On Friday, April 28, a Florida, USA man was condemned to death for fatally beating his wife with a bat and later strangling their four children.
Ocala County Judge Anthony Tatti finalized Michael Jones’ fate at the court session after a jury recommended the death penalty in a January sentencing trial.
A lawyer for the five-time murderer said he intends to appeal the sentence.
Jones’ wife, Casei Jones, suspected him of cheating on her after checking his phone, prompting the July 2019 killings.
Jones later told authorities that his wife raised a bat during a heated argument inside their home, and that he bludgeoned her to death with the weapon.
The four small children, two of whom he shared with his spouse, were asleep and did not wake up during the beating.
Jones told investigators that he wrapped his wife’s body in blankets, stowed it in a tote bag, and hid it in their home’s closet.
In a panic, he used her phone to publish items on her social media profiles in order to conceal her death.
Jones dropped off his own children, Mercalli Jones, 2, and Alyana Jones, 11 months, at their grandmother’s house and took his two stepchildren, Preston Bowers, 4, and Cameron Bowers, 8, to be with their father.
Jones was concerned that the kids’ absence from school would raise suspicions as summer vacation came to a conclusion.
Jones dragged Cameron out of bed as he slept and strangled him on a bedroom floor before stuffing his body into a suitcase a week before he was supposed to start school again.
Jones told police that the next day he suffocated Preston with a zip tie before drowning him in a bathtub.
In addition, he packed his body in a suitcase.
Jones claimed that several days later, he pulled up to a nearby police station with his two kids and pondered turning himself in for the three killings.
Man sentenced to death for murdering his wife with a bat and strangling his four children But he changed his mind, deciding instead to drown the toddlers in a bathtub.
“I don’t know, everything just mounted up and it seemed like the way out,” Jones said officers following his detention, according to police documents.
After smashing his car in a minor accident, he was eventually arrested in September 2019.
An officer was overcome by a strong odor emanating from Jones’ car and discovered Casei Jones’ body in the back of his minivan.
He eventually led cops to the bodies of the four children, which were discovered in a nearby wooded area.
Jones pleaded guilty in November, but his lawyers used his disturbed background to argue for a life sentence rather than the death penalty.
They told jurors that Jones was molested by his father and beaten by his stepfather, and that he would hear voices telling him to do crimes.
The arguments were rejected by the jury, who recommended that he be executed.
