"You’re lucky I don’t shoot women," Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. told an ex-lover after he began killing fellow University of Virginia students inside a bus returning from a Washington, D.C., field trip three years ago.
That mid-rampage remark was one of several new details revealed in Albemarle County Circuit Court on Thursday, the penultimate day of a planned five-day sentencing hearing for the convicted murderer.
The remark also bolstered something a police investigator told the court Tuesday: that during an interrogation Jones seemed distressed by the realization that he had shot a woman.
"At the instant I said Marlee Morgan’s name," said Virginia State Police special agent John Cromer, "he lurched forward and said, ‘Is she dead? Is she dead?’"
Morgan and a male student, Mike Hollins, recovered from their bullet wounds, but three other students did not. Jones has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for killing Lavel "Tyler" Davis Jr., Devin Chandler and D’Sean Perry.
The Nov. 13, 2022, killings of the three young men, each a popular football player, closed the university for two days, enveloped the school in grief and put an end to the football season.
Almost exactly three years later, Jones prepares to learn just how much time Judge Cheryl Higgins will assign for the crimes.
All three defense witnesses heard Thursday contributed to the trove of knowledge surrounding the slayings.
Drama professor Theresa Davis, who students fondly call "Lady T," revealed for the first time publicly that, contrary to widespread allegations that Jones was her specially invited guest, he was a member of a second class, in addition to the drama class for whom the field trip was designed.
The course was Speaking Social Justice, a Drama Department offering that had just four students that fall.
"I called them the Fantastic Four," said Davis.
She said that the field trip was the result of a Thrive grant, which UVa’s Center for Teaching Excellence awards for innovative extensions of classroom learning. The daylong trip to the Mosaic Theater Company in Washington to see "The Ballad of Emmett Till," she said, bolstered the curriculum of the small class.
"All four members of that class attended the trip," said Davis.
One of them testified Thursday. Her name is Alexis Stokes, and she did not want to be in court, according to Lacey Parker, one of Jones’ three defense attorneys. Stokes revealed that Jones was exhibiting strange behavior before the shooting.
For instance, she said she was in Jones’ car one day when he suddenly placed a gun on his lap.
"I was really scared," she said. "I didn’t know that he had it."
Another time she was with Jones and three friends at a football game.
"He told me he had to leave because someone’s trying to harm him," Stokes testified. "He ended up leaving the game."
His behavior was erratic, swinging from moment to moment, according to another story Stokes told about saving a seat next to her for Jones on that fateful bus ride — only for him to reject it.
"He made a really nasty face," she said. "I said, ‘Chris, that was really rude,’ and he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’"
Later, at an Ethiopian restaurant where the students had gone for dinner after watching the play, Stokes said Jones wouldn’t eat or speak with his classmates.
"He was back in that isolated state," she said.
Cross-examination by Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Susan Baumgarter confirmed an additional array of uncomfortable moments. Among those were that, subsequent to having sex with one member of the four-person class, Jones began making romantic entreaties toward Stokes, a prospect that, although supported by the former sex partner, Stokes said she did not encourage.
Then there was the time Jones was frustrated about pedestrians in the UVa-adjacent Corner shopping district slowing his drive to the Cook Out burger joint. The former sex partner then accused him of having a small penis, and he began driving so fast that Stokes, she confirmed, began screaming to be let out of the vehicle.
Jones’ mental swings were also detailed in a report penned by Jeffrey Aaron, a clinical and forensic psychologist who was the last defense witness. Aaron’s report was admitted into evidence under seal Thursday afternoon, but he testified about some of his findings, which included Jones getting exposed to domestic violence at a young age.
Aaron said that Jones’ father has an extensive arrest record, including once getting charged after attacking his wife in a hospital emergency room where she had gone for treatment from an earlier domestic beating.
Jones, Aaron said, was himself the recipient of domestic violence from his parents, mostly in the form of wires and belts, and some painful words.
"His mother would say to him, ‘I hate you. I wish you were dead. If I could kill you I would,’" Aaron testified.
"This is the person who is supposed to care for me," said Aaron, interpreting Jones’ perspective. "So there was this very prominent sense for him of ‘I don’t have a place.’"
Aaron stopped short of offering one diagnosis or one reason for the shooting. Instead, the psychologist spoke of parental gaslighting, depression, drug use, anxiety and trauma. Getting cut after walking on to the UVa football team and seeing his grades plummet after having a 4.3 grade point average in high school shattered his confidence.
"Everything was falling apart," said Aaron. "He had a belief that he was a nobody."
Aaron said Jones revealed that he imbibed cannabis, Percocet and Xanax.
After describing the trio of Jones, Stokes and the former sex partner as "a difficult triangle," Aaron revealed a new detail about the morning of the killings: that Jones did not initially take a gun on the field trip. He armed himself only after feeling anxiety at seeing the former lover as students assembled for the trip.
"He went back to his dorm and got his gun," said Aaron, "when he saw her coming."
Jones reportedly told Aaron a story about attending a Halloween party where five big men were aggressive toward him. Aaron said that seeing the football players on the chartered bus likely triggered that bogus memory.
"I think his perception of events is what drove him," said Aaron. "I don’t think he was thinking rationally at all."
On cross-examination, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Richard Farley chose to emphasize at least one moment of rational thought. Farley replayed some video footage, also played on Monday, the first day of the hearing.
In the video, Jones outsmarts a police officer five minutes after the shooting by discarding his gun and his identifying clothing, and feigning surprise at the carnage he’d wrought.
Earlier, Aaron, who spent more than 16 hours debriefing Jones, said that Jones was not properly distinguishing between real and perceived threats.
"I believe he had a serious mental illness that distorted his thinking, reason and perception to make a rational decision about what was real and what was not," Aaron said. "He was going back and forth deciding what was real and what was not until the last minute."
The psychologist said that Jones conveyed an internal conversation just before standing up and firing the first shot.
"Do it. Don’t do it. Do it. Don’t do it," is how Aaron described the inner monologue.
"Then he stood up," said Aaron. "And I just did it."
The hearing was expected to conclude Friday with a sentence prescribed by the judge.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com