How did Ashley Henley's sister die? Kristina Jones was found dead in burned trailer in 2020
YALOBUSHA COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI: Ashley Henley, a teacher and Republican politician who served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from the 40th district from 2016 to 2020, was shot and killed while mowing grass on Sunday, June 13. Henley’s body was found by Yalobusha County deputies on Patricia Drive in the Water Valley Boat Landing community on Sunday night around 10 pm, Assistant District Attorney Steven Jubera said. Her death is being investigated as a homicide.
Jubera said the 40-year-old’s body was found where her sister-in-law Kristina Michelle Jones’ body was found on December 27, 2020. Jones’ death is also being investigated. “We are going back to square one (in Jones' case) after receiving an initial Fire Marshal’s report and lab reports,” Jubera said. “We are looking at that with fresh eyes."
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Who was Ashley Henley? Ex Miss. rep killed at the same property where sister-in-law was found dead
“(Henley) was a nice lady — I met with her previously,” Jubera added to the media. “That family has gone through a lot in the last six months… We will investigate this as thoroughly as possible — do everything possible to get it right.”
What makes things more bizarre is that Henley had expressed frustration with the investigation of her sister-in-law’s death on social media often prior to her demise. As recently as May 25, she had shared on Facebook a copy of Jones’ death certificate, calling the findings — Cause of death: Unknown and Manner of Death: Undetermined — “absolutely unacceptable”.
In fact, the Washington Post reported that Henley and her husband Brandon had transformed the place where Jones’ body was found into a makeshift shrine, including an oversized wooden sign that read “I WAS MURDERED”.
How did Kristina Michelle Jones die?
In an April 10 Facebook post, Henley had written, “We have been silent long enough. For the past three months, my family has held ourselves close, grieving in secret, to cooperate with the requests of the Yalobusha County Sheriff's Department as they proclaimed to be working on the investigation into the murder of my sister-in-law, which occurred at approximately 1:30 AM on December 26th, 2020.”
Jones had been found dead in her scorched bedroom in a trailer owned by her father in the early hours after Christmas Day. The home was set ablaze around 1:30 am. The county coroner said at the time that there were no signs of gunshot wounds and that the investigation is ongoing. Police have not ruled out homicide as the cause of death.
Brandon Henley said he believes the same person killed both women. “I have my own theory, and the police do too,” he said, adding that police have already interviewed a suspect. “I’d like for them to do their job because this is the second person someone down there has taken from me. My son doesn’t have a mother.”
Earlier, Brandon had said that investigators had ruled the fire as arson and found that there was no smoke in Jones’s lungs, signaling that she had died before the fire. Neither the Yalobusha County Sheriff’s Office nor local fire officials have commented on this.
State Rep Dan Eubanks, Henley’s close colleague during her time in the state House, said of the former rep’s death: “I really believe that what happened was, she continued to pursue certain leads and she ruffled some feathers and somebody wanted to put an end to that search. It’s obvious that it was an execution-style murder. Somebody wanted her dead. They didn’t rob her, they didn’t take any of her stuff… They killed her and just moved on.”