COLUMBIA, S.C. — (AP) The five children who police say were slain by their father will be remembered at a memorial in Mississippi on Friday, while 500 miles away, their father will make his first court appearance.
Timothy Ray Jones Jr., 32, is accused of killing his three boys and two girls, wrapping their bodies in separate trash bags and driving around for days with their decomposing bodies before dumping them on a rural hilltop in Alabama. Authorities released those details earlier this week at a news conference where a photo of each child's smiling face was displayed on a large screen. The emotional sheriff said at the time he wouldn't release the names until autopsies were done.
Divorce records said they were: Merah, 8; Elias, 7; Nahtahn, 6; Gabriel, 2, and Elaine Marie, 1.
Jones killed his five children at home, "by violent means," about a week before his ex-wife reported them missing, Acting Lexington County Sheriff Lewis McCarty said in news release issued late Thursday. Lexington County Coroner Earl Wells conducted autopsies and ruled each of the deaths a homicide. The cause of the children's deaths is still being investigated, Wells said in a statement.
At the Amory Church of Christ in Mississippi, a poem will be read for each child. There will be a balloon ceremony and a slide show.
On Thursday, in South Carolina, social services officials said they visited Jones' homes a dozen times in the last three years.
The children seemed happy and well-adjusted despite occasional spankings, and the family took a summer trip to Disney World and the beach, according to documents released by the Department of Social Services. Authorities never found anything serious enough to take the children away, but the documents show Jones as a single father and computer engineer struggling to raise his children.
In the social worker's last visit — two weeks before the children's disappearance — a social worker summed up Jones' life: "Dad appears to be overwhelmed as he is unable to maintain the home, but the children appear to be clean, groomed and appropriately dressed," wrote the case worker, whose name was blacked out, on an Aug. 13 report.
On Aug. 28, Jones picked up his children from school and day care. McCarty said the children were likely killed soon after that, with Jones loading their bodies in trash bags in his Cadillac Escalade.
An intoxicated and agitated Jones was arrested at a DUI checkpoint in Smith County, Mississippi, on Saturday, and authorities said he had a form of synthetic marijuana on him. Officers found children's clothes, blood and maggots in his SUV.
Three days later, he led police to the bodies on a remote hillside in Alabama. Authorities said they still don't know his motive, how the children were killed and why they were buried there.
Jones was returned to South Carolina on Thursday to face murder charges.
In October 2011, Jones confronted a case worker who demanded he clean up the clothes and blankets scattered on the floor, boxes of food on top of the counter with tools scattered around them where the children could be hurt and an open air vent, where a kid could step and break a leg. The argument got so heated the case worker called deputies, and Jones calmed down when they arrived.
Three days later, the case worker returned and wrote: "observed the home to be VERY VERY VERY CLEAN."
Case workers made follow up visits over the next several months as Jones' marriage fell apart amid allegations his wife cheated on him with a neighbor.
Jones' wife talked about being lonely and what a mistake the couple thought they made moving from Mississippi, where Jones' family lived. They moved after he got a degree at Mississippi State University and was hired making $71,000-a-year job as a computer engineer at Intel.
More than a decade ago, when Jones was 19, he was convicted of cocaine possession and a crime spree in the suburbs of Chicago, where he grew up, that consisted of car theft, burglary and passing forged checks on his father's account.
"Typical teenager doing stupid stuff, that's about it," Jones' father, Tim Jones Sr., told The Associated Press by phone from his home in Amory, Mississippi.
Timeline leading to dad's arrest in 5 kids' deaths
Timothy Ray Jones Jr. earned his computer engineering degree, worked at a $71,000-a-year job, had a wife of 10 years and several young children.
Then, just over two years ago, he discovered his wife was putting their children to bed in their South Carolina home and going to the neighbor's house and sleeping with the neighbor's 19-year-old son, according to divorce papers. Jones moved out with the children and seemed friendly to his new neighbors, but began to withdraw to the point where the woman who lived next door thought he and his family had moved away.
