Ok my bad but I still think she was engaging him in her battle and making him very angry ... Do you know if they attended church services on Sunday mornings?... Was Jason planning to play golf? I know they were investigating 1st degree murder but that didn't happen...do you believe it is and they just can't prove it? ... I think the state crime lab is still rehabilitating from some misconduct that had something like 175 convictions brought into question and wouldn't support charges not backed by physical evidence...it might be why it took a while to bring the case before the grand jury...
I imagine the entire case is an absolute mire of internal and external politics.. time will tell.
I'm not clear on why you think Jason engaged with her at all? He was stone cold sober, probably tired after a week of work and disharmony, had her parents descend without notice and molly on the warpath for God only knows how long..
People adapt to eachothers' idiosyncracies and neuroses and sometimes psychoses and they learn to survive in dysfunctional relationships. Every dynamic is different because no two people are the same.
We know a lot about these people , Jason and Molly, but we know nothing at all, as well.
My sense of it is that he would shut down for safety for both himself and his children. I feel he would have detached, gone silent..But that is just me guessing.
I dont know whether it was pre meditated, or whether she was in a rage and it was the next logical, to her , step in that rage or whether she lay in wait.. She is a complex personality, possibly not very predictable, we have been told she is volatile, has tantrums, curls up in a ball and hurts herself.. possibly grappling furiously between the pain of raw reality- her veneer is being ripped away from her, leaving her exposed emotionally, mentally and psychically.. she is likely veering between fear and rage, something is being taken from her and she cannot stand it.
I honestly think he went to bed, for peace, alone.
I think he would always have known to never ever engage with her rages.. even if woken up suddenly from his sleep.. or having got up for some reason, found her to be prowling and raging still.
I think he would have known instinctively how not to make her worse.
I do not believe he engaged, he merely tried to defend himself from the force of the blows.