Love Triangle Turns into Christmas Eve Nightmare | Donald and Jennifer Clark

Hey everybody welcome back to an all new episode of T to life with me Annie Elise I hope you guys are all having a good day so far let me just adjust my mic here a little bit um okay so if you are brand new checking out the channel for the first time thank you so much for joining us or if you are a returning tent to lifer and you've been with me for a long time thank you for tuning in to another episode today's case is going To kind of be a wild one and

it's also going to be a little bit all over the place there are going to be like tons of red flags a love triangle Affairs an unplanned pregnancy I mean really all of the things right I mean it could have come out of a Lifetime movie or even like a soap opera but no it's actually real life and it is one of the more not complex but confusing cases that I've heard in a while so we're going to kind of like dissect everything So get comfortable we're going to jump right in and you're going to

be with wait for a [Music] minute okay it is no secret that I am like fueled off of Diet Coke and door Dash literally I am probably like not the poster child for living healthy and eating healthy and all of the things however I will say this I recently started drinking greens because I don't even know the last time that I actually Consumed a vegetable or ate which again I know that is so bad but I'm just being honest with you guys but you know I love Beam for their dream sleep tea they also now

have greens and when I tell you these greens actually taste good unlike the other chalky ones on the market I mean it it is my routine I drink it every single morning I'm already completely almost out of my second tub I need to reorder actually because I'm going to be out in a few days but it Makes me feel so much better not only does it help my digestion but I just feel healthier my skin is glowing more I just feel like I'm finally doing something healthy for myself other than you know ordering Chick-fil-A every

single freaking day but it is so so good it has all sorts of vitamins inside of it for you vitamin c d k B6 B12 magnesium zinc I mean all of the things it also has ashwagandha it has RI mushrooms I mean all the things that Like I don't even know are healthy but that are healthy and like I don't even have to put much thought into it I just drink it and I know I'm getting all the good stuff it's also only five calories and it tastes like vacation cuz it's strawberry kiwi flavor I

really just don't even know how to tell you it is so so good so if you're like me and you don't eat enough vegetables you don't really eat healthy and you want to do something healthy for yourself do this Be healthy with me and drink beam greens it is so easy getting your daily nutrients has never been easier just click the link link below or scan the QR code on the screen and use code 10 to life to get up to 40% off at checkout be healthy with me guys let's do it all together I

actually have to go and reorder right now before I'm out because it'll like throw my entire day off if I go a day without it and skip it so I'm going to go do that you order yours and Thank me later 41-year-old Donald Clark and 30-year-old Jenny Clark were a married couple from West Central Georgia together they had two boys named Josh and Jake who were 10 and 8 years old Donald also had a daughter named Nikki from a previous marriage and by this point in 2008 she was an adult so Donald and Jenny had

met back in 1996 when Jenny was just 18 years old so the two of them did have a little bit of an age Gap right it was about 11 years but that Didn't matter to them and they ended up getting married in 1997 and then they had their son Josh the following year and then they had Jake in the year 2000 so things were good for them they were busy with the boys they were happy as I said they lived in West Central Georgia more specifically they lived in a town called Zebulon which I I'm

hoping that I'm saying that right guys I tried I listened to a bunch of different ways but if you live there and I'm saying it Wrong I'm sorry but in any event Zebulon has about a population of just over a thousand people so I mean we're talking pretty small everybody knows everyone which as we know it can be a good thing or it could be a bad thing it really just depends on how you look at it but the thing about this city is that it is quiet it is safe and it is a rural

place to live so Donald and Jenny couldn't imagine raising their kids anywhere else they thought that this would be perfect For them so Donald had left high school early so that he could go work in a local Mill and he had been working there ever since and he had risen up in the ranks pretty quickly by doing really well for himself meanwhile Jenny worked as a CNA in a nursing home so their marriage had its ups and downs like most marriages do but generally especially early on the good really outweighed the bad in fact Jenny

loved being a wife at first she was like just over the moon to Be a wife she always made sure that dinner was on the table when Donald got home from work she always kept the house clean and tidy she loved doting on their children and they also seemed it to get along really well I mean at least to everybody who knew them they seemed like the perfect couple for the most part but eventually their Dynamic started to change now it was a lot of things but basically Jenny started treating Donald kind of like a

child talking down to him Not treating him in like the respectful way that she did early on in their marriage and it started taking a toll on the household it was getting pretty bad and it got to the point where Donald's daughter Nikki decided that she wanted nothing to do with Jenny and one of the issues is that when Nikki was a teenager her mother had passed away and and from what I can tell when Nikki's mother was still alive and Nikki was younger she lived with both parents in kind of like This split custody

situation but then as Nikki became older and you know got more of a mind of her own she realized that she didn't want this Arrangement and she wanted nothing to do with Jenny and when her mom died instead of going to live with her dad she ended up going and living with her grandparents because for her living with Jenny was just like a nonstarter that's how bad it was for them and I got to be honest that speaks volumes to me especially when I first Started researching this case because losing a parent as a child

