Posted on 11/03/2005 2:16:52 PM PST by Graybeard58
Authorities say convicted murderer roamed the country, remorselessly taking lives
Convicted killer Jeremy Bryan Jones is a remorseless "monster" who roamed America for more than a decade, killing as many as 25 men, women and children, law enforcement authorities said Wednesday.
Jones, 32, of Miami, Okla., was convicted of four counts of capital murder last week in a Mobile County courtroom in connection with the September 2004 slaying of Lisa Marie Nichols. The jury recommended that he be put to death by lethal injection.
A Mobile County Sheriff's Office investigator said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference that Jones enjoyed committing rape and murder.
Mobile County Sheriff Jack Tillman and Alabama Attorney General Troy King had called the news conference to outline 13 slayings in Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama they said Jones has confessed to.
King and Tillman said Jones provided details about the 13 slayings that only the killer would know.
"Sheriff Tillman has told me that the killing spree that Jeremy Jones engaged in stretches across this land," the attorney general said.
"We are saying that Jeremy Jones has a history of violent, criminal behavior, and there very well may be other bodies in other states that he is responsible for."
The sheriff and the attorney general said they'll assist any other law enforcement agencies that want to extradite Jones to their states for trial.
Several Atlanta-area news reporters and camera crews attended the Wednesday conference at the Mobile County Metro Jail barracks across from the main jail.
Mobile County Cpl. Paul Burch, who helped arrest and convict Jones, said Jones showed no remorse for slaying Nichols and the 12 others he has claimed to have killed.
"He was very nonchalant," Burch said. "I wouldn't say he is remorseful or proud. He was just matter-of-fact.
"He enjoyed raping and killing."
Nichols, 45, was raped and shot to death in her Turnerville mobile home after Hurricane Ivan ravaged the area. Her body was set on fire to hide evidence.
Describing Jones as a serial killer, King said Jones was a man "who posed greater harm to Lisa Nichols than the hurricane."
Nichols' daughters, Amber Nichols and Jennifer Murphy, stood by silently as the law enforcement officials talked about Jones, who is being held under suicide watch at Mobile County Metro Jail.
The attorney general said Nichols' daughters were courageous when they testified and helped convict Jones.
Burch said Jones came into contact with his victims in a variety of ways.
"Sometimes (he met them) in bars, sometimes they were people he knew, sometimes he would just be driving through a parking lot and try to grab them," Burch said. "He tried to blame methamphetamines. He said that brought the urges out in him."
Tillman said Jones made his first kill in May 1992, when he was 19. The victim was 20-year-old Jennifer Judd, who was stabbed to death in Baxter Springs, Kan.
The sheriff said Jones' youngest victims were three 16-year-old girls. Two of them, Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman, were shot to death the same night in Welch, Okla., he said.
Freeman's parents, Kathy and Danny Freeman, were killed that night, and Bible was spending the night with the Freemans because it was Ashley's 16th birthday, the sheriff said.
Amanda Greenwell, 16, was killed in Douglasville, Ga. Jones was living in the same mobile home park as Greenwell, Tillman said.
Tillman said another of Jones' young victims was Justin Hutchings of Pitcher, Okla. The 19-year-old man was killed by an injection of methamphetamine and some other chemical in September 1999, he said.
In addition, Burch said, Jones also has confessed to killing at least five unnamed prostitutes in the metro Atlanta area.
He's also a suspect in the slayings of at least three prosti tutes in the Mobile area, Tillman said. Jones confessed to killing the women but did not know their names, the sheriff said.
Their bodies were dumped in a Chickasaw swamp, Jones told authorities, and despite efforts to drain and search the swamp with cadaver sniffing dogs, the bodies have not been found.
Asked by reporters if Jones may have lied about the 13 slayings, Tillman said, "I think if somebody tells you of the victims' names, where they lived, how he killed them, where he dumped their bodies, don't you think that would be a good profile to follow through on?"
Burch said, "He has maintained all along that what he told law enforcement is accurate and true. He stands by all the information that he has provided to us in the past."
When arrested in Mobile County, Jones lied and told deputies his name was John Paul Chapman.
"He lived under assumed names, he moved in and out of personalities without any effort at all. It made him a more effective killer. It made him more effective at what he does," King said. "I think the description is appropriate, that he is a monster."
Mobile County Circuit Judge Charles Graddick will announce Dec. 1 whether he will uphold the jury's recommendation of lethal injection or sentence Jones to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Jones is being held in a small cell at Mobile County Metro Jail on suicide watch. He told a Mobile Register reporter that all his clothing had been removed from the cell, and he had been given only a blanket made of a material that cannot be torn or made into a noose.
Jones is being held... on suicide watch... all his clothing had been removed from the cell, and he had been given only a blanket made of a material that cannot be torn or made into a noose.
Should let him take his own life. Can't do that. It would deprive the bereaved relatives of the deceased from witnessing his death by lethal injection. Why not allow the bereaved relatives benefit by stoning him to death? Can't do that either. It would deprive the State of benefiting by parading it's power.
The gillotine would be very fitting for this piece of excrement.
Way too quick and painless. Something like 10,000 cuts, with fresh salt applied every hour on the hour, for at least a period of several years is more like it.
Oh...thought this was about Nagin's jones.
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