South Carolina father accused of killing kids was investigated for abuse

[Earthnut]

https://news.yahoo.com/south-carolina-father-accused-killing-kids-investigated-abuse-162546076.html

" South Carolina father accused of killing kids was investigated for abuse

CHARLESTON S.C. (Reuters) - South Carolina child protection workers visited the family of a man accused of killing his five children at least a dozen times since 2011 in response to reports of abuse and neglect, state records released on Thursday show.

The children, aged 1 to 8, said father Timothy Ray Jones Jr., 32, spanked them and made them do push-ups for punishment, but they did not appear afraid of him, according to workers, who did not remove the children from his care.

In notes about their most recent visit on Aug. 7, social workers said Jones, a divorced father with legal custody of the children, seemed overwhelmed. However, after investigating a report that he was beating the children and not feeding them enough, workers did not find them to be in immediate danger.

Police say the children were already dead by the time South Carolina authorities learned on Monday that the children's grandmother in Mississippi had reported them missing after they did not show up for a planned visit.

Following his arrest on unrelated charges in Mississippi on Saturday, police said Jones confessed to the slayings and led them to his children's decomposing bodies, which he had wrapped in garbage bags and dumped near a rural logging road in Alabama. Authorities have not said how the kids were killed.

Jones is expected to be arrested on murder charges after being returned to South Carolina on Thursday.

He likely killed the children soon after he picked them up from school and day care on Aug. 28, Lexington County Sheriff Lewis McCarty has said.

Jones, who worked for Intel at its office in Columbia, South Carolina, was also possibly accused of other unrelated criminal acts before.

In 2002, a Timothy R. Jones with the same birth date was sentenced in McHenry County, Illinois, to prison time for charges including possession of a stolen vehicle, theft, burglary, forgery and unlawful possession of a controlled substance.

He served 18 months behind bars, including time spent in county jail, before getting released on parole from prison in 2003, according to Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman Tom Shaer.

Records from South Carolina's Department of Social Services, which has been criticized by lawmakers in the past of mishandling child welfare cases, show the agency had long been aware of the Jones family.

Child welfare workers began visiting the family at their Leesville home in fall 2011 when there were only three children, and continued through their mother's last two pregnancies, as well as after Jones reported his wife had left him "for a younger man."

The visits stopped for a time after fall 2012, when workers said Jones took the children to Mississippi, where he had relatives.

The state resumed contact in May after a report that Jones was beating the children, records show. Jones said he had grabbed a child by the back of the shirt and lifted him up because he destroyed his brother's toy.

Caseworkers concluded there was not enough evidence to arrest Jones. "

[Libby]

There are too many cases of children suffering because of either the short-comings or aggression of their parents.

Two cases that are in the news here:

The first is of parents sent to jail for neglect. The home was filthy, with garbage and faeces. The baby's cot mattress had mould on it. The older child had a problem with one of his eyes, and the parents didn't take him to hospital appointments. He now has an obvious cataract in that eye. Social workers tried to intervene, but the parents wouldn't let them in. Eventually the police were called and they had to break down the door. Neither of the parents worked, and were living on state benefits, which are reasonably adequate in the UK.

The second is an on-going case. Parents were separated; mother and two children living at an address the father wasn't supposed to know. But his car had apparently been seen in the area for the past week. He arrived at the house when the mother and the younger child had just arrived back from school. He shot his daughter twice in the head, then shot himself dead. The 7-year-old girl was taken by air ambulance to a specialist hospital but died this evening.

In the case you quoted, Darlene, the father might well have felt overwhelmed, but he had plenty of opportunities to get help. Instead, he dealt with the problems his way. The social workers should have been more alert - the children reported their abuse, but said they weren't afraid of their father. That's a red flag - children, especially young ones, can be factual but they often don't have an understanding of what's right and wrong. Too often, abusive behaviour is normalised by young children, as a means of survival, or that they have been led to believe that punishment is an expression of love.

Very, very distressing cases of children suffering, or losing their lives, at the hands of their parents.

[seesthru]

His ex wife had an affair with the neighbor, allegedly. That's why they divorced. Allegedly. The ex wife didn't work outside the home, or even have a drivers license. He made 71,000 a year. Yet after the divorce he moved those kids from dump to dump, ramshackle mobile homes and such. He was overwhelmed according to social services. On his salary, he could have afforded a babysitter now and then, or a house cleaner twice a month I think. Wife had moved in with a neighbor or someone. I doubt he was paying alimony.

He had primary custody. However he was arrested with maggots and stench in his vehicle and he was out of his head on spice. He clearly had problems after the divorce, and I wonder if he killed the kids as revenge for his wife cheating, or maybe while he was high he decided they weren't his kids at all because the wife cheated, so he killed them, or if he was just tired of the responsibility yet too angry to let the wife have them or all of the above?

[Libby]

Thanks for the further info, seesthru.

I had to google "spice", as I'd not heard of that before. It seems to be what I would understand as "skunk". It's a synthetic marijuana/cannabis. I know that back in the day marijuana was the chill-out drug of choice, and it was a very mild drug then. But the strength of even natural marijuana has increased since then - no doubt for money - and is now well-known for having quite severe effects, including disordered thinking.

If that man was consuming that drug frequently, those poor children would have been suffering the consequences of his behaviour for quite some time. It's horrible to think that they would have witnessed their lives falling apart for some time. They really should have been rescued.

(As I understand it, medicinal cannabis for conditions such as MS or cancer is carefully grown and processed, to provide only the beneficial effects.)

I do wonder about his wife, and her reasons for moving out of the marital home and leaving her children behind. Maybe she felt disempowered and downbeaten? I hope the investigation will shed light on why custody of those children was awarded to the father, given the outcome.

[Walkabout]

the courts could have given him full custody because of his salary and a decent home at one time. If he was 'high' at the time of the killing he may not have known what he was doing.

[Earthnut]

Sounds like a perfect psychopath...either way, he's a sick puppy.

[Libby]

There are times when I think the US sentencing system is harsh; and times when I think the UK sentencing system is soft. Either way, I think that anyone, male or female, who has abused or killed, or even just severely neglected, children, should be prevented from having further children of their own, and prevented from being any where near someone else's child should they subsequently be released.

I don't like the death penalty because of the possibility of a false conviction, but for crimes like this, I prefer to the US version of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, which is an option that judges in the UK don't have.

[Walkabout]

drug abuse and mental illness account for so many tragedies in this country and the way the press rages on about them giving them more than their 15 minutes of fame this will never end.

[Earthnut]

The media helps to promote drugs because it seems like there's constantly an ad by some drug company. And if someone can't get prescription drugs, they turn to what they can get, something from the streets. I give most the benefit of the doubt because of the economy, people are desperate, and there are so many physical aliments people are dealing, or not dealing with. I, just like most of you, know what it's like to live with constant pain, and can understand the need for relief, but as we all know, many go to extremes. Then of course, there's the dependency on drugs, whether mental or emotional, and for sure they need to be kept in custody.

Now, when it comes to children, no, they should not be released back into the general public, and I am not against them having surgery to hopefully remove any physical desires. Then we would have to deal with their mental and emotional problems with children, so they should stay locked up. I'm thinking there should be two highly secured islands somewhere that all proven sexual offenders can be taken, men on one and women on the other, then all they would have is each other to survive. Just a thought. The movie "Aliens 3" had the perfect solution, they put them in a prison on a desolate planet.