has to be one of the hardest things that could possibly go through so you would think that Nikki would want to just like cling on to the one parent that she had left but that wasn't the case and it wasn't that Donald was the problem it wasn't that at all it was Jenny and Jenny was bad enough for Nikki to basically completely ditch her dad just so that she could get away from her so anyways Years went by and Donald and Nikki had a bit of a strained relationship due to the fact that she didn't

like Jenny and when Nikki grew up she ended up going and living in Florida for a little bit however she came back when she was 19 years old because she found out that she was pregnant now while she still didn't like Jenny and decided again not to live with her dad Nikki and Donald were able to move past everything that had happened in their history they still Were able to have a good relationship with each other and that was perfect for Donald because he was also really excited to become a grandpa so he was like

mending this relationship with his daughter he was going to now have a grandchild he was just over the moon he also even literally went all out buying a crib for his house so that he could make a nursery make it comfortable for whenever Nikki and the grandchild would come over I mean he wanted to do Everything he could to enter into this new chapter of their lives and Nikki appreciated the gesture but she was kind of like Dad yeah look I love you and all but my baby's staying with me and it wasn't even necessarily

because of the Jenny thing it was just because she was a new mom and she didn't think that her baby was going to be you know doing overnights at the grandpa's house anytime soon she wanted the baby close wanted the baby in with her but it was Still really important for Donald to be equipped and when the baby came along he was an amazing Grand father and it's pretty incredible that he was even able to be there for Nikki and the baby during this time because at this point Donald and Jennifer were known to fight

a lot I mean things were not going well in the marriage but even through all of their turmoil Donald in particular stuck it out he stuck through it family was everything to him it was the most Important thing in his life and being that his first marriage didn't work out he wasn't about to give up on his second marriage I mean at least not without a fight he knew that the divorce had been hard on Nikki and didn't want to inflict that type of emotional pain on his two sons Josh and Jake so he wanted

to do anything he could to make it work and not only did Donald and Jenny have their personal issues but they also had a pretty busy house because on top of Having two very young and active Boys in early 2008 they also took on a new house guest 22-year-old Michael yast now Michael was actually Donald's best friend's son he had always kind of been this like troubled kid um not even just as a kid but even into his early teen years it started when he dropped out of school in the e8th grade then it kind

of just had multiple things after that he started dabbling with marijuana that resulted in multiple charges he was Hanging out with the wrong crowd things like that and in fact Michael had just gotten out of prison on drug charges so things had been tense at home between him and his parents so Donald and Jenny offered for him to stay with them Donald obviously knew about Michael's messy past and he just wanted to kind of help him turn his life around that's just who Donald was he was always trying to see the best in everybody and

he would do whatever it took to help somebody become Their best selves so that's what he did and Jenny she didn't mind having Michael around she actually became pretty close with him in fact a little too close they started hanging out a lot they started talking a ton and I don't know it was a little too you know buddy buddy if you know what I mean for especially for somebody who isn't your husband they were just getting very close now Michael had only moved in at the start of the year it had only been a

few months but Donald eventually had this funny feeling that he just couldn't push to the side so he ended up pulling Michael aside and asking him about something that he had been wondering about for a while Donald asked Michael Point Blank if he was sleeping with Jenny and sure enough Michael admitted it he didn't even bother making any excuses or trying to lie about it now you might think that this would be really upsetting or frustrating for Donald right but instead His reaction was more like okay well here we go again because apparently Jenny had

cheated on him before several times with multiple different men and each time that Donald learned about one of these Affairs he would always choose to take her back again he didn't want to disrupt the household he didn't want to disrupt the marriage however Donald was upset about the situation mostly that Jenny had cheated on him again but it wasn't enough to get rid of Jenny so Instead he kicked Michael out of the house and then he got to wondering if there actually was in fact a way to save his marriage maybe this was the final

straw honestly didn't know what else he could do to make Jenny happy he had provided for her he had provided for the boys he had treated her well which I'll just say in my opinion this wasn't a Donald problem it was more of a Jenny problem I mean if she was unhappy she should have left him she shouldn't have Cheated the fact that these Affairs just kept happening really said more about what sort of person she was and her Integrity than it said anything about you know areas that Donald was lacking but that's the terms

that Donald was thinking in he was trying to see if there was something that he should have been doing differently where this wouldn't have been the outcome and when he couldn't come up with an answer he talked to Jenny so they both agreed that It might be time to start thinking about a divorce maybe our marriage is just beyond repair so they took a couple of days to weigh out their options and talk about what they were going to do but then suddenly on March 7th not very long after this conversation Donald woke up in

the middle of the night with a sheet over his face when he went and pulled it down Jenny was standing over him and she was holding an aluminum baseball bat now this sounds completely terrifying I'm Not going to lie Donald luckily dodged out of the way and ended up calling 911 to report what happened he said that the incident was unprovoked and that he was just literally sleeping when he woke up and saw Jenny kind of just like looming over him and I don't know if it's that he got out of the way because she

actually took a swing at him or what had happened but he was able to get away and call 911 so a police officer then came directly to the house however when they Got there Donald said that he did not want Jenny arrested I'm not even sure why he called 911 to be honest in the first place if he didn't want anything to come of it and if he didn't want her to be arrested or charged maybe he was just so freaked out when it happened that he was afraid for his life and called it out

