A former College of Virginia pupil was sentenced on Friday to life in jail for fatally capturing three soccer gamers and wounding two different college students on the campus in 2022.
Decide Cheryl Higgins gave Christopher Darnell Jones, Jr., who had been on the soccer staff, the utmost potential sentence after listening to 5 days of testimony. Jones pleaded responsible final yr.
The penalty consists of 5 life sentences, one every for the killings of Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry, and the aggravated malicious wounding of Michael Hollins and Marlee Morgan, Cville Proper Now reported.
Authorities mentioned Jones opened fireplace aboard a constitution bus as he and different college students arrived again on campus after seeing a play and having dinner collectively in Washington, DC.
The capturing erupted close to a parking storage and prompted a 12-hour lockdown of the Charlottesville campus till the suspect was captured.
Many on the faculty of some 23,000 college students huddled inside closets and darkened dorm rooms, whereas others barricaded the doorways of the college’s stately educational buildings.
Jones’ time on the staff didn’t overlap with the gamers he shot and there was no indication they knew one another or interacted till briefly earlier than the capturing.
Jones will be capable of apply for parole when he turns 60, WTVR reported.
Higgins mentioned nobody was bullying Jones that night time and no was threatening him.
The sentence was not “vindictive” however fairly primarily based on a logical evaluation, mentioned Higgins, who’s an Albemarle County Circuit Court docket decide.
Jones had “distortions in his notion” or actuality, however understood his actions, she mentioned, noting that he texted folks earlier than the capturing that he would both “go to hell or spend 100-plus years in jail.”
Jones discarded clothes and the gun afterward and lied to police he bumped into 5 minutes later, the decide mentioned.
Inside days of the capturing, college leaders requested for an out of doors overview to research the college’s security insurance policies and procedures, its response to the violence and its prior efforts to evaluate the potential menace of the scholar charged.
College officers acknowledged Jones beforehand was on the radar of the college’s threat-assessment staff.
The college final yr agreed to pay $9 million in a settlement with victims and their households.
Their legal professional mentioned the college ought to have eliminated Jones from campus earlier than the assault as a result of he displayed a number of purple flags by erratic and unstable conduct.
Jones tearfully addressed the court docket for quarter-hour throughout his sentencing listening to, apologizing for his actions and for the harm he triggered “everybody on that bus.” Some victims’ members of the family received up and walked out as he spoke.
“I’m so sorry,” Jones mentioned. “I triggered a lot ache.”
Talking to the households, Jones mentioned: “I didn’t know your sons. I didn’t know your boys. And I want I did.”
Michael Hollins, a soccer participant who was wounded and survived, instructed reporters after the sentencing that justice was served “for probably the most half.”
“Although that no period of time on this earth in jail will repay or get these lives again, just a bit little bit of peace understanding that the person that dedicated these crimes received’t be hurting anybody else,” Hollins mentioned.
