Suburban men recall living with man accused of killing 5 kids
A South Carolina man charged with killing his five children was kicked out of his house as a teen and lived with a Carpentersville family for about six months in 2001, two of those family members said Friday.
David Christie said his nephew was good friends with Timothy Ray Jones Jr. when they were teens.
“It surprised me,” Christie said after reading the charges against Jones in Friday's Daily Herald. “Truthfully, I don't think he could do something like that — particularly killing somebody. To kill his five kids, I don't think I could see that.”
Christie's nephew, David Vanderhoff, said he became friends with Jones at Jacobs High School, where they graduated from in 2000.
Vanderhoff said he and Jones worked at a Jiffy Lube in West Dundee, tinkered with their cars, and went dancing with girls at clubs.
Vanderhoff said he stopped being friends with Jones after he got into drugs and got arrested on cocaine charges in early 2001.
Vanderhoof was shocked when he heard from a friend this week what happened.
“It's a little scary I was that close to a friend for five years and yeah — it's pretty crazy,” said Vanderhoff, who lives in Algonquin. “He probably let the drugs get the best of him. Obviously, something happened. I never knew him as a violent person.”
Jones, who was reported missing along with his five children, ages 8, 7, 6, 2, and 1, was arrested Sept. 6 after being stopped at a DUI checkpoint in Mississippi.
Authorities said he was alone and intoxicated, with blood, children's clothes and maggots in his SUV.
Three days later, Jones took police to a remote hillside in Alabama where the children's bodies were found in garbage bags, authorities said.
Jones' father kicked his son out of his house on the west side of Algonquin in 2001 and Timothy Jones spent six months living with Christie, Vanderhoff and others at a home on the 200 block of Granada Road in Carpentersville.
Christie, 63, who still lives there, said his mother wanted to help Jones because he was 19 and had nowhere else to go.
In 2001, Jones did odd jobs to help pay some of the rent, Christie recalled.
Jones was arrested in mid-September 2001 on charges he went on a crime spree in McHenry County, stealing a car, committing a burglary, and forging nearly $2,000 in checks.
Jones eventually pleaded guilty to those crimes in March 2002, court records show, along with a cocaine possession charge, and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Christie said up until then, Jones seemed liked a good kid, and if he had any drug problems, “he kept it under the table.”
“He fooled us,” Christie said.
Vanderhoff said if Jones is proven guilty, he should never be free again.
“I don't know what the laws are down there, but if he doesn't ge the death penalty, I'll be surprised,” Vanderhoff said. “I don't think he should make it out of prison. It's pretty heinous stuff (Jones is accused of).”