A court in Charlottesville is hearing testimony as it prepares to sentence Christopher Darnell Jones. The 26-year-old has confessed to killing three UVA football players and seriously wounding two other students three years ago.
The university was locked down for about twelve hours as police searched for Jones. Shortly after the shooting, one campus officer actually stopped him, but the suspect was said to be wearing a red hoodie. Jones had thrown that away. He was calm and respectful, acting surprised when he heard about a shooting on campus.
On bodycam footage, the policeman asked to see Jones ID and ordered him to lift his T-shirt. Seeing no weapons, he sent Jones on his way.
Earlier Jones discarded a Glock handgun, and soon after he was stopped threw two magazines away.
Investigators later searched his dorm room, finding two more weapons including an AR-15 modified to double the rate of fire.
Lawyers showed that rifle, then shared Jones’ search history. At one point he Googled “How to disassemble an AR trigger,” then asked, “How to install a binary trigger.”
Nearly two hours before the shooting, Jones texted his academic mentor to warn “They not getting off this bus. I’m either going to hell or to jail. I’m sorry. Just tell my story.”
The mentor urged Jones to call him, but that did not happen. Instead, Jones fled to Henrico County and – the next morning – was arrested near his mother’s home.
The defense will call witnesses Tuesday to detail what it described as Jones’ childhood of fear, instability, poverty and violence. His team says Jones was academically gifted and a high achiever who overcame obstacles, but an injury prevented him from playing football – something that had given him a sense of family and connection.
In the summer of 2022, they say, childhood trauma “morphed into paranoia. He succumbed to false beliefs, leading to the day he will regret for the rest of his life.”
The attack occurred on a chartered bus, following a class field trip to Washington. Three of those who were on the bus say they still suffer anxiety, depression and terror when they hear loud noises. One – former student Megan Dean – now lives in D.C. where she refuses to ride buses.
"Every bus is a different bus," she said, "but every bus is that bus."
Also giving testimony, the mother of Michael Hollins who was wounded. She spent a month in Charlottesville as her son had two surgeries and fought for his life, and the mother of Devin Chandler who did not survive.
He had been offered 13 college scholarships, and his mom said he was "the heart of his family – providing a laugh or a shoulder to cry on. We wake up every day in pain, she said. Our lives are changed forever."
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
