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Thread: Joshua Tremaine Jones Gets LWOP in 2012 SC Slaying of Aiken Public Safety Cpl. Sandy Rogers, 2nd Murder Charge Pending

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    Joshua Tremaine Jones Gets LWOP in 2012 SC Slaying of Aiken Public Safety Cpl. Sandy Rogers, 2nd Murder Charge Pending



    A 26-year-old man with a history of trouble with au*thorities was arrested in con*nection with the killing of an Aiken police officer Sat*urday, just hours after, police say, he fatally shot his girlfriend in Augusta.

    Joshua Tremaine Jones is being held in the Aiken County Detention Center. He was arrested at 11:35 a.m. on Youman Street in Bates*burg, S.C., said Kathryn Richardson, a spokeswoman for South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

    Four hours earlier, police say Jones shot Master Cpl. Sandra Rogers, a 27-year veteran of Aiken Public Safety, who later died at Aiken Re*gional Medical Centers.

    While authorities in South Carolina were searching for Jones, deputies in Richmond County discovered the body of his 21-year-old girlfriend, Cayce Vice, in her apart*ment on Washington Road. She had been shot in the head.

    Jones will be charged in Vice’s slaying, said Richmond County sheriff’s Capt. Scott Peebles. The sheriff’s office obtained warrants for murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, he said.

    At 7:30 a.m. Saturday, Rogers, 48, responded to a call of suspicious activity at Eustis Park on Edgefield Avenue in Aiken. Almost immediately, she was shot by the driver of a metallic blue BMW, which was spotted leaving the scene by other officers responding to the call.

    Sonya Drummings, who lives on the corner of the park, said her daughter heard three gunshots and woke her up. When she ran to the door, she saw chaos in the park.

    “It is usually a quiet neighborhood. I actually felt pretty safe here,” she said. “No one deserves to die do*ing their job.”

    Authorities found Jones about 30 miles away on the north side of Batesburg, and he was taken into custody without incident.

    Another tragedy

    Rogers’ death comes just a little more than a month after Aiken Officer Scotty Richardson was shot and killed while on a traffic call at the entrance of Pace’s Run apartments on Brandt Court in Aiken. Three months ago, Richmond County Deputy J.D. Paugh was killed in the line of duty.

    “It’s like a horrible nightmare playing over in front of us,” Sgt. Aaron Dowdy said in Eustis Park. “I’m still wearing a Richardson band on my wrist.”

    With tears in his eyes, new Aiken Public Safety Director Charles Bar*ranco asked for the city of Aiken’s support as his office faces another tragedy.

    “Thanks to the community for standing next to us again, and always,” he said at a news conference Saturday evening to announce that Rogers had died and Jones would be charged.

    Attending the news conference was Jones’ father, James, who said the BMW was his and that his son had taken it Friday night.

    “My heart goes out to officer Rogers’ family,” James Jones said. “There is great pain for all of us.”

    Joshua Jones was born in North Augusta and attended North Au*gusta High School, although he did not graduate, his father said.

    James Jones said his son had been “going through a lot of mental issues.”

    “My condolences for Rogers and Cayce,” he said. “This is not in character of my family. I have to leave it in the hands of God.”

    Rogers had been a part of Aiken Public Safety since 1984.

    She received a distinguished ser*vice award and a lifesaving award in 2003 and a Certificate of Commendation in 2011.

    “Master Cpl. Rogers was an invaluable street cop who exemplified the model of a Public Safety Officer,” Sgt. Jake Mahoney said.

    Worst fears realized

    On Friday night, the blue BMW was spotted outside the apartment building where Vice lived at The Greens on Washington, a complex on Washington Road in Augusta. Peebles said investigators are still working on the details of Vice’s kill*ing, but it likely occurred late Friday night or early Saturday.

    Downstairs neighbor Harry Parker said Jones was unfriendly and didn’t interact with others in the apartment complex.

    “If you spoke to him he didn’t speak,” Parker said.

