Father who killed his five children sobs in court after watching videos of them crying for their mother
Father found guilty of killing five of his children broke down in court as the prosecutors showed the jury two videos of his children crying, reports say. Timothy Jones Jr. was convicted of murdering his kids and was at the hearing held on Thursday, in Lexington, California. The hearing was to decide whether he should be given the death penalty,
In the videos, the children are crying or sad, begging their mom to come back. Jones was taken out of the courtroom crying after the videos were shown. The first clip showed a red-faced eight-year-old Merah Jones, crying and saying, "please Mommy... why?" Her father was reportedly heard in the background of the clip but did not reach out to comfort his daughter. In another clip, seven-year-old Elias Jones was heard weeping and saying, "I had a nightmare for you mommy." The videos were found from the children's mother Amber Jones Kyzer's cell phone after the murder and they were sent by Jones via text to Amber in June 2013, Shelby Derick, a former Lexington County Sheriff's Department deputy said, taking the stand.
The prosecutors also played a taped phone call that Jones had with his family members four months after the killing in August 2014. During the phone call, he pinned the reason for the murders on his ex-wife Kyzer, who he said had cheated on him with a teen who lived in the neighborhood. He had won the sole custody of his five children. "We blame Amber on this one," he had reportedly said, "If she had been home doing what she was supposed to do instead of bopping the boy next door, none of this happens," he said on the call.
Jones, 37, confessed to the murder of 6-year-old Nahtahn, who was forced to exercise for hours before he died. This was punishment for breaking an electrical outlet in their Lexington home in August 2014. Prosecutor Suzanne Mayes described what the children went through in detail and called it torture.
Jones is said to have left the body of Nahtahn at home with the rest of kids, considering what his next steps would be. He is said to have taken his oldest child with him and headed out to a store for cigarettes, he said during a confession. Jones said he strangled 8-year-old Merah and 7-year-old Elias with his hands and used a belt to choke 2-year-old Gabriel and 1-year-old Abigail because his hands were too big.
"He wasn't going to leave any witnesses alive," Mayes said.
However, Jones' lawyer argued that he didn't deserve the death penalty. "You don't have to kill Tim Jones. You don't kill people who are sick," Boyd Young said. He had extensively told the court that Jones was mentally ill and his use of synthetic marijuana had made the condition even worse. Boyd urged the jury to see Jones as someone who would live a better life if he was spared. "I think Tim's family has seen enough death. That's a reason for life for me," Young said.
As MEA World Wide had previously reported, the case first came to notice of the authorities after he was arrested at a drink-driving checkpoint in Smith County, Mississippi, on September 6, 2014. Authorities reportedly smelled a terrible odor coming from the vehicle, which they described as the "smell of death." When they searched Jones' Cadillac Escalade car, the cops found a bucket of chemicals, blood, maggots and children's clothes. Jones' attorney Boyd Young pleaded an insanity case, citing his client's mother's mental health, who is in a mental institution for over two decades after being diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Young, during the trial, attempted to suggest that Jones had the same illness too but his case was never diagnosed. The jury, however, did not agree with the argument.