Jack Harold Jones

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Jack Harold Jones
Jack Harold Jones.jpg
Born
Jack Harold Jones, Jr.

(1964-08-10)August 10, 1964
Toledo, Ohio, U.S.
DiedApril 24, 2017(2017-04-24) (aged 52)
Cummins Unit, Lincoln County, Arkansas, U.S.
Cause of deathExecution by lethal injection
Conviction(s)Murder x2
Criminal penaltyDeath (Arkansas)
Life imprisonment (Florida)
Details
Victims3+ (two convictions)
Span of crimes
1983–1995
CountryUnited States
State(s)Florida, Arkansas
Date apprehended
June 6, 1995

Jack Harold Jones, Jr. (August 10, 1964 – April 24, 2017)[1] was an American serial killer who murdered at least three women in Florida and Arkansas between 1983 and 1995. Convicted of two murders during his lifetime and executed in 2017,[2] he was posthumously linked via DNA to the third murder, for which another man was imprisoned.[3]

Murders[]

Regina Harrison[]

On May 2, 1983, Harrison, a 20-year-old college student studying at the Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, left her parents' home for a nightly bike ride in Hollywood's North Beach neighborhood, but failed to return home.[4] Panicked, her friends and family went out and search for her, with the party eventually finding her nude body in the woods in West Lake Park.[3] She had been strangled to death and her body discarded at the scene. During the subsequent investigation, witnesses reported that they had seen the woman riding along a popular path in Hollywood Beach, accompanied by a skinny, long-haired man on a black bike.[4]

Initially, there were no leads on the case for five months, until a detective from Fort Lauderdale, John Curcio, saw a program airing the case on TV. Shortly before that, he had been a member of an investigative unit which had captured Ronald Henry Stewart, a serial rapist who had terrorized women in Broward County and Harrison County, Mississippi during the late 1980s,[5] and took notice that Stewart resembled the suspect sketch, in addition to being in possession of a black bike at the time of his arrest.[4] Later, during a photo lineup, one of the witnesses who had seen Regina and her alleged killer on the beach pointed to Ronald as the man she had seen, and he was soon charged with Harrison's murder. In order to avoid the likely possibility of the death penalty, Stewart entered a plea of no contest, and was given 50 years imprisonment in January 1985, to run concurrently with his other sentences for the sexual offences.[3] Although several factors pointed towards his innocence in the case, including the fact that his fingerprints did not match those found at the crime scene, Stewart nonetheless confessed to the crime. He never repudiated the confession nor claimed it was coerced while serving his time.[4] Convinced that he was the true culprit, the conviction went undisputed, and Stewart would later die behind bars from cancer in 2008.[5]

Lori Barrett[]

Lorraine "Lori" Anne Barrett, a 32-year-old Bridgeville, Pennsylvania tourist, had gone on vacation to Fort Lauderdale and was last seen at the Elbo Room, a bar located at the corner of Las Olas Boulevard and A1A State Road.[3] According to patrons, she was accompanied by a heavily tattooed man to her motel room at the Days Inn Lauderdale Surf Motel on Seabreeze Boulevard. At about noon on June 1, 1991, her body was found by a cleaning lady, with signs of being raped and subsequently strangled.[6]

Immediately following the body's discovery, police created a facial composite, complete with descriptions of the suspect's tattoos (barbed wire and hearts etched with names), and distributed it around Broward County. However, it was to no avail, and the case quickly went cold.[6]

Mary Phillips[]

On June 6, 1995, Mary Phillips, a 34-year-old mother of three, was at work in an accounting office in Bald Knob, Arkansas. With her was her 11-year-old daughter, Lacey.[7] Jones, equipped with latex gloves, a wire, and a BB gun, broke into the office and attacked both Mary and her daughter.[8] He beat, raped, and murdered Mary, and beat Lacey so brutally that she appeared dead.[9] Jones tied the child to a chair in the bathroom and left.