    Parker said he heard a loud thud and rumbling noises in the upstairs apartment Friday night that sounded like someone was running, or “hurrying to pack up and go.”

    Donna Rigdon knew something was wrong when Vice didn’t show up for her 10 a.m. shift at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Vice had worked at Five Guys for about two years and was never late.

    “She was a great worker,” said Rigdon, the general manager at the Washington Road restaurant.

    When she got no answer from Vice’s phone she was immediately concerned. Vice had missed almost two weeks of work recently after she said she was beaten by her boyfriend. Peebles confirmed that Vice had sworn a complaint against Jones for the assault around Jan. 8.

    “He punched her in the face repeatedly,” Peebles said. A warrant for simple battery was taken out for his arrest, but deputies had not caught up with him, Peebles said.

    Rigdon said Vice had recently let Jones back into her life because she was pregnant. She said she had counseled her against the idea, but Vice wouldn’t listen.

    Not long after 10 a.m., Rigdon was on her way to Vice’s apartment, a little more than a mile away. Rigdon said she called the sheriff’s office to help her check on her employee.

    “I just wanted to make sure she was OK,” she said.

    Just after 10:40 a.m., Rigdon waited outside the apartment while the manager opened the door for a sheriff’s deputy.

    “He came back and said, ‘This is now a crime scene,’ ” she said. “I was devastated.”

    Peebles said Jones was a suspect in the slaying “almost immediately.” He has a history of arrests in Georgia and South Carolina dating back at least to 2002. Reports show he was charged as a juvenile at the age of 16 in an assault on his father in their Belvedere home in January 2002. Officials said Jones stabbed his father twice in the back and was sent to a juvenile justice facility in South Carolina.

    A family’s sorrow

    On Saturday afternoon, Howard Vice sat on the floor drinking his last beer at his barren apartment, not far from his daughter’s in The Greens. He wondered what he could have done to stop what had occurred.

    “The police told me he shot her in the head in bed,” he said, shaking his head.

    Howard Vice said he had been living with his daughter and Jones until last month, when they had a falling out over her boyfriend. He said he didn’t get along with Jones, who had moved in Oct. 31.

    “There’s something wrong with a man when he stays in his bedroom all day long and don’t come out,” Howard Vice said. “I knew there was something wrong.”

    Vice said his daughter had just turned 21 on Wednesday and was a “few weeks” pregnant.

    “He beat her up about two weeks ago,” he said, offering a photo of his daughter’s battered face that he still has on his cell phone. “She turned right around and let him back in.”

    He said his daughter dropped out of Westside High School and obtained a GED. She had been working and attending Augusta Technical College to become a medical assistant.

    Ginny Vice said she spoke to her sister on the phone almost every day, but she didn’t know Jones had returned to the apartment.

    “She was lying to me. She didn’t want me to know,” Ginny Vice said. “She knew we did not want him around her.”

    Howard Vice said he was frustrated that Jones had never been arrested in connection with the assault on his daughter. If he had, the killings might not have happened, he said.

    “The police let it go and now one of their own is dead,” he said. “But I can’t be mad at the police, she let him come back.”

    the police, she let him come back.”
    THE VICTIMS


    • Cayce Vice, 21, was found shot to death Saturday in her Augusta apartment. Vice worked at Five Guys Burgers and Fries and attended Augusta Technical College. Her father said she was “a few weeks” pregnant.

    • Aiken Department of Public Safety Master Cpl. Sandra Rogers, 48, was shot Saturday morning while responding to a call in Eustis Park on Edgefield Avenue in Aiken. A 27-year veteran of the department, Rogers later died at a hospital.

    THE SUSPECT



    Joshua Tremaine Jones, 26, is suspected of fatally shooting Vice and Rogers in separate incidents. Vice, Jones’ girlfriend, had sworn a complaint against Jones, a North Augusta native, for assault earlier this month. Jones’ father offered his condolences to both women during a news conference Saturday.




