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Thread: Larry Jones - Arkansas

  1. #1
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    Larry Jones - Arkansas




    Facts of the Crime:

    Larry Jones was convicted on three counts of capital murder for the deaths of his wife, Sandra Jones, and her two sons, Courtney Jones, 17, and Daron Davis, 10. For his wife's murder, Jones was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole; for the murders of the two boys, Jones received two sentences of death by lethal injection.

    Sandra Jones spent the evening of April 10, 1998, at the house of her brother-in-law, Gary Jones, visiting and drinking with several friends. She left for home shortly after 10:30 that night. About two hours later, Larry Jones showed up at Gary's house; Larry told his brother he had "just killed all three of them." Larry asked his brother to comeback to his house with him and to provide him with an alibi. On the way back to Larry's house, he told Gary that Sandra had come home and taken a bath; while she was bathing, he claimed he inspected her underwear and found "some discharge" in them.

    Larry Jones later gave the police a different story, stating Sandra came into the bedroom, woke him up, and told him that she wanted to break up with him. When he asked why, she allegedly said that she had been unfaithful to him and threw a pair of panties in his face. During their conversation, Jones had been "fixing on" a stack of videotapes with a butterfly knife. As Sandra continued to taunt him about her infidelity, Jones said, he hit her. "I thought I was hitting her with my right hand ... the hand I had my butterfly knife in. I hit her twice. I thought I was hitting her in the face area, but it turned out that I hit her twice in the neck." Sandra died of a single slicing stab wound that penetrated four and a half inches through her neck.

    Jones further claimed that the two boys came in while he and Sandra were fighting and that he only swung at them to push them away from him. Courtney died in the kitchen, having been struck twice with the knife; his right carotid artery was severed with a blow that sliced approximately four and three-eighths inches through his neck. Daron, whose body was found on the floor next to his bed in the front bedroom, sustained four wounds; his jugularvein was cut, and the muscles that supported his larynx were severed. Gary Jones later testified that it looked like "his throat was almost cut off."

    Larry Jones opened a window in a back bedroom, and then called the police to report that someone had broken into his house and murdered his family. When the police arrived, Gary Jones told them that his brother had confessed to the killings. Larry was arrested, given his Miranda warnings, and taken to the police station. Following a jury trial in February of 1999, Jones was convicted on all three counts of capital murder. The jury found that four aggravating circumstances existed and no mitigating factors were present; thus, they sentenced Jones to death for the murders of Courtney Jones and Daron Davis and to life in prison for the murder of Sandra Jones.

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Inmate Person Information

    DOB: 01/13/1959
    Race: Black
    Gender: Male

    Crime and Trial Information

    * County of conviction: Crittenden
    * Number of counts: Three
    * Gender of Victims: 1 Female/2 Male
    * Date of crime: 04/10/1998
    * Date of Sentencing: 02/16/1999

    Legal Status


    Attorney

    Bart E. Ziegenhorn, Deputy Public Defender

    Court Opinions

    Jones v. State, 10 S.W.3d 449 (Ark. 2000). Affirmed.

    Legal Issues

    On direct appeal:
    (1) whether probative value of autopsy report, showing victim with cocaine in her bloodstream, was outweighed by its prejudicial effect;
    (2) whether the evidence supported a finding of the aggravating circumstance that the murders were committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing arrest; and
    (3) whether the prosecutor's comment that defendant did not show any remorse was proper.

  3. #3
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Convicted West Memphis murderer gets off death row

    WEST MEMPHIS, Arkansas -- A man who killed his wife and stepchildren in 1998 is no longer on death row.

    Larry Jones stabbed and slit the throats of his wife and two stepchildren, Dorran, 10, and Courtney, 17.

    Sherman Stokes said he remembered that morning because he actually talked with Sandra Jones while she was on a walk on McAlister Street.

    He grew up with her as well as the fathers of her children.

    “She’d come up round here. She left for a bunch of years. When she come back she had an old guy with her. I heard he was a truck driver,” she said.

    That man ended up killing his wife and stepchildren by stabbing and slitting their throats.

    Larry Jones was convicted and put on death row.

    But in December, his attorneys called a hearing to request a new trial. They said they missed elements the first time, including his low IQ.

    “Their new psychiatrist was going to testify he was below the level minimum number for execution,” prosecuting attorney Scott Ellington said.

    Ellington said he also didn’t want to risk a new trial because the key witness has since died and some records from the first trial are missing.

    “In the interest of public safety it would be better for him to always be in prison the rest of his life, to agree to life without parole,” Ellington said.

    Some who remembered the tragedy understood.

    "I think if they can give killers a life sentence I believe that'd be a lot better than putting them to death," said James Watkins, who's lived on McArthur Street for more than 30 years.

    But Stokes grew up with the father of Dorran Davis, who never got to see his son again. He disagreed with the prosecutor's decision.

    "He should die,” he said.

    Ellington said he planned to contact Davis to explain the decision and apologize for the anguish.

    http://wreg.com/2017/05/18/convicted...off-death-row/

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