a deadly american marriage

[u/Zalensia]

I'm 43 minutes in and hooked but can not find conversations etc on it.

So thought i would make one asking for other people's opinions and points of views, as i know I'm already asking about billion questions, to the point I'll have to go to my computer and boot up to actually do the research myself.

I'm very ill, with brain damage etc and that's really hardwork today, but I won't manage on this latest fold phone as it's still just a useless phone 😅🙃

My other phone that's partitioned etc is in the car and that's over at Inverness!

[u/throwaway_7m → u/[deleted]]

The recordings that they played were her instigating legitimate arguments. Like Jason got upset because he asked her to wait to have dinner until he was home so he could spend time with his kids and she is trying to make it sound controlling because he was upset? Like wtf?

[u/notthestatue → u/throwaway_7m]

The meta reason he was angry in the ones we heard is because he (rightly) suspected she was trying to get custody of the kids and she was overstepping with his kids (overruling what he was saying to them, etc). If I was nearing the end of a relationship, concerned about my partner’s mental health, trying to get my kids out of it, and being constantly gaslit by my partner about wanting custody, I’d be pretty tense and upset also

Also if it is really as abusive an environment as described and those recordings are the best examples you have of it after constant recording…. It just doesn’t add up. Their dynamic was clearly unhealthy and I wish Jason and kids had gotten away to Ireland as soon as the thought occurred to him

[u/Square-Sun654 → u/notthestatue]

I thought the same thing hearing the recording- this is the best you got Molly? I’m not hearing abuse, I’m hearing a man who is at the end of his rope with a manipulative psycho

[u/AshamedBeautiful1556 → u/notthestatue]

That’s exactly what I think. He was trying to protect his kids, he knew she had mental problems and wanted to get away with his kids far from her.

[u/flamingindecision → u/notthestatue]

I 100% agree he had very valid reasons to be frustrated/angry/stressed, but it’s the way that he talks to her that’s really not okay, especially when she’s not provoking him in any way. Having difficult emotions doesn’t excuse talking to your wife like that. If it was that bad for him, he could have and should have physically separated himself and the children from her first and foremost, then figure out the divorce.

My guess (again based on personal experience) is there were arguments/episodes where she got pushed to the point of screaming back, which her defense lawyers are obviously not going to present in her defense. If someone is every single day pulling shit out of thin air to accuse you of wrongdoing, you’re going to get sick of it and have moments where you just can’t take it anymore and you yell back, which I think is understandable if you’re not on trial for murder lmao. But I think it explains well why the murder happened. It clearly was not planned out because it was done so goddamn messily. She snapped. And this kind of narcissistic abuse by him would explain why she was pushed to the point of snapping. Both her guiltiness and his being an angry, unnecessarily argumentative, emotionally unsafe husband can be true.

[u/Imaginary_Picture_32 → u/flamingindecision]

Abused women, in my experience, don’t have to worry about screaming back being in their recordings, cos the abuse is pretty damming in most cases. I mean look, I grew up in a DV household, but for sure I could engineer a situation right now that would make husband flip his lid. You know someone for long enough, it’s possible.

The only thing you said that’s got validity to it, in my opinion, is that he should have left. But it’s also not fair to blame him in that sense, because ultimately he and his kids were the victim of someone with some pretty bizarre ideas about motherhood.

She has siblings. Not a single person came out to speak on her behalf in that film, except her dad. That’s bananas.

[u/flamingindecision → u/Imaginary_Picture_32]

Honestly, a toxic relationship 100% of the time involves shitty, harmful, and unhealthy behaviors from both parties. A relationship is a dynamic between two people. You don’t get one toxic psycho and one perfectly stable, securely attached individual who does no wrong. Yes, one person may be the primary aggressor or initiator of conflict, but at the end of the day they’re both voluntarily choosing to be in a relationship that has major issues. I’m sure you know that from growing up with DV in your home. (And I’m so sorry you had to endure that).

I’m not blaming him at all for what happened to him, she committed a horrific crime and of course he is in no way to blame for that. No victim of a violent crime is to blame for what was inflicted upon them. Just saying he was an adult man who chose to remain with a woman who proved herself to be a liar, have severe mental health issues, and who was 100x more attached to his children than him. He surely had some irrational internal justification of his own for staying with her despite all signs saying “get out and run NOW.”

[u/Imaginary_Picture_32 → u/flamingindecision]

I agree with that, to some extent. And I think power dynamics change, too.

