living, and would spend each moment of the rest of her life just waiting to die.
This was my second time meeting many of the people in the room. The first time had either been at Chrystal’s wedding or baby shower. It sent my head spinning trying to match the same faces to such different emotions.
Chrystal reflected on the smirk on Jared’s face when he walked away with Ellie for the last time. She had even turned to the nanny and remarked about it, saying she hoped he wasn’t planning something. Now she shared that she had only seen him make that face one other time, when she was on her hands and knees those years before begging him to give the baby back.
“Bash the baby’s head in.”
Why was that even on his mind?
I started to have a creeping fear that that moment was more telling than we’d realized. Chrystal certainly wasn’t capable of anything like that. Was he?
So many of his stories had been projection. So many of his motives were attributed to Chrystal. The day before he died, he tried to con his church out of $15,000 and said that if he didn’t get it, Ellie would be subject to violence. Then he killed her.
I was able to stop ruminating because the police had said her death was not violent. I imagined that meant she was in relatively good condition, instead of the opposite— that she was so banged up, they couldn’t tell what had happened when. That the violence inflicted upon her tiny body could not be attributed to man or machine. At the time we still thought Jared had dumped her directly in the landfill, hiding her under trash. In reality, she’d been thrown in a dumpster and subjected to all sorts of transportation-related mashing that makes sense for garbage bags but not for babies.
I was in a Target grabbing a pink dress for the memorial when the cause of death was announced.
Those motherfuckers.
Whoever had told Chrystal that the cause of death was not violent was wrong. The trauma to Ellie’s body had been caused when she was still alive. They should have waited for the autopsy. Instead they yanked away the only thing she had to cling to. Her baby had not only been taken, she had been made to suffer and died a violent death.
I spent the next two hours pacing back and forth through the clothing aisle. They don’t make medication to stop the amount of rumination I was stuck in.
Bash the baby’s head in. Bash the baby’s head in. Bash the baby’s head in.
Why was that what he said?
Why was that what he did?
Did he know then?
Should we have?
11. Once I thought I might be pregnant and Jared’s reaction was for me to get an abortion. My response was, how in the fuck can you justify killing my unborn baby and you can’t stand the thought of killing animals? There was no logic to his rationale. He only apologized because he didn’t want to appear to be wrong.