Timothy Ray Jones Jr. (born December 28, 1981) is an American convicted mass murderer who killed his five children: Merah (aged 8), Elias (aged 7), Nahtahn (aged 6), Gabriel (aged 2), and Abigail Elaine (age 1), in their mobile home along South Lake Drive in Lexington County, South Carolina. Jones admitted to working Nahtahn to death and killed the other four children in a panic. Jones pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the court rejected this plea. He was found guilty of five counts of murder in 2019 and was sentenced to death. As of 2022 he is awaiting execution on death row in South Carolina. The South Carolina Supreme Court denied his appeal.
Personal life Timothy Jones Jr. was born on December 28, 1981 to parents Timothy Jones Sr. and Cindy Jones, who was 16 when she became pregnant. Her husband described Cindy Jones as violent and erratic. She behaved strangely, giving Timothy Jones Jr. laxatives as an infant and cutting up clothes with knives. Though she was never formally diagnosed, it is believed she had a mental illness. When her son was 18 months old, she left the family. Timothy Jones Sr. later remarried. In 2001 Jones Jr. was arrested in Illinois for possession of cocaine, check-forgery, and car theft. He was sentenced to seven years in prison but was released two years later in 2003.
Timothy Jones Jr. met Amber Kyzer, a Pennsylvania native, in Chicago. In June 2004, 22-year-old Jones married 18-year-old Kyzer in DuPage County, Illinois. Amber Jones gave birth to five children: Merah, born in Pennsylvania, Elias and Nahtahn, born in Mississippi, and Gabriel and Abigail, born in South Carolina. In 2011 Jones graduated from Mississippi State University with a degree in computer engineering. He moved to South Carolina to work as an engineer for Intel in Columbia, earning a salary of approximately $71,000 annually. The couple moved into an inexpensive trailer in Lexington County in the suburbs of Columbia; Amber Jones was a stay-at-home mother. In her testimony at trial, Amber Jones indicated that her husband believed, "women are to be seen and not heard, keep the children out of the way… at one point wanted a farm full of children." Jones is a strict Christian fundamentalist. After his arrest, police seized his religious belongings, including scripture with verses highlighted on corporal punishment.
Divorce The couple separated for two weeks in May 2012, and according to Jones's divorce lawyer, when Jones returned to their shared home, he discovered that his wife "was putting the children to bed and then going next door to meet her paramour." According to court records, Amber Jones was having an affair with a 19-year-old neighbor. Jones began meeting with a family therapist and marriage counselor, April M. Hames. He stated that he distrusted his wife because of his troubled childhood. He also accused his wife of neglecting the children, resulting in the state's Department of Social Services (DSS) opening an investigation in the family's home in 2011. Investigators found the home in a state of disarray but closed the case. The couple remained split, with Timothy Jones taking the children to Mississippi to live with his parents. In later court depositions, Dr. Hames noted that Jones "did not want to feel abandoned by his wife." When Amber Jones became pregnant with the couple's youngest child, Abigail, Timothy Jones was tested to verify he was the biological father, which he was. The couple finalized their divorce in October 2013. Timothy Jones was awarded custody, while Mrs. Jones only retained visitation rights and was required to be supervised by her husband. Timothy Jones and the children moved back to Lexington County to another mobile. The mother's visits rarely took place at the rented trailer. Rather, they usually occurred at a Chick-fil-A in Lexington. Reportedly, Jones allowed his ex-wife to talk to the children over the phone each night. On Sunday evenings, Jones allowed his children to participate at youth night programs at The Salvation Army.
Jones lived in a trailer off of a dirt road in Red Bank, a neighborhood of Lexington, South Carolina. Jones was investigated twice for child abuse during this time, but investigators found no evidence that would warrant removing the children from home. In May 2014, one child said that Jones spanked him and forced him to do exercises as punishment. But since there were no bruises, investigators considered the punishment lawful. Two weeks later, Jones was again accused of abuse. The case file reported, "Mr. Jones beats the child often leaving bruising. Mr. Jones does not feed the children adequately...It is reported Mr. Jones does not want to send his children back to public schools because he does not want the school to report the beatings." Further, the caseworker noted, "Dad appears to be overwhelmed as he is unable to maintain the home." This investigation was not concluded before the children's murder.
