Not a month since they met and Donna was “addicted” to [George’s] “passionate lovemaking.”
Many of George’s responses to the plethora of letters, faxes, and e-mails from Donna do not exist (probably not by chance). And yet some do. In one short letter George wrote to his new lover, he said Donna inspired him. In another, during this same period (dare one call it a “courtship”), George told Donna that life was full of “the element of chance.” He explained how he wanted (and needed) to be overly cautious. Donna said George’s trepidation where it pertained to falling in love was “due to Gail.” George’s wife was the cause of his unhappiness. George’s wife was stopping him from totally giving himself to Donna. And George’s wife was standing in the way of the two of them riding off into the Florida sunset, working, and living together.
For Donna, she claimed to have never found joy until she entered into the “true calling” of being a nurse. Since George had entered her life, however, Donna said she was happier and more mentally stable. She had a new enthusiasm for life. She had energy. She wasn’t getting frustrated as easily. George had calmed her. She could accomplish more. She felt as if she had an “inner strength,” which she had never known. George had given her reason and purpose to get up every morning and go to bed at night.
On December 19, 1997, George told Donna, “I love you.”
Donna wasn’t sure about her “faith,” a part of himself George had instilled in Donna many times. She needed to be a believer, like him, George had told her. God
could
move mountains, if only you let Him into your heart. Donna talked about how, with George, she had mastered “love, desire, sex, hope, romance, and enthusiasm” (whatever the latter meant). The only negative emotion she could truly admit to still struggling with was fear, which derived from the constant thought of her business failing.
In an
Oprah
moment, George told Donna she must know what she wanted in order to obtain it—or it wasn’t possible.
In her e-mails and letters and faxes heading toward the Christmas holiday, Donna asked George about coming to work for her on a day-to-day, full-time basis. In January 1998, Donna sent George a “classified ad.” It was a gesture on her part to show George how serious she was about him working for her company. By now, George had agreed to work for Donna, although in what capacity they had not yet discussed. In a fax sent on January 8, 1998, Donna said she was going to be placing an “ad in the local paper,” but she wanted to send it along for “review and approval.”
In the “wanted” section, Donna wrote what she was searching for:
one sexy male by the name of “George of the Jungle.” [This man must be willing] to swing down from cold Michigan [and end up in the] warmth of sunny Florida.
George of the Jungle’s “mission,” the mock ad continued, was to use “every inch” of his body to satisfy his “most precious” lover. The reason Donna gave for her search was simple:
There is one hot and horny female in desperate need of delightful pleasures....
In the ad Donna talked about their “previous encounters,” without going into great detail. She mentioned the “skills” George of the Jungle needed in order to fulfill his job requirements:
Slow moving hands that titillate . . . Warm, moist, soft lips . . . A soft, moist tongue and wonderful mouth . . . [to] send hot sensations thru [my] breasts.... A tight well-shaped butt . . . [and] slow, deep pelvic thrusts . . .
After a long and tired description of how those thrusts had the potential to make her pelvic area “explode” in astonishing ecstasy, Donna talked about the most important job requirement of all was to be able to “penetrate” her “warm, moist dark tunnel of love,” but only with his “most prized possession.” She likened it to the “firmest, hardest, hottest erectile” she had ever felt. She said it created the highest levels of ecstasy and “elated orgasmic explosions.”
The pay, the ad concluded, was “negotiable.”
Donna hired an old friend to work with her: Sybil Padgett. Sybil was a thirty-four-year-old “redneck” woman, so said a former coworker. Sybil lived in DeFuniak Springs, not far, as the crow flies, from Donna’s house. Part of Walton County, DeFuniak Springs is sometimes called the “Gateway to the Gulf.” It is a small, remote community, somewhere in the neighborhood of five thousand residents.
“It’s very, um . . .
country,
” one former local said. “It’s very redneck out there. Sybil was, well, incompetent.”
And, in many ways, she was Donna’s puppet.
