Almost three years to the day after a field trip to Washington, D.C., ended in horror, the first day of a five-day sentencing hearing for Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. opened Monday in Albemarle County Circuit Court with legal arguments, harrowing recollections and a new revelation in an already notorious case.
Jones, now 23, has pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated malicious wounding for killing University of Virginia football players Lavel "Tyler" Davis Jr., Devin Chandler and D’Sean Perry and seriously injuring two others on Nov. 13, 2022.
In court, his close-cropped hair, dark suit, blue checked shirt and striped tie gave him the look of a current UVa student, were it not for the chrome chain at his waist. He watched intently and without visible emotion as witnesses took the stand.
"On Nov. 13, 2022, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. committed unfathomable acts of harm," said Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley.
"Unfathomable acts of harm," he repeated. "Those are not my words; that is a direct quote from the defense’s sentencing memorandum."
Hingeley reminded Judge Cheryl Higgins that Virginia’s mandatory firearm penalties — three years for the first offense and five years for each subsequent— will keep Jones incarcerated until at least age 46. What remains for Higgins, he said, is determining punishment for the key convictions: three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated malicious wounding.
"It’s up to you to decide how much to assign for these five remaining crimes," he told the judge. "Justice requires a life sentence for each."
Turning to Jones’ behavior before the shooting, Hingeley pointed to the weaponry recovered in Jones’ Bice Hall dormitory: an AR-15-style rifle, another handgun beside the murder weapon and a device that could increase a gun’s rate of fire.
"He was assembling an arsenal in his dormitory room for what purpose we cannot imagine," Hingeley said.
Defense attorney Lacey Parker from the Office of the Public Defender countered by asserting that Jones was a victim of neglect that morphed into mental problems and warped perceptions.
"As a child," she said, "he experienced abuse that no one should have to experience."
She told the court the evidence would show that Jones had spent years masking his situation so he wouldn’t appear weak.
"Chris was concealing a profound struggle," Parker said. "Trauma morphed into paranoia and cognitive distortion."
Parker previewed witnesses including relatives, a UVa dean and the professor who brought Jones on the Washington field trip. Of note, she said the court would hear from mentor Xavier Richardson, the man who received Jones’ chilling text messages before he opened fire, including, "they not getting off this bus" and "tonight I’m either going to hell or jail."
Monday’s testimony from survivors and family members swung the courtroom between measured recollection and raw anguish.
The first witness was Xuled Stiff, a 2023 UVa graduate and Air Force veteran who sat toward the front of the bus. She described a jubilant ride home after seeing "The Ballad of Emmett Till" in the nation’s capital.
"It was a fantastic show," she said.
She recalled chatting with Chandler about wanting one of his jerseys if he made it to the NFL, particularly if he joined the Philadelphia Eagles. There was no bullying on the bus, she said.
Then came what she at first mistook for a mundane sound.
"Right before the bus fully stopped, I heard a sound, a pop, like the sound of a bag of chips popping," she testified.
She said she then saw Davis fighting with someone — recognizing Davis instantly as the tallest person she knew — before chaos overtook the bus. Her 911 call, played for the court, captured her panic.
She told Higgins she now frequently feels "terrified, shaken and overwhelmed with grief" around buses. The jersey number memorials that continue to populate UVa Grounds and surrounding Charlottesville carry a special burden for her.
"1-15-41’s will make me cry," she said.
The second witness, Cass Deane, remembered how excited the trip’s organizer, theater professor Theresa Davis, was that Jones could join them.
"I remember how happy Lady T was to see him," said Deane, using a nickname for the teacher. "It seemed like a last-minute decision. She was thrilled that he could make it."
Moments before the shooting intensified, Dean heard a command: "Get down."
He then heard the killer’s accusation: "Y’all have been fucking with me all day."
And then, the execution-style killing of Davis.
"I saw," Deane said, "the defendant shoot Lavel in the back of the head."
Deane described what happened next in the rear of the bus with Chandler and Perry.
"I don’t know what to call it, just horror," he said.
Like Stiff, Deane said he now fears buses.
"I know every bus is a different bus," said Deane, "but every bus is that bus."
Next came Brenda Hollins, mother of survivor Mike Hollins.
"This is a life sentence for all of us," she testified.
Her grief carried an edge sharpened by seeing Jones seated calmly in suit and tie.
"You change your hair, you change your clothing —" she told him, before the judge cut off her comments not related to victim impact.
Mike Hollins himself followed, describing his initial flight, uninjured, from the bus and what made him go back.
"I had left my brother back there and my teammates," Hollins testified. "My body turned me around."
He described encountering Jones emerging from the bus and wielding the gun.
"He shot me in the back," Hollins said. "As soon as I dropped my book sack, he shot me."
He said he thinks of his friend often.
"He was my first and last phone call every day, along with my mom," Hollins said.
Then came a new disclosure. Detective Mark Belew, the lead investigator on the case, revealed that just five minutes after the first 911 call, a UVa police officer unknowingly encountered Jones at Rugby Road and University Avenue. Body-worn camera footage shows what happened.
"Did you hear any gunshots?" the officer asks.
"No," Jones replies.
After a police dispatch in the background adds gory details from the shooting, Jones feigns shock.
"Oh, my goodness. What?" he exclaims.
A radio description — referring to a red jacket and hooded sweatshirt Jones had already discarded — prompts the officer to let him walk away.
UVa students and Charlottesville residents went on to endure a night of lockdown, and Jones was captured the next morning in Henrico County.
The hearing closed with wrenching testimony from Dalayna Chandler, mother of Devin Chandler, shot while sleeping and wearing noise-canceling headphones that never gave him the chance to fight back.
"No mercy was shown," she said. "What a cowardly decision."
By contrast, she recalled her son’s optimism, his 13 Division I scholarship offers, and his steady presence after the loss of her husband, Chandler’s father, four years earlier from cancer.
"He lifted us up after tragedy when we needed it most," she said. "He had a way of lighting up every room he entered.
With more than a dozen relatives listening from the courtroom gallery, she called the killing "a premeditated choice" that shattered her family.
People wept openly as she told the court that her granddaughter still asks why her uncle isn’t coming back.
"Your honor, my son deserved to live," she said. "I am asking you to impose the maximum."
Jones’ sentencing hearing was set to continue Tuesday.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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