Picking Cotton: Our Memoir Of Injustice And Redemption

In March of 1995, Gauldin called Jennifer. She was in her children’s playroom in the house where she lived with her husband and family. Gauldin asked if they could meet the next day to discuss something. Jennifer was immediately worried.

She writes that instead of moving on after the trial, she “fell apart” (183). She and Paul mutually ended their relationship a month after Cotton’s sentencing, and she began partying and doing cocaine. One evening, a tennis instructor of hers showed up at her house drunk and tried to get in bed with her. She screamed and fought him off.

Weeks later, a girlfriend convinced her to go to Fort Lauderdale with her for spring break. She went to dinner there with a man named Vinny, who was from New York. After she got home, he called her every day for a week, then flew up to see her a month later. By June, they were in love, and she decided to move to Long Island to be with him. She hated Long Island, and Vinny agreed to move back to Winston-Salem with her. When he proposed, she agreed to marry him. In 1989, she gave birth to triplets: Morgan, Brittany, and a boy named Blake.