of instinct I don't know maybe that once they showed up he just wanted it documented but the most important thing for him in that moment Was making sure that neither Josh or Jake saw Jenny being taken away from the house in handcuffs he did not want that however Donald did confide in his sister Brenda and he said that the reason that Jenny did what she did was to quote see if she could go through with it almost like she was testing the water to see if she was capable of attacking Donald or maybe even murdering

him now the good news is that by this point Donald was well beyond the point where he wanted to Make this relationship work or where he was actually blaming himself he knew that it was Jenny like hi I'm the problem it's me but reverse it's actually Jenny instead he knew now that he wanted Jenny out of his life immediately so the very next day after that baseball incident Donald went to the courthouse and he went to go file for divorce and Jenny moved out and she went off with Michael so they both lived their own

little version of Happily Ever After at Michael's Grandma's house I mean it was perfect right that now left Donald of course to raise the boys all by himself but it kind of worked out well because the boys actually liked the way that Donald was handling parenting as a single dad they got more time outside they got more time with their friends they thought that Donald seemed to be treating them well I mean everybody was happy but nobody was happy with Jenny her own family told her that She was making the most idiotic dumb Choice ever

by being with Michael and saying Michael is basically a loser a pile of crap and why are you with him why are you throwing away your family but Jenny didn't care she wanted to be with him so that's exactly what she did now by that spring being the spring of 2008 still Jenny was still living with Michael and Donald was back at the house with Josh and Jake everybody's kind of moving on with their lives doing their Own thing now I know I just said that Donald had been treating the boys well and keeping them

happy but the fact of the matter was he was only able to do that with a lot of hard work and really pouring a lot of his time into being a single dad it's not easy raising two boys on your own especially when you're working full-time so in order to help kind of make all of that a little bit easier he decided to hire a livein Nanny 24-year-old Danielle young Danielle was Also a single mother she had two kids of her own and if you're thinking okay great well he found Danielle you know through some

kind of nanny service or by posting a job opportunity online or something like that he needed to enlist some help no that's not how this went down not at all in fact he met her at a bar earlier that spring not long after he ended things with Jenny he was there to you know blow off some steam kind of drink his troubles away and he wound up Meeting Danielle instead so Donald then agreed to have her and her kids move in with him just a couple of weeks later which I'm not even sure if she

had any previous child care experience or what it pretty much seemed like he was just inviting some random woman and her children to come live with him and his family which that's not exactly the smartest idea especially when you have kids to think about you know but to each their own okay and things were kind of Going okay for a little bit with Donald now that he had help but Danielle ended up becoming more than just a living Nanny as I'm sure you can imagine and she and Donald ended up having a pretty physical relationship

which again I got to just say like how confusing for Josh and Jake right but it seemed like Donald had this pattern of sorts of going after young women too young in my opinion I mean first Jenny now Danielle and it makes me wonder why he seemed to go After these women who had these significant age gaps did he like having the power or feeling like he knew more because he was older did he just want younger more more attractive women who knows but my question is how did it go from Danielle being his tenant

and also employee to now his girlfriend it makes me think that maybe there also was some sort of hidden agenda when he first met her at that bar and ended up inviting her to live with him as a nanny or under The guise of a nanny right away but all that being said Danielle and Donald were now in this physical relationship and they were really happy too everybody could see it they also saw all of these positive changes in Donald that were coming from this relationship after it had started they were having fun together things

just felt lighter for Donald after everything that he had gone through with Jenny and it was kind of just like this welcome change for Everybody and speaking of Jenny and what was happening with her here's a little plot twist that nobody really expected shortly after Jenny moved out she found out that she was pregnant and due to the timeline of the pregnancy it was honestly anybody's guess as to who the father was was it Donald was it Michael maybe it was some other random guy I mean we know that she had plenty of Affairs before

Michael so who truly knows how many men she was sleeping with When she got pregnant right but either way it was all too soon to get a paternity test or to figure out anything for sure then one day in May Jenny came over to the house without giving Donald a heads up and keep in mind at this point it had only been about 2 months since Donald had filed for a divorce everything I just covered I mean the split Danielle The Nanny the Livin girlfriend the pregnancy all of that happened in just two months I

mean talk About a whirlwind right now when Jenny came over Jenny had absolutely no idea that Donald had hired Danielle to work for him let alone any of the other stuff that was going down between the two of them I don't even think she knew about Danielle at all to begin with but when she found out that Danielle was living there she flipped out which I have to say it's kind of ironic that she was mad about it when she's the one that stepped out had an affair then moved in with Michael but she was

territorial maybe I don't know but in any event she got to the house unannounced saw that she was living there and completely lost her mind and generally speaking her kind of flipouts were not mild I mean not to say the least this time around she started screaming she was throwing things she was swearing all while the four children were present and you would think maybe she would recognize the kids were in the room and maybe she would like calm down A little bit maybe she' like recalibrate get herself together but no none of it stopped

her she found that you know handy dandy aluminum baseball bath that she had used before and once again she threatened to go after Donald now from what I could find it seems like nothing ever came from that encounter and that there wasn't any sort of physical altercation just the threat of one and then Jenny just decided to leave for whatever reason but I've got to imagine That it was pretty intimidating and and especially pretty upsetting for Danielle she had two kids in this home too and a little while later that summer she ended up breaking

up with Donald now she said it was because she couldn't get past their their 17year age Gap and it's very possible that that was the root cause of the issue but it also could have been just the toxicity and everything I mean I can't imagine any couple being able to stay together when you have this violent Angry ex showing up now and then and threatening you with a baseball bat all while your children are present in the home it's seems very dangerous so anyways she leaves him and after all of that Donald was pretty lonely

