Anemona Hartocollis interviews the mother of Jack Jordan, the man convicted last week of stalking Uma Thurman. Beth Jordan, 64, met her husband, Thomas, a nuclear physicist, almost fifty years ago in Baltimore. They had nine children, including two that were still born; Jack was raised as "the fifth of eight", including "his sister's child, being raised by their parents" in their Maryland home. School friends remember Jack Jordan as popular, funny, and charismatic. “His entire life he’s been called perfect," recalls his mother. "He was like a golden, beautiful boy-man." But he went through a radical change when he was 25. He underwent a physical transformation losing weight after switching to a vegan diet; a University of Chicago pre-med student who aspired to become a neurosurgeon before abandoning his studies, he started working exclusively at menial jobs; and then there were the "hallucinations that he was talking to Jesus and Muhammad." Before that, Mrs. Jordan thought there was something wrong with her son, as he began to withdraw and lose his competitive nature and seem to starve himself. But she was unable to get anyone to heed her concerns: “You know, who listens to the momma?”
Mrs. Jordan is now addressing her feelings to the public in an effort to get her son the medical help he needs, as opposed to a prison sentence. "She had seen him thrive while taking Lexapro, an antidepressant, even going to graduate school for six months, she said. And she had also seen him with his tongue hanging out, unable to stop pacing, after she and his father had him committed in 2005 to a county psychiatric facility, where he was forcibly injected with drugs. 'I just want people to know how normal Jack was,' Mrs. Jordan said, 'and how normal he was for that period of time, being treated with Lexapro.' ” Jack himself refuses to admit that he needs help, and his parents are concerned that he himself would insist on prison over hospitalization if the choice were left to him. Jack Jordan, now 37, began stalking Thurman during the filming of the 2007 My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
