Under Cover of the Night
Page 27
Narcissists are also “interpersonally exploitive” within relationships and “take advantage of others to achieve their own ends.” Wesley forced Jocelyn to forsake her dream of a simple cottage on the lake in exchange for the monument to achievement that he built. He used Dave Hall to borrow the truck that helped him commit murder. He manipulated Wayne Stewart at Taco Bell into providing an alibi.
Finally, a narcissist has a sense of entitlement and unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment. Wesley expected his attorney to believe his lies. He expected the same of law enforcement, and of both juries. He really thought he was smart enough and charming enough to convince others that the story he’d told was reality.
In his book People of the Lie, M. Scott Peck took it a step further, writing: “In addition to the fact that the evil need victims to sacrifice to their narcissism, their narcissism permits them to ignore the humanity of their victims as well. As it gives them the motive for murder, so it also renders them insensitive to the act of killing. The blindness of the narcissist to others can extend even beyond a lack of empathy; narcissists may not ‘see’ others at all.”
In The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker wrote about a dangerous myth in spousal murders, that they happen in the heat of the moment, when “in fact, the majority of husbands who kill their wives stalk them first, and far from the ‘crime of passion’ that it’s so often called, killing a wife is usually a decision, not a loss of control.” And the evidence of Wesley stalking Jocelyn is overwhelming and undeniable.
What can we do? We can learn all we can about the warnings that foreshadow spousal homicide. We can explore the psychology of intimacy turned fatal. We can teach ourselves to cultivate our intuition and never fear acting on it or speaking out about genuine concerns to others. We all need to see others and be effective in our evaluations of them. We all need to discern between ungrounded fears and intuitive responses to the often subtle signals of danger. Jocelyn Branham ignored her intuition on her wedding day, allowing warning signs to pass unheeded because she did not want to look foolish, or to inconvenience or disappoint her family and friends. How often have we all done exactly the same thing?
However, would leaving him at that altar have protected her against the ultimate act of violence? Maybe, or maybe he simply would have acted sooner. If she had kept her home security system armed 24/7, would she still be alive? It would have made Wesley’s mission more difficult to achieve, but he could have ambushed her on her way from her home to her car or in a secluded spot of Canadian woods. Killers are very determined people.
To my knowledge, Wesley has never been professionally diagnosed with any level of narcissism or personality disorder. My judgment on his psychology is merely my opinion, based on evidence of his behavior shown in two trials and backed by many who have crossed his path and by two juries in a court of law.
There are others with a different viewpoint, including his mother, Patricia Wimmer. Another person who still proclaims Wesley’s innocence is his attorney, Joey Sanzone.
He said, “I don’t know anyone who would put together such a complex plan and I don’t see that person in Wesley. You’d have to have so many different talents and that is not how Wesley lived . . . Wesley is very pleasant and engaged. He’s not brooding or mad at life.”
Sanzone also retains serious doubts about the evidence in the case. The blood found in Jocelyn’s home, although far removed from the actual scene of her death, bothers him. “Familial DNA may still be an issue on the blood in the bathroom. We may get a cold hit someday. I think the killer is the person whose blood was found, or someone who was there with that person.”
But the biggest issue of all for the defense attorney remains the fingerprint evidence. “This will be like the Sam Sheppard case but on a different issue. It will be alive, years from now.” He bases that faith on the evolving nature of all forensic science. He believes that, like many other techniques that have been turned on their heads in the past, the science of latent prints will undergo a similar sea change. He feels that the sins of expectation bias, the assumption of the number of points needed to absolutely identify a specific individual, and the current inability to correlate friction ridge measurements to the pressure applied will be altered by more research and we’ll end up throwing out much of what is now accepted as gospel as junk.
The massive changes in forensic science never cease to amaze, so I have to conclude that it is possible that he and Dr. Jennifer Mnookin may be right. But to me, the case was hardly even reliant on the print evidence anyway. Latent prints aside, I felt that the circumstantial evidence in this case pointed unwaveringly to one person: Wesley Earnest.
