PINE APPLE, Ala. (AP) — Their little bodies shrouded in plastic bags, the five children of Timothy Ray Jones Jr. had been dead for days by the time he led investigators to the spot where they had been dumped among dead trees and scrub brush.
The children’s journey to that isolated hilltop in central Alabama covered hundreds of miles and crisscrossed several Southeastern states as Jones drove his Cadillac Escalade around for days, using bleach to try to mask the smell of the decomposing bodies, authorities said Wednesday.
Jones was arrested Saturday at a DUI checkpoint in Mississippi, about 500 miles from his hometown of Lexington, S.C. An officer said he “smelled the stench of death” along with chemicals used to make methamphetamine and synthetic marijuana. Jones was acting strangely and appeared “somewhat disoriented,” said Lewis McCarty, the acting sheriff in Lexington.
Court documents show the children’s brief lives were troubled, marred for years by discord between their parents. The divorce between Jones and his wife, Amber, finalized 11 months ago, included multiple allegations of adultery against the woman and resulted in the children bouncing back and forth between their home in South Carolina and northeastern Mississippi, where Jones’ family lives.