    WATCH RELATED VIDEOS


    Aiken Public Safety Director Charles Barranco describes Master Cpl. Sandra Rogers and thanks the law enforcement community.

    Aiken Sgt. Jake Mahoney releases details on the shooting, and a witness describes the scene immediately after the shooting.


    James Jones, the father of suspect Joshua Tremaine Jones, speaks about his son during a news conference in Aiken.




    OFFICER DEATHS


    Three Augusta-area officers have been fatally shot since October. The Aiken Department of Public Safety is mourning a second officer in just two months’ time.


    DEC. 20:
    Aiken Master Public Safety Officer Scotty Richardson, 33, was shot and killed while on a traffic call at the entrance of Pace’s Run apartments on Brandt Court. Stephon M. Carter, 19, of Aiken, who was wounded by police and captured at the scene, has been charged.


    OCT. 23:
    On his way home from a special assignment, Richmond County Deputy J.D. Paugh, 47, stopped to check out a suspicious vehicle on Bobby Jones Expressway at Gordon Highway. Paugh was fatally shot by Tennessee National Guardsman Christopher Michael Hodges, 26, who then shot himself.

    http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/cr...rtment-complex

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    Vigil today, funeral Wednesday for slain Aiken officer


    Aiken Department of Publc Safety

    Funeral arrangements have been announced for slain Aiken Public Safety Master Cpl. Sandra Rogers.

    The funeral will be 1 p.m. Wednesday at the University of South Carolina Aiken Convocation Center, according to the officer’s obituary on the Shellhouse Funeral Home Web site. The Rev. Dr. George K. Howle, of St. John’s United Methodist Church, will officiate.

    Burial with honors will follow in Aiken’s Historic Bethany Cemetery.

    Pallbearers will be her shift co-workers, Teddy Umsted, Mat Braxton, Karl Odenthal, Billy Cameron, Jason Fogle, Carlos Colindres, Jacob Pridgen, Timothy Hawkes, Brenton Russo, Brandon Bethman. Honorary pallbearers will be Aiken Public Safety employees, Ryan Sparling, Howard Venning Morrison, and nationwide Law Enforcement Officers.

    There will also be a prayer vigil at 5 p.m. today at Eustis Park in Aiken, where Rogers was shot, Lt. David Turno said.

    Rogers was fatally wounded Saturday morning while investigating a suspicious vehicle.

    The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division arrested Joshua Tremaine Jones, 26, in connection with the slaying. Jones has also been charged in the shooting death of his girlfriend earlier Saturday in Augusta. He is being held at the Aiken County jail.

    Police work runs deep in Rogers' family. She is the granddaughter of the late city of Aiken Chief of Police, James M. Sprawls, her obituary said.

    Memorials may be directed to St. John’s United Methodist Church, 104 Newberry St. NW., USCA Lucile and Maldon Sprawls Nursing Scholorship Fund, 471 University Parkway in Aiken.

    The family will also receive friends from 4-8 p.m. Tuesday at Shellhouse Funeral Home at 924 Hayne Ave. in Aiken.

    http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/cr...r?v=1327845998

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    Friends, co-workers mourn Cayce Vice at Augusta funeral home

    None of those gathered Wednesday had expected to be saying goodbye to the vivacious young woman to whom they had offered birthday wishes only one week before.

    “It’s such a great loss of such a beautiful lady at such a young age,” said the Rev. Don Prosser, addressing about 100 people filling a chapel at Thomas Poteet and Son Funeral Home who were there to bid farewell to Cayce Vice.

    Vice had just turned 21 on Jan. 25.

    Prosser acknowledged that the pain felt by family and friends was almost beyond all understanding, but he urged those who were grieving to lean on their faith for help.

    He hoped that Vice’s short life could lead others to reach out to those in pain, especially others who might be victims of domestic violence.

    “We must not take life for granted. We can’t take for granted that a victim of domestic violence may be right next door,” Prosser said.

