GUILTY SC - Five Jones children, ages 1-8, Lexington County, 28 Aug 2014 *Father Arrested*

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Child support is supposed to deal with income. If one parent makes more he or she is supposed to pay support to the other. Decisions about custody aren't supposed to be made based on income.

Happily that's the actual law here in CA. Not sure what the law is there.

This is a gothic tragedy IMO, where status and gender played a role in what happened to these kids.

They were taken from their mother and given to their violent, criminal father because he had money and because cheating is aapparently and unforgivable sin.

Man it almost feels like Iran down there in South Carolina. Backwards as hell.

Even more than that.
Their father dictated when they could see their mother.
Their father dictated where they could see their mother.
Their father withheld visitation with their mother as a punishment.
Their father supervised their visitation with their mother.
Their mother wasn't even contacted when DCFS investigated the father!
She wasn't even a contact at their school!
I mean it's unbelievable, he like erased her from their existence almost entirely.

I agree with you. This was horrific. He never should have had them in the first place.
 
Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
Jury comes back to the courtroom after a lunch break.

The prosecution calls Travis Pressley, who works at the Kirkland Correctional Institute, to the stand. Pressley says Jones was brought to Kirkland for safe-keeping on September 12, nearly a week after his arrest.


Caroline Hecker‏Verified account @CHecker_WIS 3h3 hours ago
Testimony resumes in the Jones trial. First on the stand is Lt. Travis Pressley who helped process Jones during intake at Kirkland Correctional on Sept. 12, 2014. @wis1


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
Pressley, a corrections officer, says Jones voluntarily tarted to explain to him what happened a few weeks earlier. He says by letting Jones talk about what happened (while he listened intently), he would calm down.



Caroline Hecker‏Verified account @CHecker_WIS 3h3 hours ago
Lt Pressley testifies Jones told him he began choking one of his sons and his daughter, Merah, walked in on it happening. He said Jones then told him he grabbed his daughter and strangled her until she "turned purple." @wis10


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
Pressley says Jones told him about how he strangled his daughter, saying that he choked her "until she turned purple." Defense conducting their cross-examination on Pressley.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
Defense is displaying a report written by Pressley about his talk with Jones. Pressley said he only wrote about what Jones told him about his son (didn't name whom, which led to a debate about if Pressley wrote "older" or "oldest" on the form), playing with outlets.


Caroline Hecker‏Verified account @CHecker_WIS 3h3 hours ago
Things are getting chippy in the courtroom between the prosecution, defense and Judge Griffith. He orders a short break to speak with attorneys. @wis10


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
Judge Griffith sends the jury out for a ten minute break.
 
Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
This break comes as a result of the prosecution and defense going back and forth about questioning Pressley on his hand-writing and timeline regarding the report about Jones when he first arrived at Kirkland.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
Jury comes back into the room and Pressley returns to the stand.

Boyd Young, of the defense, starts asking Pressley about specific times of nurse visits and other events when Jones first came to Kirkland.


Caroline Hecker‏Verified account @CHecker_WIS 3h3 hours ago
Here are some photos from inside the courtroom so far today. Things have gotten tense between the prosecution and defense. @wis10

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Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
Pressley steps down from the stand.

Next witness is Officer Ben Boyd, who has worked at Kirkland Correctional for nearly seven years. He escorted Jones in the door once he was brought to Kirkland.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
Boyd says once Jones got in through the door, he "got emotional and started to cry for a little bit."


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
Boyd says when he first talked to him, Jones said that his son was playing with electrical outlets "like he was trying to hurt something", which led him to choke him out with his bare hands.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
Defense asks Boyd about Jones's crying when he first got to Kirkland. Says he cried "when he first came through the gate", but by the time he started talking to him, he calmed down.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 3h3 hours ago
Boyd says Jones wasn't in the general yard at Kirkland. Since he was to be "in safe keeping", they kept him in the maximum security unit.

He steps down from the stand, which leads Judge Griffith calling a break for the jury.
 
Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 2h2 hours ago
After a nearly hour-long break, Judge Griffith welcomes the jury back into the room and thanks them for their patience.

