One more group of relatives asked a jury Wednesday to spare the lifestyles of a South Carolina father convicted of murdering his five kids, announcing they were through enough aches already.
The identical jury that convicted Timothy Jones Jr. Of killing his five children in their Lexington home in August 2014 is set to consider his fate Thursday morning. Jones, 37, can be sentenced to prison without parole if they do not conform to the death penalty unanimously.
One character the jury will not pay attention to in person is Jones himself. He declined to testify before becoming observed responsible and once more Wednesday at the quitting of his sentencing segment. South Carolina regulation would have allowed Jones to make a brief announcement in Thursday’s ultimate arguments to the jury. However, Jones told Circuit Judge Eugene Griffith he wouldn’t try this both.
They have heard from Jones through numerous confessions with the government and interviews with psychologists.
Jones confessed that Jones killed his 6-year-old son Nahtahn by working the boy to death as a punishment after he refused to admit he broke an electrical outlet.
Jones failed to call 911 when he found his son dead. Instead, he watched a prison rape scene from a movie on his cellphone, then determined to kill the alternative kids, in line with his confession and cellphone data.
Jones instructed police he strangled 8-12 months-antique Merah and 7-yr-vintage Elias together with his palms and used a belt to choke 2-year-vintage Gabriel and 1-year-old Abigail.
On Wednesday, the insufficient information of the killings retook a seat as Jones’ two 1/2 brothers, his half-sister, and his stepmother all testified. Earlier in the week, Jones’ father requested jurors to spare his lifestyle, and the mom of the five slain children stated she became in opposition to the demise penalty personally but became OK with it regardless of the jury’s decision.
They remembered a young guy who acted as a mentor while Jones’ 3 oldest kids were little.
The family contributors said Jones has much more to provide via being allowed to live out his lifestyle in jail than die on the top of a needle or inside the electric chair. They testified he ought to train different inmates as he guided them through complicated subjects at school.
They asked to spare Jones’ life because they did not want any greater after all the aches they suffered while the kids were killed five years ago.
“Don’t take one extra from us. Our own family cannot take it,” 1/2 brother Tyler Jones said.
Jones Jr. Wiped away tears on several instances. At the same time, his attorneys confirmed information pictures of a memorial provider his own family put on for the kids, whose ashes sit down in urns at their grandfather’s residence alongside the Mickey Mouse ears they wore. At the same time, their father took them to Disney World months earlier than killing them.
Prosecutors asked a few questions of the family individuals. But earlier Wednesday, they finished cross-examining social worker Deborah Grey, who spent 500 hours unraveling Jones’s existence from his grandmother’s upbringing to the kid’s deaths.
She testified about approximately rape, molestation, arguments, gunfire, and drug use for the defense Tuesday. But prosecutor Rick Hubbard pointed out Jones excelled in faculty, overcame a drug conviction inside the early 2000s, and even with a wife and youngsters, made it through university and into an $ 80,000-a-12 months computer engineer activity.
While the defense is arguing that undiagnosed intellectual illness drove Jones to kill his youngsters — a claim the jury has proven a few skepticisms about by deciding no longer to find him guilty, however mentally sick or now not guilty using the motive of madness — Hubbard and prosecutors stated he become an evil, selfish man who made terrible choice after awful choice.
Hubbard stated Jones started taking pills while his marriage broke up and selected to kill his youngsters after locating one son lifeless so his ex-wife could not have complete custody.
“He chose to ignore pleas for mercy from his children as he became strangling them,” Hubbard stated.
None of the four family participants who testified had tons to mention about the final year of the kids’ lives. Jones stopped speaking to them after a combat with his father over religion. They all regretted how he deteriorated in isolation.
“The guy who did this isn’t always the man sitting right here right now. I’m sorry, Tim. I sit down here, study you, and tell you which you aren’t all there any greater, brother. I’m sorry you must go through this too,” stated 1/2 brother Travis Jones.
