Memories of slain children still strong

Sorrow overtakes Crystal Akins of Red Bank when she thinks about the five children who once played with her daughter.

“I try to get it out of my mind,” she said of the youngsters allegedly killed by their father, Timothy Jones Jr., a year ago. “It’s so sad and tragic.”

Memories of the youngsters’ deaths remain strong across Lexington County despite a court order that Jones’ lawyers obtained to prevent disclosure of some findings about the killings before a trial, expected no sooner than late spring.

Jones, 33, is charged with five counts of murder in the deaths of his children – Merah, 8, Elias, 7, Nahtahn, 6, Gabriel, 2, and Elaine, 1.

The divorced father, who worked for a computer technology company in Columbia, had custody of the children. He is accused of killing them last Aug. 28 at the family home, one of a dozen trailers in a mobile home park carved into a hillside along S.C. 6, known locally as South Lake Drive.

It is one of the largest mass murders in the Midlands in decades.

Prosecutors haven’t announced whether they will seek the death penalty. But Jones’ lawyers Rob Madsen and Boyd Young repeatedly have said in court records that they are preparing for that.

The crime scene tape and warning sign above the door of the mobile home where Jones lived with his children – it said “Is there life after death? Trespass here and find out” – is long gone.

But state Sen. Katrina Shealy still remembers the children every time she drives along the road to and from her nearby home.

“It’s a terrible, terrible tragedy,” she said. “People are still talking about those poor Jones children. The scar is always going to be there.”

A way to remember them

An unofficial commemoration of the children has surfaced at Saxe Gotha Elementary, a school the oldest three attended.

The name of each is included subtly in a new mural in the school library.

Lexington 1 officials declined to discuss the painting, citing the gag order.

The slayings raised questions about the performance of state Social Services officials called in to investigate various abuse and neglect allegations involving the children and their mother.

One report from agency staff said Jones seemed “overwhelmed.” But other DSS reports in the three years before the killings concluded the children appeared fine when the complaints were reviewed.

When the children were killed, DSS defended how it handled the family’s case. Agency officials still do.

Some of the complaints apparently came from educators, who would have interacted with the children at school, Shealy said.

Jones had custody of the children after a 10-year marriage with his wife, Amber, ended in divorce in October 2013.

She has moved – she had lived nearby – and hasn’t been seen or heard from publicly since she reported the children missing when Jones didn’t drop them off for a custody visit.

But she was grateful recently for an effort to create a memorial for abused children that would be dedicated to hers, according to one leader of the effort. “She called out of the blue to express thanks and said she might drop by,” bar owner Shawn Doeing said. “But she said later she couldn’t do it because of the gag order.”

The memorial proposal hasn’t solidified. The group hasn’t returned to Town Council with revised drawings for the sculpture that would be placed in a Lexington town park, Mayor Steve MacDougall said.

It would be a place to remember the five energetic children.

It is not public knowledge where the children are buried. Family members won’t say, and funeral home director Todd Caughman, who oversaw arrangements for the private funerals, couldn’t be reached last week.

An obituary submitted by the family that was published in The State newspaper said “five precious children have earned their angel wings” and recounted something about each.

“The lives of these children would seem too short to many, but their amazing personalities will continue to shine light throughout the lives of those whom (sic) loved them dearly,” it said.

What don’t we know?

The children’s father was stopped Sept. 6 at a traffic safety checkpoint in Raleigh, Miss., on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The children, who by then had been missing for days, were not with him, investigators have said.

The traffic stop ended Jones’ odyssey of more than a week of driving through the Southeast, the bodies of the children in plastic garbage bags in his SUV for part of that trip, authorities have said.

The vehicle contained “a large amount of blood and handwritten notes with directions to kill and mutilate bodies,” according to an arrest warrant. It added that a search of the vehicle revealed “a significant amount of bleach products (aroma) along with blood.”

Traces of synthetic marijuana also were found in the vehicle, police said.

The children’s bodies were found three days later on a hillside outside Camden, Ala., after Jones led investigators there.

The news was a shock to people in Lexington County and the Midlands. No Amber Alert had gone out on the children. No one knew to look for an SUV or that five children might be in danger.

Jones told investigators he believed his children planned to kill him and then “chop him up and feed him to the dogs,” according to an arrest warrant revealed in court after authorities blacked out that detail beforehand.

Shortly after his arrest, Columbia attorney Aimee Zmroczek, hired by Jones’ parents, who live in Mississippi, said his mental condition needed to be evaluated since he had been treated in the past for problems she would not specify. She said she still represents the parents and declined comment, citing the gag order.

Jones, who had served a little more than a year in prison in Illinois on charges of car theft, burglary and forgery before his marriage, worked for computer technology company Intel at its offices in St. Andrews.

Lexington County authorities believe Jones killed the children at home Aug. 28 after picking them up from school and day care.

Jones beat Nahthan to death and strangled the other four, according to indictments.

Some aspects of the handling of the family’s home life by Department of Social Services officials will not be made public until after the trial at the request of authorities, Shealy said.

“Did they do everything they could have done?” she said. “Probably not. There should have been more follow-up.”

No changes in DSS procedures have occurred as a “direct result” of what happened with Jones, agency spokeswoman Marilyn Matheus said.

“DSS, in tandem with law enforcement, took appropriate actions given the information and evidence apparent at the time,” she said.

Shealy also faults Family Court officials for not insisting Jones receive extra help in coping with five young children as part of the divorce agreement.

Some residents of the Red Bank neighborhood where the children were allegedly killed said the incident taught them a bitter lesson about being more observant and willing to intervene when there are potential signs of child abuse.

“What happened stays in the back of our minds,” Dorothy Wood said. “We watch a lot closer on people coming into this area.”

This story was originally published August 22, 2015 at 7:22 PM with the headline "Memories of slain children still strong."