Danielle had moved out she had stopped nannying and that was really difficult for him all he had really wanted was a stable marriage a family something that stuck together but now everything was falling apart and by July of that year in 2008 He and Jenny's marriage it was officially over the divorce was finalized not only that but it was around this same time that Jenny's baby daddy for her pregnancy it was revealed as Michael which talk about just yet another blow the two of them were still living with Michael's Grandma but that situation was kind

of just like rough all the way around his grandma had really bad living conditions that she lived in and Michael didn't really make The kind of money to help or to get them out of that situation or move in on their own so after a few months they moved in with Donald's sister Brenda which I got to say that's a really really nice of Brenda because Brenda was close to Donald obviously but for her agreeing to let his ex-wife and her lover move in with her I mean that's pretty nice right she figured it would

be just the best situation for her nephews and I guess she didn't want them To have to deal with their mom being stuck in a bad living condition situation so she was doing it more for the boys than she was for Jenny so she just put her feelings aside and put their feelings first but I've got to say that's very very graceful and during that time Donald would bring Josh and Jake over a few times a week so that they could visit with Jenny and every time that he went over he still wanted this family

unit that he saw in his mind So he would plead with Jenny to get back together because Apparently after things hadn't worked out with Danielle he was now just kind of slipping back into Old Habits old routines and he wanted to do everything he could to make his marriage work he didn't like trying to find someone new and somebody to fill that void I mean even though there were just like a kajillion red flags showing that he and Jenny should not be together that didn't matter I mean you look back and You see the infidelity

the baseball bat her constantly demeaning him her cheating on him all of it he was willing to look past all of it he wanted to get back together he want wanted to be a family again but Jenny wanted no part of it until that October and that's when she decided to take Donald up on his offer she claimed she was ready to come back home now I do have to pause again here really quick and just really lay out the whole timeline here because it Is insane it hadn't even been a year since Donald found

out about Jenny's affair with Michael it only had been about 7 months give or take and in those seven months he filed for a divorce she moved out she became came pregnant again he met the nanny he had a relationship with her she moved out they had the attack all of these things and I mean she was still literally pregnant yeah she hadn't delivered the baby yet but she was 9 months pregnant and all of This had happened in less than a year which I get that sometimes it can be hard to make a big

life change and stick to it yes but things just seem to be moving really really fast and Jenny might have been having second thoughts about letting her whole life and family and marriage fall apart maybe she got caught up in the excitement of something new with Michael and then now that she was about to deliver the baby she's like no I need the security I need the Stability I want my family back together maybe she was finally serious about wanting to make things work with Donald One Last Time who knows I mean to me personally

it seems more likely that she was tired of her living situation with Michael because he couldn't provide for Jenny not the way that Donald had and luckily for Jenny Donald took her back I mean with open arms maybe that's just because he was a nice guy who was very willing to forgive Jenny maybe it was Because he wanted the family together and that was the most important thing who knows maybe it was even the fact that he was just one of those guys who couldn't handle being single for more than a few days and he

wanted somebody to come in and help with all the housework and take care of things and cook like she had done before who really knows but the point is they were reconciling and what I will say is this couple seemed all kinds of toxic and it Was very bad news for them to get back together I mean the writing was on the wall it was not going to work right maybe it work for a little while but probably wouldn't stick and when I'm talking toxic it's not just their past that was toxic Michael didn't know

that Jenny was leaving him she hadn't made him aware of that he came home from work one day and she was just gone along with all of her things Brenda was actually the one which is Donald's sister who had To tell Michael that Jenny had gotten back together with Donald which crazy right and no surprise Michael was absolutely devastated I mean this wasn't just his girlfriend friend this was the woman who was carrying his baby so he begged Jenny to come back I mean not only did he want her back but he wanted to raise

their child together as a couple but she was moving back with Donald and that's where things stood by that November right before Thanksgiving Jenny was very very pregnant she was due at any second things seemed to be calm for her and Donald I mean especially given the circumstances but then on November 19th right before Thanksgiving Donald's sister Brenda started Ed to feel a little bit worried about her brother she hadn't heard anything from him in a few days which okay you might be thinking who cares so what Donald's a grown man Brenda was an adult

too they were brother and sister after all but Hello they weren't husband and wife so what would it matter if his sister hadn't heard from him in a couple days well the thing was that Donald as we know was all about family so for him that included his sister and everybody else who he was related to he would call them each and every day checking in seeing how they were doing and I don't mean one group call I mean he would literally call or text every single individual person except at this point Now for a

couple of days for whatever reason he didn't call he didn't check in and Brenda couldn't get a hold of him she did reach Jenny however who said that she also though didn't know where he was so she went to the police station to file a missing person's report the police ended up going to Donald and Jenny's house so that they could speak with Jenny and she said that the last time that she had seen him was the night before and that everything seemed normal It was fine he came home from work that night before they

