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DAKOTA CITY - Defense attorneys for Jason Jones will not be disputing he killed a Laurel family in August 2022 but claim it was not pr#*meditated and he was experiencing a mental breakdown at the time of the criiiK's.
Matthew McDonald laid out that defense in his seven-minute opening argument in 44-year-old Jason Jones’ murder trial Thursday morning, vowing to tell the jury “the rest of the story,' Jones is charged with four counts each of first-degree murder and use of a firearm to commit a felony and two counts of first-degree arson in connection to the shooting deaths of Gene Twiford, 86, and his wife, Janet Twiford, 85; their daughter, Dana Twiford, 55; and Michele Ebeling, 53, in the early-morning hours of Aug. 4, 2022.
Jones is accused of fatally shooting the Twifords at their home at 503 Elm St. in Laurel and Ebeling at her home, 209 Elm St. He allegedly set fire to the houses after killing the victims.
He was arrested at his home, located across the street from Ebeling's, by the Nebraska State Patrols SWAT team the day following the slayings after investigators found evidence at both crime scenes allegedly linking him to the killings.
“All we're asking you to do is look at all the evidence,' McDonald said in the opening day of Jones' trial Thursday. “There's a lot of evidence you don’t need to hear. We already told you he killed the Twifords. He went over there to confront him and lost it when he got there.'
A digital note Jones created the night before and morning of the murders reads like a suicide note, McDonald said, in which Jones tells his wife, Carrie, he's sorry and wishes he could vfe done more.
“He wrote this note and he went over there and didn't expect to be here after that,' McDonald said. “He's lucky to be alive today.'
McDonald said Jones believed his neighbor Michele Shankles-Ebeling to be possessed, but said he'd leave it up to the jury to decide if he killed her. McDonald's questioning of witnesses later in the day planted the suggestion of Carrie Jones being responsible for Ebeling's murder.
He told the jury to hold Jason Jones accountable for his actions - a lesser charge without pre-meditation.
On the other side of the aisle, Prosecutor Corey O'Brien spent about an hour laying out his case in opening arguments. He spoke slowly and deliberately, going through the evidence and the witnesses the jury could expect to see over the next two-plus weeks.
Tve struggled with what to say. It's not easy to come up with the right words. I've consulted many sources in eluding the dictionary. There's 467,000 words in the dictionary and I don't know of any series of words I can find that explains what happened on Aug. 4, 2022,' O’Brien said, events that in the span of 10 minutes four people died.'’ The biggest question still remains in the case: why?
O'Brien said investigators worked “long and hard” to try to find out why these killings occurred.
“We're probably never going to know with any certainty why this happened,' he said, but some explanations of motive have come to light from phone calls between Jason Jones and his wife after he was incarcerated.
Through those calls, it was suggested that Jason Jones may have been troubled by what his wife perceived to be sexually charged comments directed at her from Gene Twiford. However, no sexual harassment was reported to law enforcement, O'Brien said.
Unlike the defense's theory, O'Brien said evidence will show text messages between the Joneses five months prior to the murders that reference using violence against Gene Twiford - a clear sign of pre meditation in the case; The prosecution started presenting evidence Thursday afternoon, presenting five witnesses. The jury and alternates made up of 10 women and 8 men listened to the initial 911 phone call, and viewed crime scene photos. A graphic photo of Shankles-Ebeling's face showed bright red blood streaked across the middle of her face. Dark, oblong marks could be seen on her forehead and at the base of her neck indicating bullet wounds.
Here's a breakdown of key points from each witness testimony Thursday: Kevin Garvin, Cedar County 911 dispatcher - Provided the chain of custody for the 911 call made the morning of Aug. 4,2022 Royce Fairley, neighbor who called 911 - Lived across the street from Shankles-Ebeling and adjacent to the Joneses. Other than casually waving Or saying, “Hello,” Fairley didn’t have regular contact with either set of neighbors. He described Ebeling and her fiancee, Brian Welch, as a bit “odd” but was never frightened by them.
- Works the night shift and was outside when heard an explosion and saw bright orange flames coming from the Ebeling home the morning of Aug.
4,2022.
- Fairley and Ms roommate walked over to the Ebeling home and came into contact with Jason and Carrie Jones who were walking away from the home. “The town is usually dead quiet at that time,” Fairley said and he was surprised to see the Joneses.
- He said Jason Jones appeared to be shuffling behind Ms wife back to Ms house while Carrie Jones seemed to be trying to distract Fairley and appeared to be overly dramatic. “It felt weird,' he said.
- Fairley said while first responders and law enforcement descended on the scene, he could see someone peeking through the upstairs windows at the Jones home. “It's not something to peek through the window. If you had nothing to hide, why don’t you go ou> side and look,' he said.
Andrew Gothier, Laurel Volunteer Fire Department - First one to arrive on scene and enter the Ebeling home on Aug, 4, 2022 around 3 a.m.
- Dispatch indicated the call was an explosion and fire so GotMer was surprised to find the house still standing, very little smoke or flames.
- He was alerted by another firefighter
who noticed a plastic lawn chair in the driveway with a broken leg and blood on it. Next to the chair was a still-illuminated flashlight. “We didn’t know what to expect at that point,' he said.
- Neither the storm door or exterior door were locked. The exterior door was open about two inches. Gothier said he could only open the door another six inches before the door made contact, hitting an object in the way which turned out to be Ebeling's body.
- Ebeling was not responsive and GotMer and another firefighter picked her up and moved her to the front lawn where she was attended to by EMTs, When her body was removed, there was blood staining the floor, he said.
- GotKier was able to locate flames in a back bedroom and extinguish them. There was another hotspot in the kitchen of the Ebeling home.
- He observed “lines' in the carpet, indicating something was poured on the living room floor and lit on fire.
- Gothier was done working the Ebeling home fire and was back at the Laurel fire station by 8 a.m. Ten minutes later, there was a call for another house fire - two blocks south at the Twiford residence, which he responded to.
- Defense questioned Gothier about blood, rugs and a shoe pictured on the porch outside of Ebeling's home which may have been from the firemen’s response at the scene.
