commenters

blukats - that's a very interesting link, I'll be keeping tabs on that story, I'm not publishing your comment because I don't want Janna knowing what it's about, just in case...

Ms. O - absolutely, same address. And I have a feeling I know what photo you're going to be sending me.

to erase any doubt

Way back in May 2006, when "Jesse" was emerging from his own personal soap-opera-like hell, Janna and her best friend Annie Martel, who had once been "Jesse's" therapist, took him on a Memorial Day vacation to Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. After "Jesse" died, Annie posted this on his tribute blog.

Worth the Wait

My name is Annie and Jesse and I spent some time together figuring things out. I'll have some more things to offer about him once I determine what the boundaries are. I didn't know him like the rest of you did. I knew him in solely a clinical sense until Memorial Day of this year, mere weeks ago. At that time he was tired of talking about himself and his "little miseries," "all the time." So I dropped my guard and headed out into a social situation with Jesse and some friends.

The benefit for me was complete. I saw him as whole person for the first time, not just the sum total of his traumas. Of course I knew he was special, but there were moments that imbedded in me just how exceptional he was outside my office or a hospital room. I watched him entertain dozens of children in a skateboard park while fireworks fell behind them. I ate his delicious cooking. I watched him swim in big water with three horses he'd just met. I've been around horses for 35 years but would have never attempted that. He was a horse whisperer. A dog whisperer. A llama whisperer. A fire whisperer. A child whisperer. A people in general whisperer. 

One of the things that struck me the most was the fact I never really saw Jesse smile until that time we spent away from the office. I'd seen his famous wry smile. His famous devilish smile. I'd seen his sad little resolved smile. But never a full, easy, natural grin. Until that time we spent together in "the free world." Then there it was. All over the place. A 1000 watt smile. I chose to capture it with my camera phone. I don't really know how to use my camera phone. It took three people to get the picture from there to here, but here it is. Jesse's full, easy, natural smile. We don't know for sure, but we think it might just be the last image ever taken of him. It's just a bad, dark, grainy dinotechno picture phone photo, butI hope so, because in that instant he was comfortable being Jesse.

Isn't that fucking touching? Brings a tear to your eye.

Here's the other part of that story. One photo amongst several that have been sent to me since Janet Hopper's youthful indiscretions were brought to light.

Holy fuckballs. First of all, did EVERYBODY wear jeans in the 70s? Second, yes. That would be a photo of a twentysomething Janna with her husband John M. Ain't they cute?

And it's her psychotic attention to detail, the little embellishments like "We don't know for sure, but we think it might just be the last image ever taken of him." I mean, way to pile it on.

Janna's sleazy deception just gets grosser and grosser with each revelation. "[A] bad, dark, grainy dinotechno picture phone photo" equals "low-rez scan of a decades-old Polaroid which is grainy because I cut myself out of a photo with my husband and blew it up to torment an innocent woman for my own personal gain."

Whoops forgot the "while impersonating John Denver's ex-wife on a tribute blog to someone who didn't exist."

Happy New Year!