had their normal routine of having dinner watching some TV then going to bed but then when she had gotten up the next morning he had already gone to work but again she didn't think that that was unusual because that always happened every single morning he was always up and out of the house before she even woke up she didn't think anything of it and she certainly didn't think that there was Anything to worry about so she texted him later that day to say that she would drop off Josh and Jake at school Donald replied to

that text message saying you know okay or the letter K and from there she spent the day cleaning the house which was all just you know very very normal but Jenny told the police that she didn't know where Donald went after that she said that his car was missing so was his wallet his phone basically everything however she did have a theory In all of this not anything that was fully fleshed out or anything but somebody who was worth taking a look at and she suggested that the police look at Donald's ex Danielle she told

the police that she thought that it was possible that Donald had possibly run off with Danielle to live the happily ever after because she had come crawling back apparently but that seemed really odd especially being that he had begged Jenny to come back to him just a few Months ago so why would he now just get up and leave so soon after she had agreed to come back and In fairness like I said the initial divorce was still pretty fresh so it was possible that Donald thought that he wanted Jenny back but then he changed

his mind again and then he changed his mind again and went back to Danielle because he wanted her and she was nicer to him who really knows but by the sounds of it he and Danielle's relationship was a lot Healthier and happier than his marriage to Jenny so the detectives used that and used that as a lead to go off of but in the meantime Brenda was completely distraught about her brother Donald she did her best to help find him she started making flyers passing them out to anyone who would you know grab one she

would talk to anybody who would listen hoping that maybe somebody had heard something or seen something fishy something like that but unfortunately Her search wasn't turning up much so the detective started looking into Donald's personal records you know his phone bill his bank statements and so on but there was nothing there wasn't a single purchase a call anything so if he had run off you know to go be with Danielle there wasn't any reason for him to go off the grid so again it was just odd and the whole timeline of when Donald was last

seen was just a bit foggy and very confusing because his sister had Gone to the police that Wednesday the 19th saying that she hadn't heard from Donald in a couple of days and his boss said that he went to pick Donald up for work that Wednesday morning but that when he got to his house he noticed that Donald's car wasn't in the driveway so he had figured that he just decided to head to work on his own that day but then when he got to work Donald wasn't in and he didn't show up at all

that day so there were a lot of inconsistencies Just things not matching up his boss did help clarify that he did see Donald the night before his disappearance on Tuesday and he also shared a very interesting conversation that Donald had with him at some point Donald had told him that things were going pretty horrible with Jenny and as much as he wanted to get back together with her and let everything go smoothly they just weren't going that way in fact it was so bad that he had asked Jenny to leave Again and again not only

was history basically repeating itself in that way but Donald also told his boss that he did plan to get back together with Danielle he had even called Danielle to ask her to move back in with him and she accepted his offer she was going to take him back and that made Donald extremely happy however Danielle told him before I can get back with you before I can move in I need you to know about a very big change that has happened in my life and If you thought that history repeated itself before get this Danielle

was pregnant that was the big change in her life but it wasn't Donald's baby it was some guy who she had dated after the two of them broke up so she was upfront with Donald and said look I would love to get back together with you but you should know I'm pregnant and I'm pregnant with another man's baby I'm not with him anymore but I am going through with the pregnancy which I got to say poor Donald It's like all these women he's involved with and like they're all just getting pregnant by other people that's

not him I I mean poor guy but he was so nice that he said he didn't care just like he didn't care when Jenny was pregnant with Michael's baby I mean a true gem he was fine raising another man's child as long as he got to be back with Danielle and pick up right where they had left off so now after hearing all of this information from Donald's boss it was Looking more and more plausible that Donald might have actually run off to be with Danielle maybe he knew that it wasn't going to be easy

to get Jenny out of the house so that he just figured he would be the one to leave and maybe for argument sake the reason that he was completely Mia and not answering his phone was because he just needed some space from the whole sit situation so the detectives went to Danielle's house they wanted to talk with her and they Were hoping that when they got there they would find Donald there alive well and this would all just be a huge misunderstanding but when they arrived Donald wasn't there and there was no sign of him

ever having been there and Danielle was very very upset to hear that he had gone missing she told the police all about their plan to get back together and she also gave them her Alibi it was clear that she had absolutely nothing to do with wherever Donald was or what had maybe possibly happened to him so the police ended up ruling her out as having anything to do with The Disappearance but now they were back to square one in terms of finding Donald now there was another possibility you know maybe he had run away from

all of his responsibilities he didn't want to be with Jenny anymore I mean that much we know but maybe instead of leaving her for Danielle he just wanted to find a way to get away from her with Paying child support which would have been a little over $300 per month now I know that that maybe doesn't sound like much 3 $0000 but it doesn't sound anywhere close enough to keep two children fed and clothed and also get them school supplies and Donald only made about $2,800 per month so $300 would be cutting into his living

expenses and maybe that was just going to be too much for him so according to the police in other words there was a Chance that maybe he just thought that he would be better off running away and starting a new life he was a family man though so I kind of feel like removing himself from his kids and now his grandkids lives wasn't something that he would have done but at this point nothing was off the table a week after Donald was reported missing Jenny ended up giving birth to her son and not long after

