Jeremy Bryan Jones (born April 12, 1973) is an American murderer and self-confessed serial killer. Convicted and sentenced to death for murdering a woman in Mobile, Alabama, in 2004, Jones later confessed to murdering 20 additional people in four other states before recanting. He has never been charged in any other murders, and the credibility of some of his confessions is considered dubious.
Biography Jeremy Bryan Jones was born on April 12, 1973, in Miami, Oklahoma, the elder of two boys. In the late 1970s, Jones' parents divorced and his mother remarried, but the family was nevertheless considered a stable one. Due to this stepfather's work as a carpenter, the Joneses were considered relatively well-off.
In contrast to this, however, Jeremy himself showed signs of anti-social and aggressive behavior from an early age, due to which neighbors avoided interacting with him. He also did not care about his academic achievements, and was frequently disciplined for his truancy and low grades. In the late 1980s, he developed an addiction to alcohol and began using drugs, and by the end of 1989, he was expelled from the Miami High School. He then briefly attended the Quapaw High School in nearby Quapaw, but as he preferred to spend his time on the streets, Jones was eventually expelled in 1991, shortly before the end of the 12th grade. His actions got him into conflict with family members.
In January 1990, Jones was arrested for assaulting a boy - during the incident, his own mother attempted to protect the victim, but was herself beaten as well. He was then charged with two counts of assault, but they were eventually dropped after the victims reconciled. Utilizing his charisma, Jones was considered popular among the young women in his hometown, with whom he would often have sex.
Move to Kansas and murder of Jennifer Judd In early 1992, Jones left Miami with one of his girlfriends and moved to Baxter Springs, Kansas, where he lived with a highschool friend named Justin Judd. As he had no formal education, he resorted to working in low-skilled labor, causing him and his girlfriend to experience financial hardship. The pair frequently argued, during which Jones physically assaulted his girlfriend - Judd frequently called the police, but no case was initiated because the girlfriend refused to file charges.
On May 9, Justin Judd married his girlfriend Jennifer, whom he had known since high school. Two days after their wedding, an intruder broke into their home while Justin was away, bound Jennifer and proceeded to stab her multiple times. During the investigation, Jones was named as a suspect based on the testimony of Justin, who claimed that he was interested in her. Jones insisted that he was innocent, and since there was no credible evidence to charge him, he was released.
Rapes After the murder of Jennifer Judd, Jones broke up with his girlfriend, left Baxter Springs, and began to live a criminal lifestyle. During this period, he changed several places of residence, earned a living as a day laborer and occasional committed petty thefts. On November 5, 1995, Jones was arrested for rape, but was released after posting bail and fled. Between November 1995 and January 1996, he committed two additional crimes. On January 10, 1996, he was arrested in Oklahoma on charges of rape and unlawful possession of methamphetamine. During the investigation, police were contacted by a woman who claimed that Jones had assaulted her at gunpoint. He was subsequently convicted of the drug possession charge and sentenced to two years imprisonment, which he served at the Dick Conner Correctional Center in Hominy.
He was granted parole and released in early 1997, but was soon taken into custody over the rapes. During his trial, Jones, on the advice of his attorney, agreed to plead guilty on three counts of assault and sexual harassment, but his victims refused to appear in court, due to which their testimony was considered questionable. On March 3, 1997, Jones was placed on probation for five years and released from the courthouse - however, as he was diagnosed with a mental impairment, he was placed on a psychiatric registry, ordered to see a psychiatrist regularly and to give DNA samples. Jones refused to comply with the court orders, and continued to commit crimes.
Fugitive In 2000, he became a suspect in two additional rapes, due to which his probation was revoked and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Upon learning of this, Jones left Oklahoma and moved to Joplin, Missouri, where he met a woman in a bar whose son, John Paul Chapman, was serving a sentence at a state prison. With his charisma, Jones won her affection and sympathy and moved in with her. Sometime afterwards, he persuaded the woman to sell him her son's papers and social security card for $50, after which he stole the man's identity and left the state in December 2000.
Under the name of Chapman, Jones moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where he lived for two years before financial difficulties caused him to move to Georgia. On May 1, 2003, he was at the "Gipson's Restaurant and Lounge" bar in Douglasville when he met Vicki Freeman, who was 13 years older than him. The two soon became roommates, frequently changing places of residence and jobs over the following two years.