Sybil was making good money, and she would do just about anything that the older woman asked. Even George, when pressed to comment on what investigators called “Donna’s potential hold on Sybil,” did not have many pleasant things to say about her. He accused Sybil of taking drugs. He talked about her “strange behavior during the time I was employed. . . .” Part of her conduct at work included Sybil not calling in, an “argumentative and uncooperative” [attitude toward] “her supervisor.” She would not answer her beeper, [and] “not comply . . . with company policy.”
Strangely, George said, although they believed Sybil was a drug user, Donna never tested her.
What does this comment say about Donna and her business? Can any rational person imagine sending a known drug-using nurse into the homes of elderly patients to care for them? It sent a message to her employees that Donna was not interested in running a business centered on patient care and proper medical ethics.
[Donna] had a deep-seated need for control and power,
said one law enforcement document.
She had grown . . . accustomed to being a manipulator of people and life circumstances.... Nobody crossed Donna without suffering consequences; she was driven by revenge.
The fact that Donna let Sybil get away with such bad behavior was Donna’s way of controlling Sybil and, fundamentally, having things to dangle over Sybil’s head when the right time came.
Speaking about Sybil’s possible drug use, George said, “If so, Sybil could lose her Florida nursing license, since Donna could report her to the state board.”
Is this what Donna had in mind: to hold Sybil by the collar and threaten to have her license revoked?
More than protecting her on the job, Donna loaned Sybil money from her personal accounts and gave Sybil cash advances on her paychecks.
“Sybil and Donna go back a long time [about four years],” George later said, “and have been together since the start of the agency. So Sybil ‘owes’ Donna for all the breaks and favors of the past.”
One of those “favors” Donna routinely did for Sybil was rent cars.
There were days when Sybil worked under Christine Stokes, who thought Sybil was one of the most useless and inept nurses she had ever worked with. Christine had been promoted several times. She had a lot of responsibility within CCHH.
There came a point when Christine made phone calls under a quality control program she initiated. In the home health care business, you are as good as your reputation. A few bad nurses working out in the field can take down a company. Christine had been in the business a long time.
As she called several of Sybil’s patients, Christine found out Sybil had not been there. Not once or twice—but never.
First thing she did was go to the charts Sybil had kept on each patient. Lo and behold, there were notes, indicating Sybil had been to the home and had made reports of each visit.
Christine went to see Donna. “Sybil’s got to go! She’s going to ruin your business.” Christine showed Donna the reports.
Christine and Donna went to see Sybil. As it happened, George was there.
“You know,” Christine said, Donna and George looking on, “you cannot be doing this. We’re going to have to get rid of you.”
Crying, Sybil was devastated.
Two weeks later, Donna called Christine into her office. “Listen,” she said, “Sybil is really having a hard time. I think we need to give her a second chance.”
“I disagree with you, Donna. I’ll tell you what: My license will be on the line. You want her back?
You
supervise her.”
The indication was that Sybil, who had a few kids, could not help herself because she was being beaten by her significant other, but she refused to report the dude. She’d come to work with black eyes and bruises. Donna felt sorry for Sybil, Christine contended.
At the expense of the business,
Christine thought.
Sybil was a solid woman: nearly six feet tall, 160 pounds. Average-looking, she wore her hair long, maintained a charming smile against arresting blue eyes. Men used Sybil—that much was clear by the way she “presented herself.” Sybil was weak in that respect, afraid to stand up for herself, in fear, perhaps, of being beaten harder. Yet there was more to it. Donna’s and Sybil’s relationship was something no one at work knew the inner workings of. There were reasons why Donna put up with Sybil’s drug use, poor work attendance, and unacceptable work actions.
[Sybil’s] only perceived salvation,
law enforcement reported,
was to maintain her employment as a health care professional with Donna’s health care operation. Donna . . . took advantage of Sybil’s weaknesses and convinced her, that if she did not help Donna . . . then Donna would ensure that Sybil would lose her job and eventually [lose] her children.
