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'I Want My Babies,' Mom Of 5 Slain Kids Sobs While Testifying Against Their Dad
“They are my babies. They should still be here,” Amber Kyzer cried while breaking down in court as she testified against Timothy Jones.
The mother of five young children, all of whom were murdered, sobbed uncontrollably as she gave emotional testimony at the death penalty trial for their alleged killer: their father and her ex-husband.
Amber Kyzer read a letter she wrote in court on Monday during the trial of Timothy Jones. It was addressed to the oldest victim, her 8-year-old daughter.
“Mera, my sweet sweet daughter, I know that your heart feels heavy and that you feel really sad sometimes. I want to reassure you sweetheart that you along with your brothers and sister mean everything to me. You kids are my world and Mommy and Daddy were really blessed to have you,” she said, pausing before getting visibly distraught.
Then, she broke down.
“Oh god. Oh god. My babies. My babies,” Kyzer cried as the judge rushed to get the jury out of the courtroom. She began rocking in the chair, her head in her hands, apologizing for not holding it together while simultaneously crying for the tragic loss of her children.
Jones stood up and looked at her, but showed no emotion.
“I miss my babies. I want my babies. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. As she was pulled from the witness stand and led out of the room, she yelled “They are my babies. They should still be here.”
The emotional moment came nearly a week into Jones’ death penalty trial in Lexington, South Carolina.
Jones, 37, is charged with five counts of murder. Jones’ lawyers don’t dispute that he killed the children, but are arguing he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Prosecutors said he killed 6-year-old Nahtahn in a rage after finding the boy, fascinated by electricity, had broken an outlet in their home near Lexington in August 2014. Jones then strangled 8-year-old Mera and 7-year-old Elias with his hands and 2-year-old Gabriel and 1-year-old Abigail with a belt, prosecutors said.
After killing the children, authorities said Jones wrapped their bodies in plastic and put them in his SUV, driving aimlessly around the Southeast U.S. for most of nine days before leaving their bodies on a hilltop in Camden, Alabama.
Jones was arrested at a Smith County, Mississippi, traffic checkpoint, where an officer testified he recognized a strong odor coming from the car he recognized as “the smell of death.”
Prosecutors called the pathologist who did autopsies on the children to the stand Monday, but refused to show pictures of the bodies. Defense attorneys wanted them shown because it might aid in Jones’ insanity defense to show how badly decomposed the bodies were in the back of the SUV, but Circuit Judge Eugene Griffith refused.
Last week, prosecutors played Jones’ confession to police. In it, he said he was angry at Nahtahn for breaking an electrical outlet and forced him to exercise for hours since he would not admit what he did and feared the 6-year-old was plotting to kill him. Jones said he found his son dead several hours later, although the pathologist testified it appeared the boy was killed by some kind of violence she could not pinpoint. He has claimed that killing him was an accident, according to a Greenville News report, a Greenville, South Carolina paper.
“The voices started kicking in,” Jones recalled thinking after finding the boy dead. “Saying ’You better do something, you are (expletive), Tim.”
Kyzer’s testimony Monday started with tears as she told the prosecutor the full name and dates of birth for all five of her children. Prosecutor Suzanne Mayes asked her why it was her first time in the courtroom during the trial.
“I can’t handle it,” Kyzer answered.
She testified she fell in love with Jones because he was smart, accomplished and appeared to have his life together. But she said after they married, he became rigid in his religion and demanding on her.
“Women are to be seen and not heard. I was merely to take care of the children. To keep them out of his way,” Kyzer said.
After they divorced, Kyzer allowed her husband custody of the children because he had a job that paid $80,000 as a computer engineer, and a car. She would get a ride to the Chick-After fil-A in Lexington to see them every Saturday under Jones’ watchful gaze.
“I did not want him to be a primary caregiver, but he was the better provider,” she told the jury. “I thought I was making the best decision I could as a mother.”
On Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014, after no one had heard from her kids for nine days, Kyzer went to the restaurant as police watched. Jones never showed up.
The trial took a 30-minute break after Kyzer’s sobs, and defense lawyer Boyd Young asked her only a few questions. She said Jones was a good father while they were married, but he seemed to start having mental problems after they divorced.
Jones’ lawyers said in their opening statement Jones’ mother has been in a mental institution for 20 years and he had undiagnosed schizophrenia. Then Jones’ thin grasp on reality was broken by his ex-wife’s infidelity, the difficulty of raising five young children on his own and a feeling he was failing to live up to his religious beliefs.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
