A father who murdered his five kids before driving their bodies around for nine days and dumping them in a field had strangled four of the children and beat one to death, it has emerged. Timothy Ray Jones Jr., 33, was arrested in Mississippi on September 6 after a deputy said he smelled the stench of death in Jones' SUV at a traffic checkpoint. The father, from Red Bank, South Carolina, then led deputies to the bodies in rural Alabama. It emerged in grand jury indictments on Thursday that four of the children - Merah, eight, Elias, seven, Gabriel, two, and one-year-old Elaine - died 'by means of strangulation'.
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Timothy Ray Jones Jr. was arrested last September after Mississippi deputies smelled death in his SUV during a DUI traffic stop
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They found blood, maggots and handwritten notes about mutilating bodies in his truck and he then led them to the bodies in rural Alabama
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It has now emerged in grand jury indictments that he strangled four of the children: Merah, eight, Elias, seven, Gabriel, two, and Elaine, one
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He also beat one of the children, six-year-old Nahtahn, to death
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Jones said he feared they would chop him up and feed him to dogs; social workers noted how the father was 'overwhelmed' looking after the kids
On September 6, he was stopped at a @placeholder checkpoint in Mississippi and officers noted that he was intoxicated and agitated.