that the police obtained a search warrant for Jenny and Donald's house This was the first week of December the house seemed quiet and normal enough but there was something odd inside the master bedroom the walls and the bed looked very freshly cleaned like shining clean they were so clean but the Cor corners of the room and everywhere else was like caked with dust there were fresh white marks from some type of cleaning product right above the headboard on the bed and the wall and it just wasn't really making sense why Would somebody only clean the

walls in one section of the room and basically nowhere else in the room not to mention Jenny had just had a baby so it was pretty weird that she would be focusing on cleaning one specific area in general it just wasn't really making sense so the police called out a crime scene specialist so that they could break down the room and look at it in more detail look at it even deeper and those Specialists they ended up finding Blood On the mattress so after that the police wanted to question Jenny and a few days went

by before she was up for it because again she had just given birth so they were giving her a few days but then she went to the police station to be interviewed by the detectives again they asked her about the blood but she basically brushed it off she said you know I live with all boys that's normal they cut themselves they do things it's something like that it's nothing to be Concerned about which Fair my son gets bloody noses quite often in his sleep actually so that kind of makes sense I guess but there were

just so many inconsistencies with The Disappearance as a whole that it felt like something in the puzzle just wasn't fitting you know she told them that she was kind of like a neat freak that she liked to keep things clean so that's why those walls were wiped down which okay fair but if you're such a neat freak why would you Leave a bunch of dust in the corners of the room that doesn't really makes sense I mean I don't know about you guys but I feel like when I go and clean a room the last

thing I'm doing is wiping down the Walls when there's visible Dust In other places honestly I don't even think I've ever wiped a wall is that disgusting let me think about that is that disgusting I don't think I've ever cleaned a wall unless like there's something on it and I need to wipe it off but like I clean Baseboards but I've never wiped a wall is that gross tell me if I'm gross sorry guys but anyways this whole thing seemed really really fishy especially to the police I mean nothing was making sense so the detectives

brought in the boys Josh and Jake they wanted to see if maybe they remembered anything from that last night that Donald was seen they said that their mom did sleep with them that night but then that Josh was woken up by the sound of somebody running out In the hall he got up to see what was going on and he said that he didn't see anyone but he did see that the back door of the house was unlocked which was very suspicious because the family always kept the doors locked especially at night when they were

asleep so at that point the police were thinking okay well maybe this was a home invasion situation somebody who broke in through the back door and tried to steal from them or attack them but Jenny wasn't involved But there was still somebody who might have had a motive to want to hurt Donald if Jenny wasn't involved and that would be Michael I mean it would make sense he was clearly upset that Jenny went back to Donald when she was pregnant with his child not to mention some neighbors had told told the police that they had

heard two people fighting in Jenny's yard that evening and they saw Michael come over in his red pickup truck so hello do the math there at one point they also saw Donald's black car back out of the driveway pretty quickly and that was a little while after Michael had showed up so Michael went to go speak with the detectives and it's not clear if they straight up asked him about this now seemingly murder or what the neighbors had saw or whether he had an alibi or anything but when he came in he full on admitted

to the affair the one that triggered the whole divorce in the first place he said he wasn't the one who came On to Jenny she initiated things with him first and that him being you know this young guy he just went along with it I mean that was his story at least but police didn't have enough evidence for anything else to keep Michael he was free to go until they continued their investigation then a couple weeks later on December 23rd right before Christmas the police department got a very early gift they got a break in

the case and man who lived nearby called into to Their tip line he said that he was out in his yard playing with his dog when he noticed that the dog was chewing on something that didn't look like a ball or a dog toy or a chew toy so he bent down to grab this item and he realized that the dog had been chewing on a wallet so he opened it up to see if there was an ID in it and sure enough there was it was Donald's wallet so the police went out to this

area and they realized that this guy's house wasn't Too far from where Michael's mom lived and as they searched the area guess what else they found they found an aluminum baseball bat on the side of the road which we know all too well who owned an aluminum baseball bat so the following day all hands were on Deck trying to find Donald keeping in mind this was all happening Christmas Eve which I think it goes to show just how urgent they were all treating this search and this case they weren't willing to push it to after

The holidays they wanted answers now so when more search help arrived they focused on a very specific corn field that was across the street from Michael's mother's house and when they got there they noticed a camouflage blanket that was inside you know tucked away in a bush it looked like it was wrapped around something too and it was covered in leaves and branches and kind of just like tucked away well when the blanket was unwrapped police discovered A dead body and the head on that body was wrapped with a plastic bag the CSI unit came

out to determine who that body belonged to and after looking it over and noticing certain tattoos they were able to determine that it was Donald once they got the bag off of his head it was clear that he had been badly beaten with something I'm talking battered the trauma was consistent with a baseball bat and it was later determined that he was beaten to death with some type of Object that was the cause of death blunt force trauma and there they had also already found the bat and something else that really stood out with the

body was that Donald was still dressed in his pajamas and the thing that is so odd about that is is that Jenny had told the police that Donald got up for work and left that morning remember meaning he would have been dressed in his work clothes not pajamas so either he changed before his murder which possible but not Very likely in my opinion or the more likely scenario was Jenny was lying she was completely full of it the body and the other evidence that they found was enough for the police to arrest both Jenny and