Prosecution calls Michael Phipps of the Lexington County Sheriff's Department to the stand. Phipps specializes in digital forensics and forensic examination.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 2h2 hours ago
Phipps says he's examined more than 800 cell phones. He's now talking about three types of information gathering off cell phones.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 1h1 hour ago
Prosecution puts a call log from Jones's phone on display. On August 28 (the night his children died), Jones fielded a handful of calls from his ex-wife, Amber, as well as calls to Roberta Thornberry (one of his emergency contacts) and his father, Tim Sr.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 1h1 hour ago
The logs show text messages between Jones and his neighbor, Christina Ehlke (who testified last week), as well as a few more calls (one of which was rejected, but most were missed) from his ex-wife Amber.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 1h1 hour ago
Other things that came up on the cell phone log: Jones watched the rape scene from American History X on YouTube, and he also looked up a series of herbal incense shops in Atlanta on Google.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 1h1 hour ago
This is follow by a handful of missed phone calls from Roberta Thornberry, a relative of Jones who was listed as an emergency contact for his children at Saxe Gotha Elementary.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 59m59 minutes ago
More from the logs: Web searches show Jones was looking up campsites and dumps across South Carolina. He also looked YouTube videos on dogs looking up bodies in landfill, as well as a how-to on using muriatic acid.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 58m58 minutes ago
Jones also looked up five countries that don't extradite people back to the United States. This takes us to September 2, where the text exchange with Christina Ehlke about cleaning out his apartment takes place.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 55m55 minutes ago
Call logs continue to confirm earlier testimony from Christina Ehlke, Jim McConnell (Jones's supervisor at Intel), and school officials at Saxe Gotha.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 41m41 minutes ago
Later results down the log show Jones looking up "Tim Jones missing children" and receiving texts from concerned family members.
 
Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 28m28 minutes ago
After a jury break, Phipps returns to the stand, where he faces cross-examination from Jones's lead defender, Boyd Young.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 21m21 minutes ago
The defense has a phone log of their own to display, showing that months before the murders, Jones looked up things like "how to know my wife is being prostituted" and showing a heated text exchange with his ex-wife where she claims "she's taken everything from him."


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 11m11 minutes ago
Defense shows more texts and web searches that Jones did on his phone weeks before the murders, ranging from school supply lists to a search about a "child being killed by an electrical outlet" twelve days before the murders.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 9m9 minutes ago
Deputy Solicitor Shawn Graham now questions Phipps about Google searches about "schizophrenia" Jones did after watching the movie "A Beautiful Mind."


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 8m8 minutes ago
Judge Griffith adjourns court for the day while Phipps was answering questions from prosecutors. Testimony continues tomorrow morning.
 
The Post and Courier‏Verified account @postandcourier 8m8 minutes ago
Prison officers’ testimony Tuesday indicated Timothy Jones Jr. strangled all five of his children.

This differs from the confession in which he repeatedly insisted his 6-year-old died by accident from physical exhaustion.


Testimony indicates SC dad strangled all 5 of his kids, rather than 4 after an accident

May 21, 2019

"LEXINGTON — Prison officers’ testimony Tuesday indicated Timothy Jones Jr. strangled all five of his children, seeming to dispute Jones’ confession in which he repeatedly insisted his 6-year-old died by accident from physical exhaustion, causing him to succumb to the voices in his head and strangle the other four...."

Testimony indicates SC dad strangled all 5 of his kids, rather than 4 after an accident


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(Top-left to bottom-right: Abigail Elizabeth, Gabriel, Nathan, Elias and Merah )
 
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Please don't judge the mother....

"...A messier divorce

Amber and Tim Jones separated and a custody battle was raging by summer’s end.

On one side: Tim Jones, who accused his wife of being unfaithful with a next-door neighbor. According to divorce papers, Tim Jones returned home unexpectedly to find the other man, 19, hiding in the closet of the master suite.
“I am looking into moving to Mississippi with the children, where I have a large family support system,” Tim Jones wrote in a 2012 affidavit. “I will search for a job in Mississippi. I am employed and I am capable of caring for my children ...”

On the other side: Amber Jones, who was now six months pregnant with the couple’s fifth child. Several months earlier, she had walked into the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department and reported a string of threats made by her husband, including one to snap her neck. She declined a DSS caseworker’s referral her to Sistercare, a nonprofit for survivors of domestic abuse.

Tim Jones had the upper hand in the court case, including his $71,000 job at Intel, a divorce attorney and a glowing affidavit from his therapist who described him as a “highly intelligent, responsible father who is capable of caring for his children as the sole custodial parent.”

Amber Jones had none of those things — only an isolated existence along a lonely stretch of road and the pressures of caring for four young children in cramped quarters.