Sybil was motivated, primarily, by a “sense of despair.” She had no one else to turn to.
The way in which Donna took advantage of Sybil—slowly and deliberately—over a period of time, grooming her and allowing her to stumble, picking her up and brushing her off (playing the good mother), was what made George and Donna a pair to be reckoned with: Donna and George were alike in many ways, especially the way in which they treated people.
26
D
ONNA WAS BLISSFUL,
walking on air around the office, bursting with smiles and fleeting adolescent emotion. By the middle of January 1998, Donna had kicked Chuck out of the house and sent him back to Louisiana, promising to see him in divorce court. That was Donna. She berated the guy for years, took him for a fool, used his muscle in the office where she needed it, and then kicked him to the curb after meeting George, whom she was referring to around the office as “this wonderful engineer” she had met and was soon going to be bringing into the company as a full-time employee. But not only was Donna bringing George into the fold to take care of the claims for CCHH and oversee its finances, George had agreed to rent a space from Donna inside her home to use as an office for a new company he had started. George would be doing work for Donna as a private contractor. The agreement was that George reported twice a month to Florida for business and, of course, Donna’s personal pleasure. A lot of the work he could take back to Michigan and do from a home office.
Donna was getting exactly what she wanted.
Same as the situation with George, Donna’s life and business were about to take on enormous change. She soon received a letter from George, and Donna knew from the context that she had perhaps reeled George in completely by this point. George had typed out the lyrics to the popular song “My Heart Will Go On: Love Theme from
Titanic
,” by Celine Dion, and sent them along with a few closing remarks, calling his new flame “Dear Love,” “Dear Friend,” “Confidant,” and “so Much More.” He signed the note:
George, the One who Loves and Adores you so much!
As her father spent more time in Florida, Emily sensed he was stepping out. It wasn’t just the mustache George had grown; it was his attitude, too.
“He seemed upset with my mom.”
All the time.
Whatever Gail did.
Nothing was good enough.
According to Emily’s recollections, whenever George was mad at Gail, or snappy with the kids, or especially when he retreated off by himself, something beyond the household was taking up space in his heart and in his mind. It was almost, Emily noted, as if her father was punishing the family for his lack of control when it came to his sins, especially lust.
Gail would never visit George in Florida—likely because George told her not to go there. Gail also was not interested in seeing in person what she undoubtedly knew in her gut. The other factor was that the kids were still in high school when George started dividing his time between Michigan and Florida. Gail felt her place was at home, caring for the kids.
“We had no family in the area,” Emily remembered. Everyone was in Texas or Virginia. “My mom was paranoid that something might happen to us.”
Gail was devoted to—and loved—her children. She was never going to leave them alone and chase her husband around Florida. This was another aspect of this woman, one could argue, that George took great advantage of with his conduct.
George changed, Emily noticed. One telltale sign to Emily beyond her father growing facial hair was that he got angry with the kids and Gail for no apparent reason. He might get excited and gesture,
I’m going into my cave—leave me alone!
It was George’s way of responding to shutting out everyone around him. He wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t answer questions. The mustache, Emily was convinced, was her father’s way of disguising who he was, or becoming, effectively, someone else.
It didn’t take much to get George upset, Emily explained. “And the mustache? Oh, my . . . it’s a sign that my dad is trying to change who he is. Trying to mask who [he] is by growing facial hair.”
During Emily’s senior year (1998), as George and Donna’s affair became hot, George moved to Florida in a more permanent fashion. Not completely. But he was going down and staying for a while to get his new business—that dream he’d always had—up and running smoothly. He told the family it was “because of the job working with Donna.”
Emily felt blindsided. She had not been getting enough sleep because of schoolwork, sports, and being a member of the student council. She depended on her father to drop her off at school early every morning so she could get in extra calculus study. But there was one morning as they drove to school when George, looking down at the floorboard, then up into his daughter’s eyes, said, “Shorty”— his pet name for Emily—“your mom is really going to need you while I’m gone.”