Michael and here's what's interesting when Jenny was arrested She Was preparing to celebrate Christmas eve and she had actually planned to spend Christmas Eve with Michael she even had an iHeart Michael keychain with her so I mean clearly she wasn't too broken up About Donald's death and it was almost as if nothing had ever happened and she just moved right back on with her life to the next guy or I should say to the previous guy you know like nothing was going on it's it's crazy it's like Ping Pong I'm telling you or pinball or

whatever the game is but my point is remember in the beginning of this when I told you it's very complex it's confusing it's cuz like all of this happened in such a small window of time There was so much back and forth between Danielle Donald Jenny Michael everybody it's just like it's enough to make your head spin right I need one of those like diagrams with like the yarn behind me so anyways she was ready to move on to this next chapter of her life with Michael clearly but once they were locked up Jenny spoke

with the detectives first and this time her entire story changed she said that in the early hours of Wednesday morning she was asleep in bed With Donald she also said earlier that night they had slept together they were physically intimate I mean everything between them was fine but then all of a sudden she woke up and Michael was standing over them he was in their room like he had appeared out of nowhere she said that she was scared and she just rushed out of the room and Jenny said that she was scared of Michael and

that she knew that he was upset about her leaving and her wanting to be with Donald and he still wanted to be with her so apparently she like scattered off and then she went and hid in her son's room and then once she was there once she was safely away she says that she heard Michael beating Donald to death with that baseball bat and once Donald was dead Michael then went to go get Jenny and have her help him clean it all up Jenny claimed that she only went along with it because she was so

afraid of Michael which I don't know if I Necessarily believe that I kind of find the whole thing difficult to believe because from everything that I've read about their relationship about everything the dynamic him being younger her being older and like just that she was very much in control it seemed like she help more of the power in the relationship now that's not to say he couldn't have still been abusive towards her absolutely but it did appear that way from what I researched and read it Was like she didn't really have any real reason to

be afraid of him from public information that we have so anyways she said that they cleaned up the mess together and then they wrapped Donald's head in shopping bags all so that the blood wouldn't drip out so that there wouldn't be a mess to clean up then once his head was all wrapped up and secured they took his body out to the car and put it in the trunk of Donald's car and she says that was that then they just Were going to go dispose of the body basically she was saying that she was the

victim this whole time and that she never even wanted to be a part of this murder that she was only a part of the cleanup because Michael had forced her to and because she was scared of Michael but when it was Michael's turn to talk he told the police that Jenny had it all wrong first of all he said that while it might have seemed like they split up and apparently that's what everybody else Thought too they never really did break up yes she did go back to Donald but they were still hooking up all

the time on the side and apparently around 1:00 a.m. the morning of the Murder She called him wanting to have sex with him get a little bit of side action once again he said that they worked out a code together Jenny would flash the lights a couple of times once he got there so he knew that it was safe to come inside and he says that once she Did that and he went in he realized that Donald was sleeping in the bed he was shocked because Donald wasn't supposed to be there I mean they weren't

going to have sex with one another with him just lying right there the bed so he said that what happened next was even more shocking to him Jenny apparently went into her closet grabbed her baseball bat and began beating Donald over the head with it over and over again until he was dead Michael says he basically froze and Had no idea what to do then once she was done Jenny pleaded with Michael to help her dispose of Donald's body and he says he's the one who agreed to help her not the other way around which

if this is true I think it does go to show that she definitely did hold the power in their relationship so Michael said that he drove Donald and all of his things all around town he would stop at one place drop off a little bit of his stuff then drive somewhere else drop off more of His stuff he would drop off Donald's boots his wallet even that baseball bat just kind of sprinkling it around town he disposed of everything in various places then he left his car at a motel in the area now I don't

know which motel exactly he left it at but it was about half hour drive away from where Donald lived but the thing that he did not dump was Donald's phone instead he pretended to be Donald the following day replying to Jenny's text messages remember when She got that response saying okay after she had messaged him saying that she was going to drop the boys off at school and he said that after he sent the last text he then threw the phone out of his window while he was driving so now we have two totally different

stories here one where Michael went off out of nowhere and killed Donald because he was jealous and Jenny only helped him because she was scared and then we have one where Jenny was the one who flipped Out and murdered Donald and then Michael was the one who did all of the work of covering it up either way it didn't really matter who was telling the truth and who was lying because they were both arrested and they were both charged with Donald's murder I mean they both had clearly conspired together and let's just say that Michael's

story was the true one that he didn't know that he was going over that night to help with Donald's murder but he still went along With everything else he still dropped the car off at that moment Hotel he still took Donald's cell phone and pretended to be him so that he could throw law enforcement off their tracks he still disposed of critical evidence and items so it doesn't matter if he did or didn't swing the bat he was just as guilty and just as involved but the big question was whether Jenny's story was true or