Murders On Thursday, August 28, 2014, Timothy Jones picked up his three eldest children, Merah, Elias, and Nahtahn from Saxe Gotha Elementary School, and his two youngest, Gabriel and Abigail, from a nearby daycare. That afternoon, Jones unsafely forced the five children out of the car at a Lexington County Walmart, an action for which he would later be charged with unlawful neglect. Amber Jones called the family home at 7:12 p.m. and spoke to one of her sons, Nahtahn. After that, she could not communicate with Jones or her children. Authorities estimate that Jones most likely killed his children the night of August 28. He wrapped their corpses in black trash bags, using bleach to cover the stench of decay. Jones later admitted to killing his children on August 28 in the family home; it is possible that the other children were dead when Amber Jones spoke to Nahtahn. In the trial, Travis Pressley, a prison guard, testified that Jones admitted to strangling his eldest daughter after she witnessed him murdering one of her brothers. Jones reported that he became angry after Nahtahn broke an electrical outlet and forced him to do physical exercises. Jones claimed that he found his son dead in his bed, which encouraged him to kill the others. In his confession, Jones said that he "PT'd his ass until he couldn't handle it anymore" to get the child to explain what happened to the electrical outlets. However, experts suggested that Nahtahn appeared to be strangled to death, discounting Jones's assertion. Jones admitted to strangling his youngest children with a belt, claiming their necks were too small for his hands to strangle properly. Stephanie Stanley, a DNA-specializing agent with SLED, positively identified the mutilated bodies from matching DNA strands found in Jones's car and home.
On September 1, Jones stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts on Labor Day in Spartanburg, South Carolina. On September 3, he went to a West Columbia Walmart. He purchased several items he used to mutilate his children, including large plastic bins, saws, and muriatic acid. Authorities believed his children were stored in the trunk of the car. His children were marked absent on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. Also, on September 3, Amber Jones contacted the authorities to inform them she could not reach her ex-husband or her children and that they had missed a scheduled visit at Chick-fil-A. Authorities listed the family as "missing" but did not announce it to the public until the following Tuesday, September 9, six days after their bodies were discovered. Police did not issue an Amber alert because Timothy Jones was listed as the custodial parent.
Discovery of bodies The bodies of Jones's five children were discovered in black trash bags off of a rural dirt road near Camden, Alabama. On Saturday, September 6, 2014, Jones was stopped in his Cadillac Escalade at a routine traffic checkpoint in Mississippi. Police noted that Jones seemed "very strange" and "maybe on the violent side." Initially, police suspected him of driving while under the influence of alcohol, but when they checked his South Carolina license plate, they were notified of the missing children. Further, police found blood and materials to produce methamphetamine in Jones's car. They found hand-written notes detailing how to mutilate bodies. He was also high on synthetic marijuana. Several days later, Jones led the Mississippi sheriff and FBI agents to where he had disposed of the corpses of his children. It was later revealed in court that Jones originally planned to dump the bodies near the Mexican border. It is unclear why Jones stopped in Alabama instead. Prosecutors posited that the stench of decomposition made Jones change his plans. An officer at the scene spoke that the car "smelled the stench of death" and was filled with blood, bleach, and maggots.
Dr. Janice Ross, who performed the autopsies, cited that the black bags sped up the decomposition process since they were placed in the sun. The bodies had been outdoors for approximately one week before they were recovered. In her report, she indicated that the bodies had been significantly decomposed by animal-eating and maggots.
Elias was the first autopsy performed. Ross noted that the body was in two separate trash bags and was clothed in a short-sleeved Saxe Gotha shirt. The report indicated that there was "tissue loss at neck; skeletonization at hands, decomposition, skin discoloration, internal organs decomposing, no natural disease, fracture of bone in neck shows strangulation." Merah, the second autopsy, was reportedly unclothed. Ross indicated that the child's left hand was missing and that there was significant tissue loss on her body. Gabriel's autopsy reported that he had "2 parallel lines on side of neck indicative of a ligature, made by something wide such as a belt or sash." Abigail, the fourth autopsy, had an empty stomach and had the least amount of decomposition. Lastly, the fifth autopsy, Nahtahn, revealed that the child's knee was cut with a saw or other sharp object. The body also had an incisor injury on the left femur. Ross determined the cause of death for all five children to be asphyxiation due to manual strangulation, listing each death as a homicide, but was unable to identify a specific time of death because of decay. Further, there was only one child with food in their stomach. Therefore, Ross posited that the children could have already been weak when they were murdered.
Jones was extradited to South Carolina. The acting sheriff of Lexington County, South Carolina stated that Jones initially refused to indicate why he murdered his children. According to court records, Jones struggled with feelings of anxiety, betrayal, and mistrust. Later, Jones admitted that he feared his children would kill him. Court records indicated that Jones claimed he feared his kids were "going to kill him, chop him up and feed him to the dogs." Jones was put on suicide watch in jail.
Trial The trial was streamed live in full on YouTube in May 2019.
Confession