In October 2003, Jones was arrested for disorderly conduct and taken to a police station, where his fingerprints were run through IAFIS. However, due to a glitch in the system, his true identity was not revealed, and when his fingerprints were entered a second time, he was falsely identified as John Paul Chapman. After paying the administrative fine, Jones was released and left Georgia to seek work, spending several weeks in New Orleans, Louisiana. In late January 2004, he returned to Georgia, where he was soon arrested in Atlanta for trespassing. He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to three months imprisonment in the county jail, and released in March 2004.
Soon after his release, Jones reunited with Freeman and found work as a day laborer, but was re-arrested for drug possession in June of that year. He again pleaded guilty, and due to the court's leniency, he was given another three months at the county jail. Upon his release in early September, he left Georgia and headed for Alabama, where there was a desperate need to repair buildings in cities across the state, which had recently been hit by Hurricane Ivan.
Murder of Lisa Nichols Background On September 15, 2004, Jones arrived in Turnerville, a small community near Satsuma, where he had been hired to do some construction and renovation work for Mark and Kim Bentley. Still impersonating Chapman, he informed Mark that he was looking for work and housing, whereupon Bentley offered that he could stay in their trailer with his cousin Scooter Coleman - shortly afterwards, the Bentleys and their children left to visit some friends in Chickasaw. Early the next day, Jones phoned Kim Bentley and said that he needed some batteries and a radio, with Bentley informing him that he could find them in the bedroom closet - however, she demanded that he work with Coleman to find said items, as she did not trust him. According to Coleman's later testimony, Jones found a .25 caliber handgun while searching the closet shelves, which he appropriated for himself under the guise of protecting himself from looters who were stealing from vacant houses during the hurricane.
Later that evening, the Bentleys returned home. On the day afterwards, everyone started doing repairs in the backyard when they were suddenly visited by 43-year-old Lisa Marie Nichols, a neighbor who had recently returned to Turnerville after waiting for Hurricane Ivan to pass. Jones overheard from a conversation she had with one of the Bentleys that she was single and living alone. That same evening, he went to the home of another neighbor, Chris Hill, whereupon the two men drank alcohol and consumed drugs for several hours. On September 17, everyone was doing repairs in the backyard again, and by the evening, Kim Bentley left her husband and Jones a package containing several cans of Bud Light beer and left the home with her children. At the same time, Coleman also left to visit a friend named Joel Tough Edge. A couple of hours later, Mark Bentley finished the repairs, after which the former left to go to a fast food restaurant. The nearest open restaurant at the time was a Hardee's in Citronelle, about a 30-minute drive from the Bentley home, and accounting for the queue, it took Bentley two hours to get there.
The murder After all other occupants had left, Jones took the handgun and a package of Bud Light beers and went to Nichols' house. He broke in and raped her at gunpoint, ultimately shooting her three times with the handgun. In an attempt to destroy evidence, he returned to the Bentleys' house and took a gas canister which he brought back with him. Jones then placed her corpse in the bathtub before dousing it with flammable liquid and setting it on fire. He then returned to the Bentley house, changed clothes, took a shower and waited for the others to return.
Later that evening, Mark Bentley heard noises through his open window and smelled gasoline. While looking around the yard, he found Jones with four cans of gasoline - upon noticing this, Jones asked if he could use them to fuel his car for an overnight drive around town. Bentley refused, as he had grown suspicious of him, after which both men went to bed. On the following day, Nichols' daughters Jennifer Murphy and Amber Nichols, as well as her son-in-law, Todd McKerchie, arrived in Turnerville, informing Kim that Lisa had failed to show up for work and was not answering their phone calls. As there was still no electricity in the house, McKerchie started searching around with a flashlight when he discovered Nichols' charred remains. McKerchie and Nichols' daughters then went to the Bentleys and told them to call the police while McKerchie, Mark Bentley and neighbor Scott Colemeno continued to inspect the house to understand what had happened. During this time, they noticed that Jones was acting weirdly, expressing no emotion upon hearing of the body being discovered and refusing to cooperate with the Mobile County Sheriff's Department during interviews.
Flight, identification, and arrest On the morning of September 19, Jones fled Turnerville. While officers were investigating the house, they found three .25 caliber bullets lodged into a wall - when questioned, Bentley admitted to having a gun and gave it to the police. Investigators determined from the smell of gunpowder, soot residue and bullet casings that the gun had been fired recently, and when sent for an examination, it was revealed to be the murder weapon. The Bentleys and Coleman were brought in for questioning, with Coleman claiming that the gun may have been stolen from the man he knew as "Chapman". A search of the rooms led to the discovery of an empty Bud Light beer can with fingerprints on it that investigators believed was used by the killer. After Kim Bentley told police that "Chapman" and her husband had drunk Bud Light on the day of the murder, "Chapman" was included as a suspect and sought for questioning.