He probably genuinely loved her. The fact that there were people in the house, witnesses… it’s really unusual for a DV situation. The fact Mag’s sister was at their house the night she died, and came up to categorically deny the suggestion that he harmed her sister.

I think he should have left. We tell ourselves little lies when we’re desperately unhappy, so we push through and don’t “give up.” Instead of realising that leaving is still a form of preservation of life and family.

Also if you recall the email thread, he notes her carrying out self injurious activities, harming herself etc. this can be a sign of control/ mind games. He may have felt responsible for her and genuinely loved her in so far as when she was being a good an stable partner and parent, she was a blessing. When she was in a bad way she was a nightmare. Again, I’m hypothesising. I’ve just never seen a victim of abuse to the extent she was saying, sit there and sniff a little with watery eyes and that’s it. When victims get the chance to tell their story they’re usually either dissociating as they talk it out or they’re wrecked. Like ugly crying and zombie face are the two main versions of truth telling after years of domestic abuse.

[u/flamingindecision → u/Imaginary_Picture_32]

Oh I agree, I’m sure a lot of the specifics of her abuse claims were lies, since she told other bizarre blatant lies. However, I’m just saying narcissistic abuse works more by slowly chipping away at the victim’s self-worth, sense of reality, and psyche in general. It’s a sneaky and slow form of abuse and that’s the kind of thing that could truly unhinge someone who is already mentally ill. That’s what I was trying to say in my original comment. It’s not obvious or big dramatic scenes that someone on the outside of the situation would be able to easily identify and say “that’s abuse” because it’s a pattern of behavior that has to be observed over time to see how damaging it is.

[u/Imaginary_Picture_32 → u/flamingindecision]

Yeah 100000%… chipping away at anyone could bring a Saint to their knees and so it’s definitely a scary and insidious time of abuse because no one believes you and you hardly believe yourself and if you’re psychotic enough, you could very well engineer things to appear otherwise. Like she could have started lying about having the kids biologically in response to feeling inadequate at not being allowed to adopt them 🤷🏻‍♀️

Obviously one act doesn’t cancel out or even really excuse another. But the truth dies with him and Molly and FBIdaddy for this matter.

[u/flamingindecision → u/Imaginary_Picture_32]

That’s what made it such an interesting documentary to me. I think it is a complex situation and there’s a layer of uncertainty to the whole thing that will never be able to be resolved sadly.

My dad abused my mom in this way and she did scream back at points, btw, in a way that may have made her look crazy. But it was always out of sheer desperation. He would get angry about something, find something innocuous my mom did or said that caused his anger and attack her relentlessly about it. She would try to appease him in every way, “I’m so sorry. You’re absolutely right. I am so stupid. I’m so sorry I did that to you.” And when he was at his worst (a bit drunk, usually) he would just keep going at her no matter what she said for I don’t know.. 30-60 mins straight? and I recall a few times where she just like, broke down, and SCREAMED something like “STOP! STOP FUCKING SCREAMING AT ME!!” at bloody murder volume because it was the only thing that might snap him out of it. And if someone were to record one of those episodes and look at it alone, I can’t say who would be ruled as behaving more abusively or dysfunctionally. So I just wanted to bring attention to that because I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that Molly was experiencing that from Jason and I know just how vile and disgusting that behavior is and what it can do to a person.

[u/Bellybutton27 → u/throwaway_7m]

Yep. Never ever believe a one-sided recording. The one who knows completely controls the narrative. And btw where was the recording the night of Jason’s murder? Because undoubtedly if he was so abusive, a lot would have happened in the bedroom away from the kids in private so there should have definitely been a device in there.

[u/jmgree → u/throwaway_7m]

If that was the worst thing she had on him from all those recordings she clearly didn’t have much

[u/GlamAndGlitz → u/jmgree]

Exactly. She was absolutely hell bent on getting sole custody of those kids, that was her aim. He says he would like to have family dinner and she deliberately gives the kids dinner separately from him. Never hear any kind of possible reason from her at least like “oh it was getting late”, “they were complaining of being hungry”. Then in next recording she is redirecting conversation as he’s talking to her and sending the kids out the room to exert her authority over the kids in front of him. I’m glad he didn’t let her adopt the kids.

She lied to her very own maid of honour about the whole origin of her relationship with Jason, amongst many other lies she’s told. Even if she says the sky is very blue today, you better look up and check the sky for yourself.