    Police say Vice had suffered beating from her boyfriend, Joshua Tremaine Jones, only a couple of weeks before her body was discovered in her apartment. She had been shot in the head. The Richmond County Sher*iff’s Office has obtained warrants for murder and weapons charges against Jones, who remains in the Aiken County Detention Center also charged with murder in Saturday’s slaying of Aiken Public Safety Master Cpl. Sandra E. Rogers.

    “The days that we do have, we need to live life to the fullest. Cayce did that. She loved life,” Prosser said.

    A few others spoke about Vice, including her former managers at Food Lion and Five Guys Burgers and Fries. They talked about what a diligent and caring person she had been.

    Donna Rigdon, her boss at Five Guys, said Vice had plans to move on to bigger and better things.

    “She had goals and she was achieving those goals,” Rigdon said.

    Dorsey Timmerman said Vice came to her aid one day when her car wouldn’t start in a McDonald’s parking lot.

    “I was wearing my Five Guys uniform and she said she needed a job,” Timmer*man said.

    Within a few days they were working together at the Washington Road restaurant, and they soon became close friends.

    “If I called her at 4 o’clock in the morning, she would always answer the phone,” Timmerman said. “She was one of the best friends I ever had.”

    Timmerman said she would spend the night at Vice’s apartment occasionally, but never spoke to Joshua Jones.

    “He wouldn’t even make eye contact,” she said. “She didn’t know anything about his past. If she had known any of that, they wouldn’t have been together.”

    http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/cr...a-funeral-home

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    Somewhat related

    S.C. bill seeks to keep some crime details from public

    A bill introduced in the S.C. House would give police, prosecutors and sheriffs broad freedom to keep secret any and all crimes and arrests from the public, critics say.

    “This goes a long way in creating a secret police operation in South Carolina,” said Jay Bender, a Columbia lawyer and USC media law professor who has for decades argued open government cases in courts. He represents numerous media organizations, including The State Media Company.

    Supporters of the bill, including sponsor Rep. Chris Murphy, R-Dorchester, say Bender exaggerates the impact of the measure, which if passed would amend the state’s existing Freedom of Information law.

    “For him to say this will cause a police state, that is a stretch,” Murphy said. He described his bill as “narrowly tailored” to allow law enforcement to more easily deny an FOI request to make public sensitive pretrial information about crime victims, witnesses and ongoing investigations.

    The specific language in Murphy’s bill says law officials would be able to withhold any “information to be used in a prospective law enforcement action or criminal prosecution.”

    “You could still to get police reports and everything else,” Murphy said. “All my amendment really did in my opinion was add protection for disclosure of information that could be harmful to a victim or a witness.”

    Bender said current FOI already contains provisions giving law agencies authority to keep confidential information that might harm witnesses and victims.

    However, Bender said, current FOI law puts the burden on prosecutors and police to prove to a judge why they need to keep evidence in an ongoing case secret – since, under court rules, defense attorneys and the defendant must be given all evidence before trial anyway.

    “There now has to be a demonstration that the release would harm the agency,” Bender said.

    Murphy proposed his bill after hearing concerns from prosecutors and other law enforcement agencies that current law makes it hard for them to keep critical pretrial information out of public view.

    For example, a current case involves the recent shooting death of an Aiken police officer during a traffic stop. The officer’s traffic camera apparently caught all or part of the shooting on tape, and various news media organizations have filed requests to see the videotape. A possible death penalty trial is months away.

    “This type of material should not be disseminated before the trial,” said 1st Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe, president of the state Solicitors’ Association, who urged Murphy to file his bill. It can prejudice potential jurors, making it more difficult to hold a fair trial, he said.

    But Bill Rogers, executive director of the S.C. Press Association, said it’s the job of the judge – not the police or prosecutor – to set the rules for a fair trial. Since the defendant can view the videotape, the public should be able to also, he said. “The only people who won’t have the tape are the people,” he said.

