Kaitlyn Coones: Ohio teenager faces murder charges for bludgeoning her 33-year-old boyfriend’s mother to death
CLEVELAND, OHIO: Kaitlyn Coones, a 17-year-old girl from Cleveland, Ohio, allegedly killed her boyfriend’s mother with a rock after he failed to comply with her demand to “do something about her” within five hours, authorities said.
Coones is facing murder charges for the death of Nicole Jones, 53, in April who disapproved of her son Jonathan Jones’ relationship with the underage girl.
Jonathan Jones, 33, was previously convicted of child endangerment
Jonathan, 33, was previously convicted of child endangerment and other charges for his illegal affair with Coones according to reports.
According to prosecutors, Coones left her foster home in April to be with Jonathan and told him to get rid of his mother who was preventing them from being together.
Detective Jake Albright of the Sylvania Township Police Department said in court Friday, November 17, “Kaitlyn had told Jonathan that they needed to do something about his mother because she was preventing them from being together, and she gave him five hours to do something about her,” Cleveland 19 News reported.
When the deadline passed and Jonathan did nothing, Coones decided to take matters into her own hands. She grabbed a rock from outside and attacked Nicole in the kitchen, hitting her several times and strangling her. Jonathan was sitting in the living room and did not intervene, prosecutors say.
Kaitlyn Coones and Jonathan Jones tried to cover up the murder and flee to Mexico
The couple then went to two local stores and bought tarp and trash bags to wrap the body and clean the blood. They put the body in Jonathan’s car and drove to a nearby apartment complex where they dumped it in a trash bin that was later taken to a landfill, as reported by ABC 13.
Police say it is unlikely that Nicole’s body will ever be recovered.
After disposing of the body, the two suspects fled to Mexico where they were arrested the following month.
Police were alerted by a text message that Coones sent to a nurse from her foster home, saying she had killed two people and was on the run. It is unclear who the other victim may have been.
How did police track Kaitlyn Coones and Jonathan Jones?
Coones confessed to the murder and gave details that matched the GPS data from Jonathan’s phone and watch, authorities reportedly said.
Jonathan was wearing an ankle monitor as part of his previous sentence which helped police track him down.
Coones is now charged with murder, aggravated murder, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.
The couple was a year before walking together, however, “at that time, the victim did provide a false name and birthday to officers."
Her lawyer, Ann Baronas, has argued that she was a victim of Jonathan who manipulated her and violated the no-contact order. The nude pictures and the couple getting intimate were also recovered from Jonathan's phone.
Jonathan is also facing charges in connection with his mother’s murder and is being held on a $1.125 million bond.