Slain woman was no hater, probers say

CHARLESTON, West Va. -- The 33-year-old West Virginia woman killed by Jacob D. Robida on the final, fatal leg of his cross-country rampage shared his interest in aggressive rock music and his fondness for dark, goth imagery, but there is no evidence that Jennifer Rena Bailey agreed with Robida's antigay, antiminority sentiments or his inclination to violence, investigators said yesterday.

As detectives from Massachusetts joined the search for clues in West Virginia yesterday, a picture began to emerge of the intermittent relationship between the 18-year-old from New Bedford and the West Virginia mother of three young sons, who lived together near Charleston for about a year until early last year, police said.

Bailey, an enthusiastic fan of Charleston's local music scene, first met Robida online, where both had pages on the website myspace.com, according to police. Their relationship progressed, and from early 2004 to early 2005 they lived together in at least two locations in the Charleston area, police said.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Bailey went willingly with Robida last week, but said the evidence they have gathered suggests that she did. Police said there were no signs of a struggle or forced entry at Bailey's run-down Charleston apartment on a busy stretch of highway across from an auto salvage yard on the city's western edge.

But police said they are considering the possibility that she chose to go out locally with Robida for a drive or a meal and then was forced to head south to Arkansas. Investigators have seized Bailey's computer to search for evidence that the two planned the trip in advance.

''Some people we've interviewed say she would not go with him willingly, and some say, yes, she would have," State Police Sergeant C.J. Ellyson said yesterday. ''But, as best we can tell, this was his game plan, his agenda for his 15 minutes of fame."

Robida's attack on patrons at a gay bar in New Bedford last Thursday prompted a nationwide manhunt. Robida killed a 63-year-old part-time police officer who pulled him over in Gassville, Ark., on Saturday. Robida then led police on a 16-mile car chase that ended in a shootout and his capture. Just before the shootout, Robida shot Bailey in the head as she sat beside him in his car and just after he might have embraced her, authorities have said. Robida, shot in the head by police, died of his injuries early Sunday.

Neighbors of Bailey said they did not see Robida show up at her house on Friday. Ellyson said Robida was seen by a witness in Charleston, 750 miles south of New Bedford, at 9 p.m. Thursday, but he was not with Bailey at the time, and he did not stay at Bailey's house that night. The pair did not leave the city until Friday afternoon or evening, after Bailey's mother came to her apartment and picked up her children, Ellyson said.

Ellyson said Bailey's mother knew of the relationship with Robida. ''The mother was under the impression the daughter had ended the relationship," he said.

An acquaintance of Bailey, who asked not to be named because she said she fears for her safety, said Bailey spent her early years in the small, rural town of Tornado. The young woman later moved to St. Albans, a town of about 24,000 just outside Charleston, where she lived for several years at Amandaville Court, an affordable housing complex. Yesterday, two neighbors said Bailey kept mostly to herself, but they recalled occasional arguments with boyfriends.

A marriage, to Timothy Allen Nida, did not last long: According to newspaper records, the couple applied for a marriage license in October 2002 and filed for divorce in May 2003.

In St. Albans yesterday, an acquaintance described her as troubled, with a string of boyfriends and no regular job.

But another who frequently visited Bailey's apartment said she was generous, helpful, and a devoted mother. The woman, who identified herself as Abby, said Bailey made CDs for neighbors, loaned neighbors her car, and accepted calls for them on her cellphone.

''If she thought you were in need or in distress, she would help you," the woman said. ''She was one of the most soft-hearted kids you've ever seen."

Children's toys were piled on Bailey's porch yesterday. In the muddy yard, a beat-up, black Nissan Altima, identified by neighbors as Bailey's car, sat without license plates, decorated with stickers for some of the same bands she raved about on her webpage: Marilyn Manson, Social Distortion, the local Charleston band Hillbilly Deathride.

Justin Snodgrass, a member of Hillbilly Deathride, did not know Bailey's last name until news broke of her death, he wrote yesterday in an e-mail. But he recognized her as Jenn, a ''huge supporter of the local music scene" who made it a point to meet band members and let them know how she felt about their music.

''From what we know of Jenn, she enjoyed aggressive music because it is fun, not because it is 'morbid,' " Snodgrass wrote. ''I remember her being very lively, and smiling."

Among the favorite movies listed on her webpage, Snodgrass pointed out, are the 1980s teen classics ''Pretty in Pink" and ''Sixteen Candles," feel-good films with fairy-tale endings. ''How morbid is that?" he wrote.

On her website, decorated with an image of what appear to be medicine capsules filled with blood-red liquid, Bailey described herself as a ''super great listener" with a ''strange sense of humor" and someone who tended to become ''consumed with boredom." She also said she was 25.

But investigators have found no evidence there of antigay or racist views, West Virginia State Police said.

Another friend of Bailey's, Craig Dickinson, also said she ''was not some morbid, goth chick, white racist."

''She hated people that were judgmental," wrote Dickinson, a Charleston police officer, who said his e-mail did not represent the views of the Police Department.

She ended her relationship with Robida once she realized how disturbed he was, Dickinson said. ''This was not some type of Bonnie and Clyde episode," he said in his e-mail. ''. . . Just know that she was too nice and caring and a bit naive. She was nice to people at times that she shouldn't have been."

Raja Mishra of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Material from the Associated Press was also used. Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.