ALBEMARLE COUNTY, Va. β Day three of the sentencing hearing for former University of Virginia student Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. has been focused on his troubled childhood and mental health decline before the 2022 shooting that killed three football players.
Jones pleaded guilty last year to the murders of D'Sean Perry, Lavel Davis and Devin Chandler and injured two others after a field trip in 2022. Two other people were shot but survived.
The prosecution rested their case and is seeking a life sentence for Jones. They called investigators, survivors from the shooting and family members of those killed who described the chaos of that night and the grief that has followed them since.
The defense said they're seeking a sentence that mixes accountability with compassion and say Jones was abused as a child and descended into mental illness the summer before the shooting.
Defense witnesses began their testimony today, starting with an uncle and cousin of Jones who described what life was like for him during different points in his life.
During testimony and cross-examination, they described the Jones household as a war zone caused by a toxic relationship between his parents that led to both physical and verbal abuse between the two of them. The abuse also included physical beatings of four children, of which they said Jones took the brunt as the oldest.
The uncle described one beating that was so loud the family could hear it in another room.
Despite this, they said after the parents separated, Jones began to excel in school and football, saying that he saw the sport as his way out to a better life.
They said they didn't see him as much after he moved to Petersburg to live with his dad in his senior year of high school.
They then described seeing him again in the summer of 2022, describing him as a completely different person who was paranoid and schizophrenic and was worried that people were after him.
However, they both admitted under questioning from the prosecution that they were unaware that Jones was dealing drugs at that time and was concerned the drug dealing community saw him as a snitch.
The hearing is set to run until Friday.
This is a developing story. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have additional information to share.
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