Jones and his five children, ages 8, 7, 6, 2 and 1, disappeared two weeks ago, but no one called police for days. And authorities weren't convinced anything was wrong until they said an intoxicated, agitated Jones was stopped at a DUI checkpoint in Mississippi where officers found him alone, with blood and children's clothes in his SUV and the stench of death in the air.
Jones, 32, would lead investigators to his children's bodies, wrapped in five trash bags on an isolated Alabama hilltop, but it's still not clear — and may never be — why he killed his children, authorities said. Authorities in South Carolina said he will face five charges of murder when he returns from Mississippi, perhaps as early as Thursday.
Jones' father, Timothy Jones Sr., stood outside his Amory, Mississippi, home a day after his grandchildren's bodies were found, and asked for prayers for his family and for the son he referred to as Little Timmy and Little Tim.
"Let it be known that people will come to their own conclusions and as parents we can understand that decision based on the circumstances," the father said in a statement. "But please remember that our Little Tim is a very loving father, brother and son."
That was not the picture painted by Lewis McCarty, the acting sheriff in Jones Jr.'s home of Lexington County, South Carolina. The lawman who started his career on patrol 50 years ago took a second to collect himself as he started to talk to reporters.
"I made a promise to these children's mother that I would bring these children home. And I was not going to go back on that promise," McCarty said.
McCarty said the children were likely killed shortly after they were last seen in school and day care on Aug. 28. He didn't say how they were killed, or where, except that it wasn't in their home.
Jones put each child's body in its own trash bag and loaded the bodies into his Cadillac Escalade, McCarty said. He drove hundreds of miles and crisscrossed several Southeastern states for days, apparently using bleach to try to mask the smell of the decomposing bodies, authorities said.
Jones stopped at an isolated hilltop in central Alabama and left them near Pine Apple, 20 miles off Interstate 65 and about 65 miles south of Montgomery, authorities said.
He then kept driving for several more hours Saturday until he reached a DUI checkpoint in Smith County, Mississippi, about 500 miles from his hometown. An officer said he "smelled the stench of death" along with chemicals used to make methamphetamine and synthetic marijuana. There was blood, bleach and maggots in the car.
A check of Jones' license plate showed his ex-wife had reported him and the children missing three days earlier when he failed to bring them over for visitation. He slowly acknowledged what happened to his children, and led police to their bodies Tuesday, authorities said. Only then did authorities go public with the case.
"We were trying to balance the children and the investigation against the releasing of information," McCarty said.
South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel said authorities did not issue an Amber Alert because the case didn't meet the criteria — Jones had legal custody of his children.
Bob Lowery, a vice president at the National Center for Missing Exploited Children, agreed.
"The joint custody issue and his having primary custody does complicate the matter," Lowery said. "He has every right to have those children."
Jones graduated with a degree in computer engineering from Mississippi State in 2011. Records from his October 2013 divorce show he was working for Intel at the time and the company confirmed he was still employed there when he disappeared.
The court records also showed a troubled life, both for Jones and his children. The divorce included multiple allegations of adultery against Jones' wife Amber, including accusations she sneaked over to her neighbor's home after putting the kids to bed.
A therapist who saw Jones during the divorce described him as "highly intelligent" and responsible, yet emotionally devastated and angry over his wife's actions.
Jones got primary custody of the five children after the divorce and moved from one ramshackle mobile home to another in Lexington. At first he was friendly and waved at neighbors and his children played outside. But they all slowly started disappearing from view, said neighbor Dorothy Wood.
"I didn't even hear them playing outside anymore. I thought they had moved," Wood said.
In Lexington, there was an abuse complaint against Jones lodged on Aug. 7, but when deputies and an official with the Department of Social Services went out to the house, they interviewed the children and didn't see anything to alarm them. Officials wouldn't say who made the complaint.
Divorce records listed the five children as Merah, 8; Elias, 7; Nahtahn, 6; Gabriel, 2, and Elaine Marie, 1. Elaine Marie was born Abagail Elizabeth but the parents agreed to a name change, records show.
The children's mother, Jones' ex-wife, is in shock and distraught, McCarty told reporters.
"I want you to know that she lost five vital body parts," he said. "A very nice person, a very sweet lady."
A memorial service will be held for the children in Amory on Friday.
WSOC
