Day three of the Timothy Jones trial features chilling testimony from investigators

Jones was charged with the murders of his five children back in 2014

LEXINGTON, S.C. (WOLO) — Testimony from investigators in Mississippi reveals what was inside Timothy Jones Jr.’s car at the time of his arrest, as well as his two conversations with law enforcement before he revealed where the bodies of his five children lay.

After Jones was arrested at a public safety checkpoint in Mississippi, Stacy Jones, a forensic scientist with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI), noticed a strong smell once she approached his Cadillac Escalade the next morning.

“There was, as I described, as decomposition, as old blood, if you’re familiar with that smell, and a chemical bleach type smell, all rolled into one,” the scientist said.

While she was taking photographs inside and outside the car, Jones says it was hard to move around in there at first.

“It was a lot of items stacked up in buckets and boxes and bags and just a huge amount of stuff throughout the entire vehicle,” Ms. Jones, who is not related to the defendant, said.

For 15 minutes, the forensic scientist read off a list consisting of several items including Bibles, children’s clothing, financial plans, and family photographs.

She says she also unearthed a Wal-Mart receipt for saw blades and muriatic acid, as well as a clipboard revealing the defendant’s plans to dispose of his children’s bodies.

Later that night, with his dad in the room, Jones Jr. told investigators why he killed his children.

Eric Johnson of the MBI said in his testimony Jones Jr. believed his six-year-old son, Nahtahn, wanted to “chop him up and feed him to the dogs.” Jones Jr. says he was pushed to kill the children after hearing voices from his mother, who had been hospitalized with schizophrenia.

When his father, who was in the interrogation room during the first interview in order to comfort his son, told him that he would do anything to help his mental health, Jones Jr. said the only way to help him is to “put a bullet in his head.”

During his two interviews, investigators said Jones Jr. was like “night and day” in how he handled himself, and agreed to guide them to the bodies, which were found in rural Alabama.

Jones Jr. was only in rural Alabama for ten minutes, then he was promptly brought back to Smith County in Mississippi.

The defendant, 37, started to tear up inside the courtroom when Johnson started to talk about the first interview. The trial continues Friday inside the Lexington County Courthouse around 9 a.m.