ALBEMARLE COUNTY, Va. β Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday after two days of witness testimony in the sentencing hearing for the former University of Virginia student who opened fire on a charter bus as it returned to campus from a field trip in 2022.
Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. killed UVA football players Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D'Sean Perry and injured two others. He pleaded guilty in 2024.
He faces up to five life sentences plus 23 years.
In their opening statement, prosecutors said the evidence would show that a life sentence was appropriate, while the defense said it was seeking a sentence that mixed accountability with compassion.
The defense will begin presenting their case Wednesday.
They said they would detail Jones' abusive upbringing and show how he was a kind, caring, and confident young man, but one who descended into mental illness in the summer of 2022 and became delusional and lost his grip on reality.
Day Two Witness Testimony
The other survivor
While Michael Hollins testified Monday about getting shot on the bus, the other survivor, Marlee Morgan shared her experience on Tuesday.
Morgan said she had met Jones virtually about a week-and-a-half before the shooting as they had been paired together for a project before the class, but had not met in person as the classes had been virtual.
She said she never noticed anything wrong with Jones during the entire trip. She added that when she was sitting next to Davis near the end of the return trip home, Jones was in the row directly in front of them and talked to them about the play they had seen and asked Jones about a video game.
A short while later, Morgan said she remembered hearing a gunshot that came between the two seats in front of her and turned to see Davis holding his ear.
She said she then heard Jones curse at Davis.
The next thing she remembered was laying on top of another student in a row of seats on the other side of the bus. She said as they heard more gunshots, they would tap each other to make sure the other was still alive.
Morgan said she did not remember Jones leaving the bus and said she laid in the seats until people started yelling to get up and get off the bus.
She said she saw Chandler "slid down" in his seat as she left and had to climb over Davis' body.
She added it was not until she started walking off the bus that she noticed she was limping and realized she had been shot. She said the bullet entered her left hip and exited her buttocks.
She described the way her life has changed since, including how her grades dropped in the semester after as she missed classes and did not want to be on campus. She added she has trust issues and is always alert in crowds.
Morgan finished by saying that everyone has a level of pain in their life, and they have to make choices every day about how to respond to that pain and to not use it as an excuse to cause harm. She said she hoped that Jones would "allow Jesus to give him a new heart."
Testimony from victim's families
The court also heard testimony from the two sisters and mother of D'Sean Perry.
His older sister said this has been a "special kind of torture" that was like an onion, with layer upon layer of torment. She added Perry was the glue that held the family together and finding joy in life without him is tough.
His younger sister said her brother worked to make the world a better place and his death shattered the foundation of the family. She added she stood in court today, not to seek revenge but accountability.
Perry's mother said she had difficulty putting into words what the last 36 months have been like because that would mean accepting her son isn't coming back and that she still wakes up in the night hoping to hear him walk through the door.
She told the court how she spoke to her son on the phone about an hour before the shooting happened.
"'I love you, handsome.', 'I love you, too, mom.'," she said.
Near the end of the testimony, Perry's mother added that "these tears I can wipe away, but not the pain in my heart."
Lavel Davis' aunt also testified on behalf of his family. She said this has been a "living nightmare" and she wakes up wishing it was a bad dream.
She added that all the family has of "Tyler", as they called Davis, was memories and what ifs, because he was brutally murdered for no reason.
She said that Davis was a beacon of light for so many and that love would be his legacy.
How Jones was caught
The final investigative witness for prosecution was a senior special agent with Virginia State Police.
He described how Jones was caught by police in Henrico County the day after shooting.
The special agent said that a Henrico Police officer had used open-sourced information to learn more about the case and determined Jones' ties to the county, including that his mother still lived there and said he was actively patrolling in the area when the arrest happened.
He said that Jones was arrested only a few hundred yards from his mother's house.
The special agent also described serving Jones in jail with more warrants related to the case.
He said as he was reading out the charges in the warrant, when he mentioned Morgan's case, he said Jones lurched forward in the chair he was sitting in and said "Is she dead? Is she dead?"
Sentencing is scheduled to last until Friday.
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