Timothy Jones Jr.

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. ==The 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. 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. Authorities believed his children were stored in the trunk of the car. His children were marked absent on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. 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. 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 put on suicide watch in jail. ==The trial==

Confession Jones was found guilty of murdering his five children. However, the court-appointed psychologist later declared that Jones made a conscious decision to kill his children. Conversely, Jones's psychiatrist and lawyer defended that he was insane and incapable of reasoning. In court, Jones sobbed throughout the playing of the recording of his confession. Joy Lorick, a family babysitter, described the Jones home as dirty, having bugs, unclean dishes, strewn clothes, and trash scattered about. Lorick further said that she attempted to tidy up around the house, wash dishes, and feed the children. She testified that one child requested that she not tell the father she fed them "because he might not feed us again." Lorick filed a complaint against Jones with the Department of Social Services after she discovered that one of the children had a black eye. The school nurse at Saxe Gotha Elementary, Karen Leonhardt, described that the children were "in good health" and that they were up-to-date on their vaccinations and that there was no physical impairments. However, when Merah, the eldest child, appeared at school with head lice, Leonhardt met with Timothy Jones. Jones commented that he used kerosene, a flammable liquid dangerous to the touch and to ingest, to attempt to kill the parasite and their eggs. When Leonhardt suggested using a hair dryer, Jones indicated that he'd prefer to use a heat gun. This interaction prompted Leonhardt to contact DSS. On the stand, the police officer that stopped Jones in Alabama stated that when he asked Jones why his car smelled like garbage, Jones replied, "it is garbage." Verdict After 15 days of testimony, on June 4, 2019, a jury found Timothy Jones guilty of all five counts of murder. On June 13, a jury agreed on the existence of an aggravating circumstance and sentenced Jones to death. Jones was one of two men sentenced to death in South Carolina in 2019. As of 2023 he is awaiting execution on death row. According to Lexington County officials, South Carolina taxpayers paid $647,653.27 for Jones's trial. Appeal In 2021 Jones requested the South Carolina Supreme Court to look at the case. Jones's attorney claims that the trial was unfair. On March 29, 2023, the Court issued an opinion affirming his conviction and death sentence. ==See also==