Arrest, trial, and imprisonment[]

The crime was quickly reported to authorities, and the local sheriff's department dispatched three officers to the scene. Upon arrival they first found Mary's body, and then Lacey, who they too believed was deceased due to the severity of her injuries. While taking flash photographs of the crime scene, an officer noticed that one of Lacey’s eyes was focused on him — miraculously, she had survived.[9] She was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. Once her condition stabilized, she gave a description of her assailant — a man with a tattoo around his eye. The officers present during her interview readily identified the man she described — Jack Harold Jones, an Ohio native who was well known to police. Jones was brought in for interrogation, whereupon he confessed to the crime. He was brought to trial, found guilty, and sentenced to death for killing Mary Phillips.[9]

While awaiting execution on Arkansas’s Death Row, Jones's DNA was entered into CODIS, the nationwide DNA database. Years later, in 2003, it was matched to the DNA evidence of the Lori Barrett case. A second test was conducted at the state crime lab in Arkansas, which conclusively proved that Jack Jones was the perpetrator. The Florida authorities issued an extradition warrant for Jones, who by this time was appealing his death sentence in Arkansas for the third time.[6] He was eventually tried for the Barrett murder, found guilty, sentenced to life imprisonment, and returned to await his execution back in Arkansas.[10]

Over the years, Jones's execution was stayed several times, due to illnesses such as high blood pressure and diabetes, which resulted in one of his legs being amputated.[4] According to his sister Lynn, Jack had suffered sexual and physical abuse as a child, which, coupled with alcohol and drug dependency, made him lose control over his impulses.[3] His sister's statements notwithstanding, Jones himself expressed regret over his actions and agreed with his penalty, explaining that he was haunted by the ghosts of his victims and was incapable of forgiving himself for what he did.[8]

Execution and posthumous confession[]

On April 24, 2017, Jones was executed at the Cummins Unit, along with fellow rapist-murderer Marcel Williams, marking the first double execution in the country in 17 years.[2] Jones and Williams were two of four inmates executed in Arkansas in April 2017, the other two were convicted murderers Ledell Lee and Kenneth Williams. Jones' last meal consisted of fried chicken, potato logs with tartar sauce, beef jerky bites, three candy bars, a chocolate milkshake and fruit punch.[11]

Shortly before his execution, he gave his sister a letter he had penned way back in 2006, with instructions to open it a year after his execution date. When the time came, Jones' sister opened the letter, in which he confessed in detail to the murder of Regina Harrison, providing details only the killer would know.[3] This revelation led to his body being exhumed and his DNA tested, and in February 2019, the Broward County Attorney's Office officially announced that Jones was the real killer, not Ronald Stewart. A spokeswoman for the attorney's office, Paula McMahon, said in a press release that they would work to vacate Stewart's conviction, and would further investigate Jones' past in order to determine if he had killed other victims in Florida, or elsewhere around the country.[3]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Arkansas Department of Corrections Death Row". adc.arkansas.gov. Archived from the original on December 15, 2016.
  2. ^ a b "Arkansas executes murderers Jack Jones and Marcel Williams". BBC. April 25, 2017.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Rafael Olmeda (March 21, 2019). "A serial rapist took the blame for South Florida woman's murder. A serial killer was really the culprit". Sun-Sentinel.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Prosecutors: Executed Arkansas inmate claims 1983 Florida murder after death". WREG-TV. March 22, 2019. Archived from the original on November 4, 2020. Retrieved February 15, 2021.
  5. ^ a b "Jack Jones left a letter behind before he was executed. Now, we know he's a serial killer". KTHV. March 21, 2019. Archived from the original on November 4, 2020.
  6. ^ a b c Mike Bucsko (March 26, 2003). "Suspect found in 1991 killing". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
  7. ^ "Victim's family on Arkansas execution: 'Ready for it to be done'". CNN. April 24, 2017.
  8. ^ a b Lisa Hammerly (April 25, 2017). "Jack Jones ready for his execution; now he pays, says daughter of victim, survivor of attack". Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
  9. ^ a b c Rolly Hoyt (2017). "Lawmen recall Jack Jones' chilling murder, rape of Mary Phillips". KTHV.
  10. ^ "Inmate Release Information Detail". dc.state.fl.us.
  11. ^ Demillo, Andrew; Kissel, Kelly P. (April 25, 2017). "Arkansas puts two inmates to death in state's first double execution since 2000". The Independent. Retrieved March 17, 2021.

External links[]

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