Whether I am right or wrong, one thing will always remain true. The violent death of Jocelyn Denise Branham Earnest inflicted a heavy loss on many people who will feel the grief for decades. And so I add another woman to the roll call of those I wish I’d had a chance to know in life. I do so with the fervent hope that this book will lead someone, somewhere, to act to save their own or another woman’s life and keep one more name from being added to my list.
In 2001, Jocelyn Earnest (left) and her sister, Laura Rogers (right), traveled to Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland, with their father.
Bill Branham
Jocelyn was the matron of honor at her sister Laura’s wedding, on October 4, 2004.
Bill Branham
Jocelyn with her beloved dog, Rufus, who was found in a kennel in the Pine Bluff house on the day Jocelyn’s body was discovered in the living room of her home.
Bill Branham
Four friends gathered together during good times in 1997 (left to right): Bob Kerns, Jennifer Landis, Wesley Earnest, and Jocelyn Earnest.
Jennifer Kerns
Wesley and Jocelyn Earnest at the wedding of Bob and Jennifer Kerns in 1998.
Jennifer Kerns
Jocelyn and Wesley on a hike at Crabtree Falls in Montebello, Nelson County, Virginia, in the summer of 2001.
Jennifer Kerns
Jocelyn holding Bob and Jennifer’s son at the hospital, shortly after he was born in 2002.
Jennifer Kerns
Friends planned an “Almost 40 party” for Jocelyn while she was out on an excursion with her sister. Jennifer (left) and Jocelyn (right).
Jennifer Kerns
The Kerns’s rustic cabin in Canada, where Jocelyn Earnest spent time nearly every summer in the last ten years of her life.
Jocelyn Earnest, courtesy of Laura Rogers
The boat the Kerns used for fishing and puttering about on the lake when they were staying at the cabin.
Jocelyn Earnest, courtesy of Laura Rogers
Jocelyn in a contemplative moment by the fire on the shore of the lake in Canada.
Jennifer Kerns
Wesley and Jocelyn showing off the fish they caught one summer at the lake at the Kerns’s family cabin.
Jennifer Kerns
Jocelyn in a lighthearted moment teasing Wesley with a fishing-bait earthworm beside the lake.
Jennifer Kerns
The three-bedroom-two-bath home on Pine Bluff Drive located in a woodsy community in Forest, Virginia, where Jocelyn and Wesley Earnest lived together after their marriage, and where Jocelyn was found shot dead just beyond the front door in December 2007.
Diane Fanning
On Smith Mountain Lake, Wesley Earnest’s $1.3 million dollar testament-to-his-success lake house was fully engulfed in the flames of a suspicious fire in March 2009. Arson was suspected, but no charges were ever filed.
David Wilson
Detective Gary Babb, on December 20, 2007, at the crime scene on Pine Bluff Drive on the morning that Jocelyn’s body was discovered—his first stop in an investigation to put Jocelyn’s killer behind bars.
Bedford County Commonwealth’s Attorney Office
The chart used i
n the courtroom to demonstrate to the jury the comparison between the known fingerprint of Wesley Earnest (left) and the unknown latent print (right) found on the “suicide note” at the scene of the crime.
Bedford County Commonwealth’s Attorney Office
The Smith and Wesson .357 short-barrel revolver—registered in Wesley Earnest’s name—that investigators found on the body of Jocelyn Earnest and later identified as the weapon that fired the shot that ended her life.
Bedford County Commonwealth’s Attorney Office
Mike Mayhew, Bedford County Sheriff’s deputy, one of the investigators of the Jocelyn Earnest homicide.
Diane Fanning
Joey Sanzone, one of Wesley Earnest’s defense attorneys.
Joseph A. Sanzone
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Wes Nance led the prosecutions of Wesley Earnest for the murder of his estranged wife, Jocelyn Earnest.
Diane Fanning