Lexington County children likely were strangled

The five children of Timothy Jones Jr. might have been strangled – the first hint of the way they died – authorities in two states said Friday.

Wilcox County District Attorney Michael Jackson in Alabama told The State newspaper on Friday that investigators “believe it (the cause of death) was strangulation.”

But Jackson said later that investigators could not be sure because the bodies were so decomposed when they were found Tuesday along a road in the rural area.

Solicitor Donnie Myers, who will prosecute Jones in Lexington County, said he, too, had heard that the children were strangled.

“I have not seen the autopsy reports,” Myers said. “I’ve heard something about strangulation.”

Two other county officials with ties to S.C. law enforcement also said they have been told strangulation is believed to be the way the children died.

Lexington County law enforcement officials as well as officials in Newberry County who did the autopsies have been tight-lipped publicly about the cause of death.

Friday morning, Jones waived his initial appearance in court to address five murder charges in the deaths of the five children and the dumping of their bodies. One of Jones’ attorneys, state public defender Boyd Young, announced Jones’ decision at the start of the arraignment.

The procedure went on without him.

Jones wanted to avoid “a public spectacle,” according to a document filed in court shortly before the hearing.

His next court hearing is Nov. 13, Magistrate Brian Jeffcoat said.

Jones is accused of killing the children Aug. 28 at the family home in Red Bank. He had custody of the children after his 10-year marriage with his former wife, Amber, ended in divorce last October.

Attorney Aimee Zmroczek said after the hearing that Jones is upset with accounts of the killings.

“He is being portrayed as a monster,” she said. “He is just a man, and he is trying to deal with the situation.”

Zmroczek also said Jones’ state of mind needs to be reviewed.

“We have some concerns, obviously, about his mental health,” she said. “We need to make sure that gets looked at.”

Members of his family say he has had mental health issues, she said.

In a marriage therapist’s report that is part of the divorce records, Jones said his mother is mentally ill.

Zmroczek, whose future role in the case is unclear, said she was hired by Jones’ father initially but relinquished her representation of him to public defenders Friday.

She said Jones “is scared.”

Records show Jones has been in prison before.

According to documents obtained from the Illinois Department of Corrections, Jones, who was 20 at the time, was arrested in March 2001 for possession of a controlled substance.

Six months later, Jones also was arrested on charges related to burglary, forgery and possession of a stolen vehicle.

Jones was sentenced in 2002 to six-year concurrent terms for burglary, forgery and possession of a stolen vehicle according to documents from Michael Combs, chief of the criminal division of the McHenry County, Ill., State’s Attorney’s Office. Another year was added for the charge of possession of a controlled substance.

Jones was admitted to the Big Muddy Correctional Center in April 2002, but paroled out in less than a year, in January 2003. An Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman this week said Jones completed his obligations for the charges in January 2005.

That criminal history was not reflected in S.C. Department of Social Services records on the family that were released this week. Neither was any discussion of possible mental illness.

Timothy Ray Jones Sr., who lives in Mississippi, this week described his son’s past as “typical teenager doing stupid stuff, that’s about it.”

He said his son was an exemplary student who then decided to go into the Navy.

“After that, he started hanging in the wrong crowd and got himself in trouble,” the elder Jones told the Associated Press when asked about the criminal record.

In his written waiver presented in court Friday, Jones said he was advised by his attorneys that the hearing was “entirely unnecessary and will undermine my ability to receive a fair trial.”

Jones also expressed concerns in court documents that any comment that would come out during the hearing could influence potential jurors.

After the hearing, he was transferred to the state prison complex on Broad River Road, county officials said, after Sheriff Lewis McCarty expressed concern about Jones’ safety if he continued to be kept in the county jail.

While held overnight Thursday in the county jail, he was on suicide watch, Zmroczek said.

Neither family members nor the mother of the children appeared at Friday’s hearing.

On Sept. 3, when Amber Jones reported the children and her ex-husband missing, investigators entered the father and children into the National Crime Information Center database as missing.

The bodies of the three boys and two girls – identified as Merah, 8; Elias, 7; Nahtahn, 6; Gabriel, 2; and Elaine Marie, 1 – were found in plastic garbage bags six days later outside Camden, Ala.

With the bodies of his children in the car, Jones traveled from South Carolina to North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama before dumping them in Alabama, investigators said.

After disposing of the bodies, Jones went to Mississippi because he was a graduate of the University of Mississippi and his father lives there, investigators said.

The younger Jones was stopped at a checkpoint in Raleigh, Miss., on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Officers there discovered the notice about the missing children and took him into custody.

Mississippi authorities found blood and cleaning supplies in Jones’ Cadillac Escalade as well as children’s clothing, paraphernalia associated with making methamphetamine as well as synthetic marijuana known as “spice,” which has strong hallucinogenic side effects, McCarty has said.

This story was originally published September 12, 2014 at 10:29 PM with the headline "Lexington County children likely were strangled."