not if she really had nothing to do with planning or committing the Murder then she was a victim in all of this right I mean sure she helped Michael cover things up afterward and lie to the police but they things do get complicated when somebody is doing something out of pure fear for their life and maybe she truly was afraid of Michael and not only for herself but for her children maybe she was afraid that if she didn't go along with this plan something bad would happen to her kids so the police couldn't rule out

that Possibility and if that was the case it certainly would have an effect on her verdict and her sentencing not to mention if Michael's story was true it meant that Jenny beat Donald to death with absolutely not being provoked in any way all while she was 9 months pregnant I mean not that being in your third trimester means it's physically impossible for you to pick up a baseball bat and swing it pregnant women aren't helpless but I mean that does seem Unlikely right the idea that Jenny killed Donald In This Very physical very brutal way

and that he didn't wake up to defend himself at all or fight back I don't know I have some questions about that version of the story I mean I've got some very pointed questions to say the least so in the fall of the following year Michael decided that he didn't want to have to take any risks with the death penalty the trial was coming up and he didn't want to risk it At all he was charged with Donald's murder and some lesser charges like the concealing of a death and tampering with evidence so Michael decided

to take a plea deal for life in prison with the possibility of Parole in 30 years meaning he would be 53 years old when he got out now part of his plea deal was that he had to testify against Jenny during her trial which took a few more years to happen Jenny didn't want to take a plead because she was claiming She wasn't guilty so finally on January 31st of 2011 her trial began and let me tell you it only went on for a week but the trial was very eventful Jenny even took the stand

which proved that she kind of is Her Own Worst Enemy I mean at one point when she was testifying she had a fullblown meltdown she jumped out of her seat and she shouted the only good thing about Michael was what was between his legs which can you imagine saying that out loud loud like it gives Me the ick it makes me cringe and yes sometimes it might be smart to testify in your own trial but only if you're not completely unhinged like Jenny was now speaking of Michael like I mentioned he had to testify against

her because of his deal and he told the jury exactly what happened he said that on the night of the murder he was with Jenny and she had asked him to figure out a plan to get rid of Donald but Michael said no that she was crazy so Jenny kind of just Dropped the idea and went home but then when she got home she called Michael and she said that she was done with Donald she wanted to be with him she also said that she would pack a bag for him but that she needed him

to come pick her up in a few hours in the middle of the night to be specific she said she would flash that light to Signal him say that it was safe for him to come inside you know just like Michael had told the police and in fact the rest of his Testimony pretty much lined up with what he had said earlier but something he added was that Donald started making gurgling noises after being hit and that afterward Jenny threatened him that if he didn't help her clean up the mess he would never get to

see the baby once it was born Josh and Jake also testified against their mother they talked about how she acted towards them after Donald had disappeared and how the death affected them mentally and emotionally And I'm not sure exactly what it meant when it comes to how she treated them after Donald's death because there isn't a ton of information around the trial but they did testify against her and there is an affidavit from the spring of 2008 When Donald and Jenny were filing for divorce and this affidavit had statements from a bunch of neighbors who

came forward to talk about how the boys were treated by their parents one neighbor said quote I've noticed she Always seems to be upset with her sons she seems to think that they are in her way or they are being too loud I've heard her cussing at them and I've seen her snatching things or hitting them on many occasions the boys seem to get to act more like children when they're around their dad there were a bunch of other statements that all sounded the same too basically saying that the boy boys were just much happier

when it was just them with their dad and that Jenny Had this temper whenever she was around them and that she never let them play outside nothing like that so after a lot of expert testimony a lot of evidence a lot of witnesses the jury was ready to make a decision a week later on February 4th and after less than an hour of deliberation they found Jenny guilty on all counts malice murder concealing a death tampering with evidence and also cruelty to children in the first degree so Jenny received life in prison plus 60 Years

currently both Jenny and Michael are serving their prison sentences and Josh seems to be doing pretty well but I couldn't find any information regarding Jake Nikki the older one also seems to be doing well with a family of her own and it's such a shame that somebody like Donald who was so forgiving so willing to raise other men's babies who wanted a family wanted nothing more than a family and to be around children and his grandkids that his life was just so Carelessly snuffed out and for what what was the real motive here because I

feel like the most frustrating part of all of this is that I don't even understand Jenny's motive if she wanted to be with Michael she didn't need to kill Donald for that to happen Donald was already over the marriage remember he wanted to be back with Danielle he also was going to pay child support so why wouldn't she just leave why would she need to kill him I mean we've talked about it a lot On this channel but if you're unhappy in a marriage just get a divorce don't kill the person and in this case

they were divorced so why she took that next step of killing him and leaving her children without a father is beyond me but I want to know what you guys think of this one do you think that Jenny was merely this like innocent victim and that Michael was The Mastermind behind all of it or did the jury get it right and if so are you happy with Michael's sentencing as Well as Jenny's or do you think that maybe he should have been let off the hook a little bit more since he was younger and didn't

actually do the killing I personally don't think that but I have seen people suggest that other places I just want to know from you cuz I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around it what was the motive there wasn't any money that she was going to get she wanted to be with Michael she could be with Michael Because Donald was going to let her go he wanted to be with Danielle was it because she just had these rage issues and then snapped like what was the motive here let me know what you guys think

in the comments thank you guys for tuning in to another episode and until the next one please stay safe bye