The Devil and Doyle Davidson

Back when John worked long hours, Dena had started going to church every night, lugging the kids along for two-hour services that ended around 10 p.m. In 2003, alarmed that she was losing her influence over Dena, Connie called Doyle Davidson one day and urged him to tell Dena to keep the children home on school nights.

"He referred to her as a wicked woman," says Macauley, who was listening in. "Connie said, 'I can call CPS, and they can look into it.'" Davidson's response, according to Macauley: "People who oppose me have been known to disappear."

Though Parkinson's disease was robbing her vitality, Connie traveled alone to Dallas and agreed to go with Dena to church. Afterward, Macauley says, Davidson met with Dena and her mother. He laid hands on her head, said a short prayer and announced that she was cured. (Davidson denies laying hands on her but admits he prayed.)

Macauley says either Dena or Doyle took away Connie's medication. Convinced her mother was cured, Dena dropped Connie at the airport for the flight home. Connie sat down to wait for her plane and "froze," unable to speak or move. It wasn't until the next day that someone noticed she was in distress, found a few pills at the bottom of Connie's purse and got her on a flight home.

Then God threw the Schlossers another curve: Dena got pregnant for the sixth time.

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Subject: Nice to see you

Sent: 06/21/2005

Dear Lisa,

I told you God would deliver you into my hands shortly. Well he did just that. He knew what it would take to make you very hostile. Let me tell you something, you are my wife and JR will soon die, and you will die before I do. Now your threats do not bother me one bit. You do remember how you said certain people would die that are with me. Then darling you said I would die. You will come to my house and live with me in peace. I will deliver you from the Jezebel...Love you, Doyle. P.S. You are no match for me, but you are cute when you are stirred up. Maggie was born on January 9, 2004, in the Schlossers' apartment with the help of a midwife. "By that time, the home birth--everything--was God's will," Macauley says. That, and they had no health insurance.

The next day, Dena tried to slash her wrists with a pair of scissors. Her injuries weren't serious. She later told a psychiatrist she wanted to prove her faith that God would heal her.

Six days after the birth, Dena ran screaming down the street, her daughter Kelsie pedaling after her on a bike. Diagnosed as psychotic, Dena spent two days at Green Oaks psychiatric hospital, where she was given a prescription for Haldol and Ativan and released. Dena later told a psychiatrist she didn't want to leave the hospital, but her husband had "prayed about it" and wanted her home.

A few days after her release, Dena couldn't sleep and tried to walk to Green Oaks. She stopped at a pay phone and called her husband, who again talked her out of being hospitalized.

By now Child Protective Services had intervened. After interviewing the kids--one girl called her mother's suicide attempt "a devil's trick," according to The Dallas Morning News--CPS ruled that Dena couldn't be alone with them. Since John had to work all the time, that added another pressure. For a while, a counselor checked on Dena every day.

Carolyn Thomas harped on Dena to take her meds but would later tell Plano police that John wouldn't buy the drugs she needed consistently. Dena would take the medicine for a while, then stop. Thomas was convinced Dena was simply following her husband's lead.

"She didn't want to hurt him if it called for her to be defiant," Thomas told a detective. "I'm a Jezebel," she added, "but I keep it under control. I'm only a Jezebel when I need to be, when I need to stand up for what's right."

Referred in February for outpatient treatment, Dena was evaluated for 45 minutes, then had 15-minute follow-ups at four-week intervals. She continued to tell the psychiatrist she didn't need medication. Dena was later released from treatment.

But in March 2004, Dena had left home in the middle of the night and was found screaming on the bathroom floor of an emergency room. Worried that Dena's "spiritual church vocabulary"--meaning her religious fanaticism and talk of demons--might be misinterpreted as psychosis, John insisted that his wife be released to him.

Following CPS' admonition not to leave Dena alone with the children, John's mother stayed with them for six weeks during the summer. Deeming Dena no longer at risk, CPS closed the case in August.

Isolated and lonely, Dena wanted to work outside the home, but John forbade it. Though the oldest girl was in school, Dena had two children to care for and no emotional reserves. Thomas kept urging her to tell John what she needed.

"I don't think he liked me too much," Thomas told the detective. After yet another scolding from Thomas about Dena's medications, John told her, "Don't push me." John later told Dena, "Maybe something would happen to Carolyn."

Things like that occurred in Doyle Davidson's world. Davidson tells a story about God intervening in 1974 when he was preparing to go to Israel with a religious group. When Davidson couldn't come up with the money, another man put in his place abruptly died. Davidson got to go. Why God didn't provide the ticket instead of sending the grim reaper is unclear.