LEXINGTON, s.c. — A South Carolina man described as a smart, loving father confessed to killing his five children and dumping their bodies in a secluded clearing in Alabama, authorities said Wednesday.
Timothy Ray Jones Jr., 32, will be charged with five counts of murder, and officials think he acted alone, said Acting Sheriff Lewis McCarty of Lexington County.
Authorities think all five children — ages 1 to 8 —were killed at the same time, but they said they didn’t yet know how or why. Autopsies were scheduled for Thursday.
The case has unfolded in the past two weeks, covering five states and about 700 miles in what the sheriff called a “logistical nightmare.”
It wasn’t until Tuesday afternoon, when authorities made the gruesome discovery of the children’s bodies, that they went public with the case.
“We were trying to balance the children and the investigation against the releasing of information,” McCarty said. “I am a police officer. I’m not a politician. My job basically is to get this job done.”
Jones’ father, Timothy Jones Sr., said the family’s hearts are broken, and he called his son a loving dad.
“We do not have all the answers, and we may never have them,” he said in a brief statement outside his home in Amory, Miss. “But anyone who knows Little Tim will agree that he is not the animal he will be portrayed as through the media.”
He did not take questions from reporters.
Timothy Ray Jones Jr. was stopped at what officials called a sobriety checkpoint Saturday in Mississippi. A deputy spotted bleach, blood and children’s clothes in his 2006 Cadillac Escalade. It would be another three days before the children’s bodies were discovered.
He was charged with driving under the influence and possession of a controlled substance. Authorities discovered Jones and his five children had been reported missing by their mother.
The children were last seen Aug. 28. The older children were at school, and Jones picked up his younger kids at day care. He was to return the children to their mother’s home Sept. 2 but never showed up.
Jones had legal custody of his children, said State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel. Records describe a messy divorce in October.