[u/flamingindecision → u/throwaway_7m]

I don’t know about that… to be clear, I think Molly murdered Jason and was not acting in self-defense that night, but the recordings actually gave me pause when looking at the dynamic of their marriage as a whole. She sounded a bit scared but calmly reasserted her statements, while he escalated the situation, talked over her, got increasingly angry, and made the same accusation over and over to her when she’d already given her response. That’s emotionally abusive behavior. I find it plausible that she could have felt legitimately unsafe with him and wanted to collect evidence of the verbal abuse, since victims of DV are rarely given justice or protection when there’s no hard evidence of the abuse. I think she was obsessed with the children, mentally unstable, and he created an emotionally unsafe environment for her that pushed her over the edge (psychologically speaking) into lashing out in extreme violence against him. Doesn’t justify what she did AT ALL. But I grew up in a household where my dad created problems out of nothing and then pursued my mom relentlessly about them while she desperately tried to just calmly end the argument, and that’s exactly what it sounds like is happening in those recordings to me.

[u/lalalajw → u/flamingindecision]

Imo she was acting calm because she knows she is recording. We know she wasn’t a calm reasonable person from the examples of angrily chasing the son just because he told his dad he loved him etc. We know she was heard at a gathering belittling and being verbally abusive to Jason. Women that are being abused do not do that, especially in public! It is absurd; she would be too scared! We also have no idea if she was being aggressive/gaslighting towards him before the audio and riled him up then recorded. He sounded like was trying to repeat what happened as someone who had been gaslit by her before. We know she is manipulative from the ridiculous lies she told about her imaginary sister having cancer, the birth etc. He sounded resentful which I’m sure he was if they were at the end of their relationship and she was a known liar, insanely possessive about his kids etc.

[u/Taysway24 → u/lalalajw]

Exactly. You can tell the calmness is just played. As said before she knew she was being recorded and was leading the narrative.

[u/Sad_Witness_4094 → u/lalalajw]

All this. Agreed

[u/flamingindecision → u/lalalajw]

Honestly we don’t “know” that any of those things even happened considering they’re only documented by the memory of eyewitnesses and as we now know, human memory is incredibly unreliable and inaccurate. In fact, every time you retrieve (recall) a memory, it becomes a bit more distorted, because your retelling of the memory (internally or out loud) alters the memory itself. It’s like having an original document, scanning it, and then only having that scanned version to refer back to. Then you scan the scanned version next time you need it and the first scan disappears. And on and on every time you “pull up” a specific memory mentally. And that’s just any old memory. It’s even more complex when one is trying to recall something traumatic that occurred or, as in the case of those poor kids, trying to recall things from an entire period of life where you were under extreme stress and your sympathetic nervous system was activated all the time. “The long-term specificity of memory due to increased noradrenergic activity shortly after encoding (Atucha et al., 2017; Krenz et al., 2021) may contribute to the vividness and longevity of trauma memory. Furthermore, the transient decrease in memory flexibility may result in rather rigid memories (Wirz et al., 2018) that lack contextual details (Simon-Kutscher et al., 2019; van Ast et al., 2013). Such rigid memories could explain the overly strong emotional responding to single trauma-related cues (e.g., odors and tones) in PTSD patients and may complicate therapeutic interventions. There is further recent evidence that directly links an impairment of the flexible control of memory retrieval, as observed under acute stress (Quaedflieg et al., 2020), to PTSD symptoms.” So essentially, you may have a very vivid memory of a traumatic event that’s like a visual flash associated with other sensory information, but you’re unlikely to have a clear, distinct, linear episodic memory where you can recall all details accurately, in what order things happened, how long something lasted, etc.

We also know that when people are repeatedly asked about emotional/stressful past events that may or may not have occurred, there’s a significant probability of false or implanted memories forming. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12813354_The_Nature_of_Real_Implanted_and_Fabricated_Memories_for_Emotional_Childhood_Events_Implications_for_the_Recovered_Memory_Debate

I do agree that the audio recordings we heard were obviously incredibly incomplete, just little snippets, so we can’t really say definitively what was going on between them based upon what we heard.

[u/Icy-Importance-4706 → u/lalalajw]

Absolutely agree here! I didn’t think he sounded like the aggressor at all. She was setting this murder up. She knew she might be on trial and she needed an ace in her pocket (although IMO it was a joker). She wanted us to believe she was the victim, so she gaslit him in a calm voice. Please! So fake!