    Others say there would be little to keep police from bowing to pressure from merchants or politicians to keep a crime wave or a sensitive arrest – perhaps even of a politician – under wraps. Even if police reports still are made available, developments in cases happen after police reports are filed.

    Not all law officers have signed on to Murphy’s proposal.

    “What we withhold now is generally what we need to withhold,” said Jeff Moore, executive director of the S.C. Sheriffs’ Association. “We do it on a case-by-case basis.”

    Murphy said in the event of a disagreement over what can be released, “You still have the courts. The courts can determine whether the information is covered under the FOI.”

    Bender said forcing a citizen or a news media organization to hire a lawyer defeats the open spirit of the FOI. “It’s expensive, time-consuming and ignores the notion that in a democracy, (it is) the police (who) have to answer to the public, and not the public that has to answer to police.”

    The bill is in the House Judiciary Committee. No date for a hearing has been set. It has 33 co-sponsors, including House Speaker Bobby Harrell and House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. James Harrison, R-Richland.

    Both sides claim the high ground.

    “If you want to have police corruption, just let them operate in secret,” Bender said. “A fundamental concept of democracy is for the public to know what’s going on and to be in charge.”

    Pascoe said: “My job is to make sure the state of South Carolina, the victims and defendants receive a fair trial. The effect of this bill is to assure that victims’ rights, and the right of a defendant to a fair trial, aren’t infringed upon. This proposed bill in no way violates the public’s right to know.”

    Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/201...#storylink=cpy

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    New charges for defendant in Aiken officer's death

    The man suspected of shooting and killing an Aiken law officer faces new charges.

    The Aiken Standard reports (http://bit.ly/TUD4MX ) 27-year-old Joshua Tremaine Jones was indicted last month on charges including weapons possession, larceny and failure to stop for police. He also faces assault charges for incidents at the Aiken County jail.

    Jones is charged in the January death of Master Cpl. Sandy Rogers. She was the first female South Carolina officer killed in the line of duty.

    Rogers was the second Aiken officer in as many months killed in the line of duty. Prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty against Stephon Carter in the death of Officer Scotty Richardson.

    Jones is also charged in the fatal shooting of his girlfriend in her Augusta, Ga., apartment.

    Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/cri...#ixzz2EI2ihLbS
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    Pain lingers for family of slain Augusta woman



    “I still feel that same shock even though it has been a year,” said Vice, whose sister Cayce Vice was found shot to death in the bedroom of her Augusta apartment on Jan. 28, 2012, just a few days after her 21st birthday.

    “I think about how she was laying. Was she asleep? Why didn’t I say this? Why didn’t I do that?” Vice said. “I’ve lost 25 pounds since all this has happened.

    “They say time heals,” she said. “It must be a long time, a very long time, because it hasn’t healed.”

    Vice’s body was found in bed after she failed to show up for her 10 a.m. shift at Five Guys Burgers and Fries on Washington Road. Her boss, Donna Rigdon, called police, who got a manager to open her door at the nearby Greens on Washington apartments.

    Investigators say Vice was shot by her boyfriend, Joshua Tremaine Jones, who left Augusta that morning in his father’s BMW, stopping at Aiken’s Eustis Park.

    It was there, South Carolina authorities say, that he gunned down Aiken Public Safety Master Cpl. Sandy Rogers. He was arrested later that morning at the home of a cousin in Batesburg, S.C., and remains at the Aiken County Detention Center, charged with murder.

    Vice first connected with Jones in the fall of 2011, her friend Heather Lewis said.

    “She actually told me she met him on the computer,” Lewis said. “They met on some online site.”

    Lewis said she was living with Vice at the time. She said Vice and Jones met face-to-face the day she moved out, on Halloween.

    Lewis said Jones seemed quiet and reserved. He even came over to their apartment once.

    “He was playing (video) games with us,” she said. “He seemed really normal.”

    Violent history

    Lewis said her friend didn’t know about Jones’ history of trouble with the law. She didn’t know he had attempted suicide in June and, according to his parents, had been in and out of hospitals for mental health issues.

