US father held in deaths of five children

Timothy Jones Jr. allegedly went on a 700-mile journey that began in South Carolina with the bodies of his five young children wrapped in garbage bags in the back of his SUV, authorities said Wednesday.

Jones, a 32-year-old computer tech and Mississippi State University graduate, told neighbors last week that he was moving his children from their home near Lexington to another state.

The father of five was being held Wednesday in a Mississippi jail in connection with the deaths of his children, ages 1 to 8, whose bodies were dumped in Alabama.

It’s still unclear how or why Jones allegedly killed his children, but acting Sheriff Lewis McCarty of Lexington County told reporters that Jones drove for several days with their decomposing bodies in the back of his SUV.

It is believed he killed the children at the same time, and that the crime happened in Lexington County, McCarty said.

“I don’t understand why he did it but, yes, these children were in the car, deceased, in garbage bags for some period of time,” McCarty said.

When Jones was picked up Saturday at a police checkpoint in Mississippi, he seemed “very strange, maybe somewhat disoriented, a little bit on the violent side,” McCarty said. In the car, police later found “cleaning material, they saw blood, they saw children’s clothing but no children.”

McCarty said Jones, who allegedly was in possession of synthetic marijuana and a drug called “bath salts,” faces five counts of murder when he’s returned to South Carolina.

The sheriff said Jones led investigators in Alabama to the remains believed to be those of his children.

The remains have been returned to South Carolina, where autopsies will be performed.