The divorce papers displayed her supposed sins.

But not Tim Jones’. There is no mention of his 2002 prison stint in the Big Muddy Correctional Center in Illinois, where he served time for cocaine possession, car theft, burglary and passing forged checks on his father’s account. The 20-year-old paroled out in about a year in a case of a“typical teenager doing stupid stuff,” according to Tim Jones Sr. in a 2014 interview with The Associated Press.

And so it was ordered on Oct. 14, 2013 by a family court judge. Tim Jones was granted physical custody of all five children, including baby girl Elaine, who would be born in December. Amber Jones reconciled herself to every other weekends and holidays.

The court issued one final judgment on supposed misdeeds: “In no event will the parties permit any paramour ... to be present during overnight visitation.”..."

Trial of SC man Timothy Ray Jones Jr., accused of killing his 5 children, could shed light

I wouldn't call car theft, burglary and forgery "typical teenager doing stupid stuff."

Seems like some enabling there.
 
From yesterday in court, recap:

'My babies should be alive:' Mom of 5 SC children who were killed testifies

Amber testified that Tim was very goal oriented, very smart, and everything he set out to do he accomplished, and she found that very honorable.

She was not attending college and has no high school degree.

“Women are to be seen and not heard, keep the children out of the way… at one point wanted a farm full of children,” Amber said of her marriage to Tim

Tim filed first for divorce while Amber was pregnant with Abigail. Tim was tested and proved to be the baby’s biological father.

The two came to an understanding/arrangement where Tim had primary custody — financially he was the best provider, while she was getting on her feet, but she did not give up her parental rights.

She couldn’t afford lawyer, so she agreed to joint custody with Tim having physical custody of the five children. Visitation was to be supervised by Tim, to placate him, according to her. “I would do anything to see my kids,” she said.

Tim would not allow Amber to visit with the children in the home she shared with her future mother in law.

Amber testified that Tim encouraged her to come back to him, but she did not accept his proposal.

She was eventually able to buy the kids clothing, things they might need for school, and wrote checks for support when she could. Visits usually took place at Chick-fil-A in Lexington. Tim decided when she could see them.

In 2014, she testified, she was able to see them less frequently, sometimes Tim would punish the kids by not allowing the kids to see her.

She became aware of the DSS report on Nahtahn in 2014, although DSS never reached out to her.

The couple had gotten into one routine: Amber would call Tim at 7 p.m. every night in order to talk to the kids.



-[Much more at above link]

Oh my God. There's video of her on the stand talking about her kids and trying to read a letter she wrote to her oldest. They had to clear the jury.

Her wail of agony is something any mother can recognize in their gut (Take note Brittany Bowens, that's what a real mother sounds like who lost her child).

That was super painful to listen to. Horrible. That poor woman.
 
Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 1h1 hour ago
Prosecution puts a call log from Jones's phone on display. On August 28 (the night his children died), Jones fielded a handful of calls from his ex-wife, Amber, as well as calls to Roberta Thornberry (one of his emergency contacts) and his father, Tim Sr.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 1h1 hour ago
The logs show text messages between Jones and his neighbor, Christina Ehlke (who testified last week), as well as a few more calls (one of which was rejected, but most were missed) from his ex-wife Amber.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 1h1 hour ago
Other things that came up on the cell phone log: Jones watched the rape scene from American History X on YouTube, and he also looked up a series of herbal incense shops in Atlanta on Google.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 1h1 hour ago
This is follow by a handful of missed phone calls from Roberta Thornberry, a relative of Jones who was listed as an emergency contact for his children at Saxe Gotha Elementary.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 59m59 minutes ago
More from the logs: Web searches show Jones was looking up campsites and dumps across South Carolina. He also looked YouTube videos on dogs looking up bodies in landfill, as well as a how-to on using muriatic acid.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 58m58 minutes ago
Jones also looked up five countries that don't extradite people back to the United States. This takes us to September 2, where the text exchange with Christina Ehlke about cleaning out his apartment takes place.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 55m55 minutes ago
Call logs continue to confirm earlier testimony from Christina Ehlke, Jim McConnell (Jones's supervisor at Intel), and school officials at Saxe Gotha.


Tim Scott‏ @TimScottTV 41m41 minutes ago
Later results down the log show Jones looking up "Tim Jones missing children" and receiving texts from concerned family members.

This doesn't sound like someone who's broken with reality.... it sounds like someone covering his tracks.