    Lewis said she saw Jones acting strangely only once after he had moved into Vice’s apartment.

    “He was sitting on the side of her bed picking all these numbers,” she said. “He felt like he knew the numbers. He had a prophesy. It was weird.”

    Although Jones seemed possessive at times, and carried a gun “for his protection,” Lewis said her friends never saw him act violently until Vice called her crying to say Jones had beaten her.

    Lewis told her to call the police. Cayce Vice was taken to University Hospital Emergency Room by ambulance, Ginny Vice said.

    “When we pulled up, it was so sad,” her sister said. “She was sitting there in a wheelchair with blood dripping down her nose, just by herself sitting there in the waiting room.”

    Vice said her sister was crying and scared to sit near the waiting room doors. She had suffered a brutal assault, she said.

    “Her nose was broke, her eyes were busted,” she said. “I started looking at her arms and she had bruises all down her arms.”

    Lewis said she warned her friend to stay away from Jones, but she didn’t.

    “I gave advice the best I could, but I know Cayce all so well,” Lewis said. “She will take your advice but she will do whatever she wants. It doesn’t matter if it comes from her best friend.”

    This was early January 2012. Within a week or so, Jones was back at the apartment.

    Ginny Vice thinks it was because her sister found out she was pregnant. Lewis said she can recall staying up all night with her friend not long after the beating as she took pregnancy tests over and over again.

    “When you are a young girl and you are scared and alone and pregnant, you don’t know what to do,” Ginny Vice said. “I think she thought he would be nicer to her. It is hard to understand. We don’t know what she was feeling.”

    Ginny Vice said her sister didn’t tell her she was seeing Jones again, but she suspected he was back.

    The last time

    About a week before her death, Ginny Vice said she picked up her sister and helped her take care of some bills. They went to her home and visited with her nephew Connor and Ginny’s husband, Mark.

    “We talked about her moving into another place. We were looking at apartments on the computer,” she said. “The strangest thing is that we stood in the kitchen and we all hugged her. We all told her we loved her; she told us she loved us and missed us.”

    It was the last time she saw Cayce alive.

    In March, the family finally was allowed to enter her sister’s apartment, Ginny Vice said. She said her father, Howard Vice, went ahead of them and cleaned up the worst of the crime scene.

    She remembers walking in and seeing things out of place from the police search, but a lot was still just as her sister left it.

    “The most eerie thing was she had left everything just like she was ready to go to work that day. Her glasses were on the night stand, her contacts were in the bathroom. Her laundry was in the bathroom. Her purse was beside the bed,” she said. “Everything was like she was waiting to get up in the morning.”

    Ginny Vice said just a few weeks earlier it seemed like her sister had turned her life around. She was working two jobs and taking classes at Augusta Technical College.

    “She really had goals and I just thought she was going to be able to make it,” Ginny Vice said. “Seeing that somebody came in there and destroyed somebody who was beautiful – they had no right to take somebody’s life like that. She just wanted to get up and go to work the next day.”

    http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/cr...-augusta-woman
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    Suspects yet to be tried in notable slayings; 2 high-profile homicide cases from 2011 and 2012 have yet to go to trial

    1 of the 2 suspects facing murder charges in the shooting deaths of Aiken Public Safety officers will face the death penalty when he goes to trial next year. Definite plans have not been made for the 2nd suspect, who faces charges in Aiken and Richmond counties.

    SUSPECT: Joshua Tremaine Jones, 28

    VICTIMS: Cayce Vice, 21; her unborn child; and Aiken Public Safety Master Cpl. Sandy Rogers

    LOCATION: The former Greens Apartments, Washington Road in Augusta; Eustis Park, Edgefield Avenue in Aiken

    DATE: Jan. 27-28, 2012

    WHAT HAPPENED: Rogers was shot in the head about 7:30 a.m. Jan. 28 after responding to a call of suspicious activity at Eustis Park. The driver, later identified as Jones, led police on a chase to Batesburg, where he was taken into custody.