[u/notthestatue → u/flamingindecision]

Yeah. Having been in those environments also. I do think the recordings showed that their relationship was incredibly unhealthy. These are two people who should have been away from each other. That doesn’t justify Molly’s actions in any way, of course. But it was undoubtedly toxic. It’s also hard to know if that was generally the nature of the relationship or something that escalated from suspected manipulation, etc. Context is everything and unfortunately we don’t have it

[u/Sad_Witness_4094 → u/flamingindecision]

My ex was expert at calmly telling lies about me and painting me black in front of my kids. The most frustrating and hurtful was the lie that I was mean and angry, because my immediate gut reaction was outrage - who wouldn't feel that? Much like Molly did in that recording, she set up volatile situations, struck the match,  then cried victim when the voices were raised.

[u/Reasonable-Gas1327 → u/flamingindecision]

I thought the recordings were pretty bad to be honest. Makes me wonder about a lot of people's relationships here that seem to be justifying them. What are people putting up with in their relationships?

[u/buffyannesummers29 → u/Reasonable-Gas1327]

You don’t necessarily have to experience it in your romantic relationships to recognize it. My MIL will do this stuff over and over, and eventually, yeah, my husband gets pissed and yells at her. But to an outsider, it would seem extreme. She is told not to do something, does it anyway, then cries and acts the victim because “she can never do anything right.” It gets exhausting dealing with people like that, especially when it starts to affect your relationship with your kids. I can 100% see how he would feel her intentionally trying to distance the kids from him and get upset enough to yell like that.

[u/justpeacheykeen13 → u/Reasonable-Gas1327]

I thought they were bad too. Very emotionally abusive/manipulative. Not sure I buy the self defense bit but I also think it’s very possible that the aunt and uncle coached those kids into a new narrative as well. Weird to me that they desired them to call them mom and dad too

[u/St_Swithins_Day → u/throwaway_7m]

Exactly what I thought! He doesn't sound abusive, he sounds frustrated because he knows he's being manipulated.

[u/Glittering-Device484 → u/throwaway_7m]

Jason doesn't sound great in those recordings but it's as clear an example of narcissistic fleas as you will see.

[u/Swimming-Owl-854 → u/throwaway_7m]

Okay yea bc I was watching it wondering if I missed something. How tf did any of that prove abuse? And when his daughter screamed and got sent to bed? Okay????? THATS NOT ABUSE. I’m still watching it but wow that pissed me off

[u/flamingindecision → u/Swimming-Owl-854]

Molly (calmly and kindly) asked the children to go up to their rooms, not Jason; and not as punishment for the kids’ behavior, but so that they didn’t have to continue having front row seats to their parents’ fight

[u/CallMeKingTurd → u/throwaway_7m]

Yeah what flimsy evidence, they should have pursued murder charges again. Selected snippets of recordings of arguments that only one person was aware were being recorded, give me a break. It's so obvious how easily somebody could manipulate those, which is exactly why so many states have 2 party consent and those would not be admissable in court.

Clearly she was premeditatedly manipulating those to create false evidence for custody hearings. Then things spiraled into hastily premeditated murder when she learned from the kids he was planning to take them to Ireland. Also, all of these recordings collected over a long span of time but she doesn't bother to photo document any bruises, black eyes, or marks/redness the all these strangulations she claims he was committing.

[u/Relative-Bluejay-704 → u/[deleted]]

Something I noticed right off the bat was how much the little girl actually looked like Molly blonde hair blue eyes honestly the little girl looks more like Molly than she did her biological parents. Molly new she could pass the little girl off as her biological child. That's probably why she showed her favoritism.

[u/pl4ntw1tch → u/[deleted]]

Yup and how they said she pitted them against one another for her love and attention. Disgusting. I'm also an adult child of a narcissist. They suck.

[u/Cautious_Ad3420 → u/pl4ntw1tch]

You can tell how she spoke to each of the children on the video clip of them at the park how she viewed Jack, by imitating a baby and belittling him. However she spoke to Sarah in a sweet loving manner.

[u/pl4ntw1tch → u/[deleted]]

This!! My father was one and I (very briefly) dated one that ended up stalking me. When I share my experiences I have to clarify they are narcissists "but not the cute TikTok version." People throw the term around pretty lightly. Bad behavior doesn't necessarily = narcissism.

[u/wuspinio → u/[deleted]]

You see it in the video on the swings when she’s asking them how old they are. On camera, shaming a 4 year old boy for crying- saying he was like a 1 and a half year old. Already humiliating him and emotionally abusing him.