Solicitor reflects on Timothy Jones Jr. death penalty trial one year later

Timothy Jones Jr. was sentenced to death June 13, 2019 for the murders of his five children five years earlier

LEXINGTON COUNTY, S.C. (WOLO) — It’s been one year since Timothy Jones Jr. was given the death penalty for the murders of his five children, but Solicitor Rick Hubbard of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit (which covers Lexington, Edgefield, McCormick, and Saluda Counties) says not a day goes by where he doesn’t think about the trial.

“It’s something that just sticks with you,” Hubbard said.

The Timothy Jones Jr. murder trial began with jury selection on April 30, 2019. After a two week window of narrowing the jury pool, opening statements took place May 14 and testimony began the next day. On June 4, the jury found Jones guilty of murdering all five of his children. After one week’s worth of testimony in the death penalty phase, the jury sentenced Jones to death on June 13.

Authorities say August 28, Jones killed his five children, including four by strangulation in his Red Bank home. Jones had been working as a software engineer at Intel during the day and raising the five children following a divorce from his wife.

Testimony from the trial illustrated Jones’s actions in the days after the five children died. Authorities say he drove around the Southeastern United States, disposing of the bodies in rural Alabama before being arrested at a public safety checkpoint in Mississippi September 6.

The five children (three sons: Elias, Nahtahn, and Gabriel, and two daughters: Merah and Abigail) ranged in age from one to eight.

“It’s something where you just don’t stop thinking about a case like this, after we put so much time and effort into it, and dealing with something of this magnitude, it’s something where you don’t just walk away from,”Hubbard said.

During the month-long trial, more than 60 people, including family members, teachers, and officers, took the stand. Among those who testified were Jones’s ex-wife, grandmother, father, co-workers at Intel, and teachers at Saxe Gotha Elementary School (where the three oldest went to school). 

Jones’s defense team argued for the jury to find him not guilty by reason of insanity. They called up several doctors who interview Jones and looked at images of his brain. A court-appointed psychiatrist later testified that Jones did not suffer from schizophrenia.

Hubbard says hearing testimony from teachers in the penalty phase was one of the more emotional parts of the trial.

“To see how affected those teachers were, to see how the teachers loved those children, that to me will always stick with me,” Hubbard said.

Jones is currently on death row at Broad River Correctional Institute. Shortly after his conviction, his defense team filed an appeal that is currently in the hands of the South Carolina Supreme Court.

Hubbard says a team with the South Carolina Attorney General’s office is handling the appeal on behalf of his office. He says even as the case goes into this next phase, the impact of fighting for Merah, Elias, Nahtahn, Gabriel, and Abigail will never be forgotten.

“This case is something that we’re going to take with us, and I think it’s just good to remember the children and what gifts they were when they were here,” Hubbard said.