    Meanwhile in Augusta, deputies were investigating a homicide at The Greens. Police discovered Vice's body after associates said she had not come to work. Police think Jones, her boyfriend, shot her late Jan. 27 or early Jan. 28 and then went to Aiken, where he was approached by Rogers.

    Jones was booked into the Aiken County Detention Center and placed in disciplinary segregation for 6 "serious infractions" of jail rules. In April 2012, he was committed to a state mental health facility for 2 weeks after he chewed his wrists. He has since returned to the Aiken County Detention Center.

    WHAT'S NEXT: Thurmond said there have been no final charging decisions. The solicitor's office continues to await results from a forensics investigation by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

    (source: Augusta Chronicle)
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    As cop killer pleads guilty, new video released showing mental illness

    Joshua Jones has pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murdering Aiken Public Safety Cpl. Sandy Rogers.

    Jones has been sentenced to life in prison with no parole.

    Authorities say Cpl. Rogers was shot while responding to a suspicious vehicle in 2012. They say Jones also shot and killed his girlfriend, Cayce Ray Vice, prior to killing Cpl. Rogers.

    Monday morning he pleaded guilty to the murder charge, along with possession of a weapon during a violent crime, failure to stop for blue lights, unlawful carrying of a pistol, and petit larceny.

    Dozens of officers, Public Safety Director Charles Barranco, Sheriff Michael Hunt, State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) Chief Mark Keel, and the family of Sandy Rogers were all in the courtroom for justice.

    Because Jones was pleading guilty but mentally ill, Judge Jack Early began a competency hearing to see if Jones was fit to stand trial.

    Esteemed psychiatrist Donna Schwartz Watts testified that Jones has a "significant mental history." She says his mother suffered physical abuse during pregnancy, he was inundated after birth, Jones was allegedly molested by his uncle, and Jones even shot himself in the head, in an apparent suicide attempt, six months before the crime. Watts says the self-inflicted shooting produced a brain bleed and fractured skull; the psychiatrist says the portion of Jones' brain responsible for emotions was injured.

    Additionally, Watts says Jones suffered long-term deficits. She says he was admitted at Aurora Mental Health Pavilion where he talked about angels and demons. He also reported hearing three voices. The three voices encouraged him to commit violent acts.

    Watts says Jones is schizophrenic and psychotic, however, she says he does not suffer from "mental retardation." Because of this, she says Jones was fit to stand trial.

    A compilation of videos released to News 12 from Jones' legal counsel show some of Jones' time behind bars at Aiken County Detention Center. Besides the infamous bond hearing in which Jones growled and cussed at the judge, another video from another day shows Jones biting chunks from his wrists. A naked Jones lunges at a number of armored deputies as they try to administer first aid.

    "His symptoms are dramatic," says Watts, who adds the onset of the symptoms was prior to his arrest for murdering Rogers.

    Ultimately, Judge Early said there was enough evidence for Jones to plead guilty but mentally ill. Standing calmly before the judge in khaki slacks and a navy sweater, Jones was sentenced to a life in prison with no parole. Circuit Public Defender De Grant Gibbons says Jones will go to a high-security facility where he will receive medical treatment.

    "He knew what he had done. He knew that, now, the crimes that he had committed were wrong, and that he had violated the law," says SLED Chief Keel.

    News 12 asked 2nd Judicial Circuit Solicitor Strom Thurmond, Jr. why he didn't seek the death penalty for Jones.

    "We are ethically prohibited from leveraging the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea and did not do so in this case," Thurmond says. "We had valid concerns that if we noticed the death penalty that we would have difficulty ever trying Jones because competency issues can come up at any time, to include during trial. When accepting this plea, we chose an ironclad resolution over a legal and psychiatric quagmire, and Josh Jones will spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison."

    Jones still faces a murder charge in Richmond County.

    http://www.wrdw.com/home/headlines/J...1.html?ref=151
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