I wouldn't call car theft, burglary and forgery "typical teenager doing stupid stuff."

Seems like some enabling there.

I agree. I said above that I believe Dad has tons of guilt because Tim's Mom is institutionalize with schizophrenia. I think Tim's Dad has always excused Tim's behavior because of that.

It's easier for him to believe his son is just a rebel, or mentally ill than to believe he's a horrible, evil human, husband and father.
 
Oh my God. There's video of her on the stand talking about her kids and trying to read a letter she wrote to her oldest. They had to clear the jury.

Her wail of agony is something any mother can recognize in their gut (Take note Brittany Bowens, that's what a real mother sounds like who lost her child).

That was super painful to listen to. Horrible. That poor woman.
This is so unbelievably awful. That wail is something I have heard before and it’s a sound you never ever forget.
 
This doesn't sound like someone who's broken with reality.... it sounds like someone covering his tracks.




I agree. I said above that I believe Dad has tons of guilt because Tim's Mom is institutionalize with schizophrenia. I think Tim's Dad has always excused Tim's behavior because of that.

It's easier for him to believe his son is just a rebel, or mentally ill than to believe he's a horrible, evil human, husband and father.

Agreed to all. His internet searches show sanity. His dad certainly can't face what a monster his son is.

Man. Those beautiful kids. They lost their mom essentially. Went through a ton of pain. Then they were murdered. Probably called out for her or tried to. And couldn't even see her to say goodbye.

It's awful.
 
Every day I feel for that Jury, too :(

I can only manage YESorNo's posts with the tweets, I can barely even look at the photos. One of the most gutwrenching cases I have ever followed for sure.

Peace to those angel children and somehow some peace moments to come in the future for their mommy.
 
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Well then he was having "breakdowns" long before that when he was committing crimes, doing drugs and being abusive toward her.

She didn't drive him to it. She didn't cause these deaths. She didn't contribute to those deaths.

He's evil. The responsibility is his and the court system's.
 
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Agreed to all. His internet searches show sanity. His dad certainly can't face what a monster his son is.

Man. Those beautiful kids. They lost their mom essentially. Went through a ton of pain. Then they were murdered. Probably called out for her or tried to. And couldn't even see her to say goodbye.

It's awful.

The oldest daughter told him he loved her as he strangled her to death.
 
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All he had to do was call his Dad.
Call the neighbor.
Call the cops.
Call his ex-wife.
Call DCFS.
Call ANYONE and say he couldn't deal.

Or even just tell that cop at Walmart THAT DAY!
Or just leave them at home and leave and call someone.
I mean he had so many better options than strangling them all to death.

The kids would be alive and he would be free of single parenting 5 kids.
HE CHOSE to single parent 5 kids. He could have easily let Mom take them. He didn't want that, he WANTED CUSTODY OF THEM.

No, this isn't a victimized father. This is a father who took the kids to spite their mother. Then, when that didn't work he killed them.

Killing your daughter as she tells you that she loves you is not overwhelmed. It's not mentally ill. It's evil. There's no way around it.
 
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All he had to do was call his Dad.
Call the neighbor.
Call the cops.
Call his ex-wife.
Call DCFS.
Call ANYONE and say he couldn't deal.

Or even just tell that cop at Walmart THAT DAY!
Or just leave them at home and leave and call someone.
I mean he had so many better options than strangling them all to death.

The kids would be alive and he would be free of single parenting 5 kids.
HE CHOSE to single parent 5 kids. He could have easily let Mom take them. He didn't want that, he WANTED CUSTODY OF THEM.

No, this isn't a victimized father. This is a father who took the kids to spite their mother. Then, when that didn't work he killed them.

Killing your daughter as she tells you that she loves you is not overwhelmed. It's not mentally ill. It's evil. There's no way around it.

Precisely. It's incredible to me that anyone can suggest she was at fault for not going back to that man. That because she failed to do so, the poor man broke down.

He was abusive to her. So she's supposed to go back to her abuser. Sleep with him. Be threatened and attacked by him because he couldn't cope?

He hadn't been abusive to the kids, that we know of, until recently. So in the face of his money and legal counsel, and her infidelity - since South Carolina is a "fault" divorce state- she gave up.

She probably felt quite defeated and hopeless. But how anyone can hear her guttural wail of anguish- "My babies!" and think she is to be blamed for what ultimately was done to them?
 

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