New testimony sheds light on Timothy Jones’s faith and fears

Marriage counselor said Jones told her he heard voices but exhibited no other symptoms of schizophrenia

LEXINGTON, S.C. (WOLO) — Testimony in Day Eight of the Timothy Jones Jr. murder trial shed more light on Jones’s faith and what he says were his fears during his marriage.

Some people who took the stand today remember Jones as someone who had an intense devotion to his faith and family, but also as a person with crippling anxieties about abandonment.

When he introduced Jones to his newly started church in Lombard, Ill., in 2003, Pastor Micah Sutton says Jones frequently attended services, but his devotion to the church bothered some worshippers.

“We have a church of 25 people and there’s only one person who could make every one of them upset by the end of the service because of his dedication to trying to literally apply the word at every level,” said Sutton.

Sutton remembers Jones could remember long scriptures, but he would also call about the word often (one time at 2:30 a.m) and also believed the pastor’s wife was trying to seduce him.

Still, Sutton said he did not want to turn away Jones from the faith, and even officiated Jones’s wedding to his now ex-wife, Amber.

Years later, when Jones’s marriage was falling apart, April Hames, a marriage therapist, testified Jones came to her to vent about his fears.

“He said I’ve got a monster inside me, and now it’s gotten out,” Hames said. “His worst case scenario was she would get a job, and she would be with the man he suspected she was having an affair with, and then she would leave him.”

In their opening statement, Jones’s defense team said the end of his marriage triggered psychological issues he experienced as a child.

“His mother wouldn’t feed him as an infant, because she didn’t want a fat baby, so she withheld food from him. It’s incredibly bad for brain development. The drugs calmed him, they quieted the voices,” said Dr. Shawn Agharkar, a psychiatrist who specializes in studying schizophrenia.

However, the prosecution argued Jones was in full control of his actions when he took the lives of his five children in August 2014. They point to his frequent changing of stories to law enforcement after his arrest as reasons to question the validity of his condition.

In her testimony, Hames said Jones told her had thoughts of strangling his wife while venting about his fears that she would leave him.

She also said Jones told her he heard voices when their therapy sessions began in 2012, but she had no reason to believe he had schizophrenia at the time.

The day began with a continuation of testimony from Sgt. Adam Creech from the Lexington County Sheriff’s Office. Sgt. Creech, along with FBI Special Agent David Mackey (who testified last week), interviewed Jones a day after his arrest at a public safety checkpoint in Mississippi.

Meanwhile, Brenton Sadreameli, of the South Carolina Council on Indigent Defense, took the stand to confirm that his group found several books, most of which were religious texts, in the Jones home.

More witnesses are expected to take the stand Friday morning. Court will not be in session Monday due to Memorial Day.