Posted on 09/03/2006 6:34:50 PM PDT by Graybeard58
ATMORE — A Monroeville man awaiting execution for the 2004 bludgeoning of his parents, Nancy and Dr. Tim Jones, took his own life on Holman Prison’s death row Saturday, according to several officials.
Monroe County District Attorney Tommy Chapman said prison officials contacted him late Saturday to report that Timothy Jason Jones, 31, died late Saturday after slashing himself with a blade. Calls to Holman Prison were referred to Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett, but were not returned Sunday. Officials in Monroe County and Escambia County confirmed they had been notified of Jason Jones’ death, but no further details were available.
“It is fitting with his character to take the coward’s way out,” said Chapman. “I feel for the family members of Tim and Nancy Jones who did all they could to help Jason all his life, and they will never be able to heal the hurt he left behind. I guess in his mind, this was his way of winning. In reality, everyone lost.”
Jason Jones was arrested after co-workers reported Dr. Tim Jones was late to work on Jan. 29, 2004. Neighbors and police who arrived at the Jones home found a horrific scene. Tim Jones had been beaten and repeatedly stabbed in the carport of the house and Nancy Jones lay battered beyond recognition in her bed.
Jason Jones was caught later that day driving his mother’s car in north Alabama. He crashed the car after fleeing from police.
Neighbors said the young man had spent years in and out of various rehabilitation clinics for drug addictions. His parents had recently taken a family-owned sports utility vehicle from Jason Jones, refusing to return it when he demanded to use it the night before their deaths. According to trial testimony, police called to the home during the night said he was belligerent and brandishing a knife in the Jones’ yard at one point.
Police took him across town and dropped off at a telephone booth as his parents requested. Later in the night, he returned to the Jones’ home, but his father locked him in a basement room at his grandparents’ home. He later broke out of the vacant home, walked back to his parents’ house and attacked his father as he left for work in the early morning.
Jason Jones then attacked his mother with a weapon he told police he fashioned from pipe and other objects at his grandparents’ house. She was beaten so savagely that parts of her jaw and teeth were found scattered across the room. Jones told police in taped statements he took money from her purse and bought crack cocaine, smoking it in the house before fleeing.
Jones was convicted of capital murder by a Jefferson County jury last year and sentenced to death. In his last statement to the jury, Jones said, “I am a monster. I have no remorse for what I did. I deserve to die.”
Monroe County Sheriff Tom Tate said Sunday he was not surprised by Jason Jones’ apparent suicide. “If a person is intent on killing himself, he will find a way,” Tate said. “He used a piece of metal grating broken from our jail to cut himself in the neck while he was in our custody,” Tate said.
“It won’t change what happened, but his death will bring some things full circle. The murders of Tim and Nancy Jones made up the most atrocious and brutal crime we have seen in our county,” said Tate.
Attorney Katharine Coxwell, one of Nancy Jones’ closest friends, said the news of Jason Jones’ death brought an odd feeling on Sunday.
“The thing about it that to me is especially tragic and sad is this,” Coxwell said. “If he were going to kill himself, he could have done it a long time ago, long before he killed Tim and Nancy. Now there are three people dead, and two did not deserve to be dead. His death will bring an end to part of this, but a lot of the hurt will never be over.”
Coxwell said family members accepted the news with surprise, but there was no rejoicing.
“There is really nothing happy here one way or another,” Coxwell said. “What he did to himself was terrible. What he did to his parents will haunt us all for the rest of our lives.”
Excellent! Frankly, they ought to give all of them their shoelaces back..
The gallows birds in each adjoining cell would be given a meal of steak and lobster following a dignified farewell service after each incident that is unless they were filing appeals and trying every legal maneuvar to postpone their date with the needle.
If nothing else, this demonstrates the need for force and authoritarian methods in prison. Jason Jones was on death row, typically locked down 23 hours a day, and was still able to fashion a lethal weapon there.
Well..let's hope that some appellate court will overturn his death and return him to life..right..that is how it works..right????
he cheated the hangman.
Think of it as a "tax cut". The citizens of that state saved money.
Am I supposed to be sad that death came sooner to a murderer on DEATH row ?
If only crack were legal! /s
LOL. Don't you understand, America is a fascist state until I am allowed to hit the pipe uninhibited in my home.
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