CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – For the first time in the opening three days of his sentencing hearing, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. became visibly overcome with emotion on Wednesday as he listened to character witnesses testify about his abusive upbringing and the hope they had for him when he seemed to overcome that by going to college at the University of Virginia.

Jones, who had been stoic for two days, appeared to break down multiple times as his cousin, Antonio Clarke Jr., and his academic mentor, Dr. Cyndee Reece Blount, appeared as character witnesses for the defense, as Jones’ attorneys seek to lessen a sentence that could keep Jones in jail for the rest of his life for the murder of UVA football players Devin Chander, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry, on Nov. 13, 2022.

But Wednesday also brought the first signs of contention between the defense’s witness and the prosecution, as during the cross-examination of Jones’ longtime mentor, Xavier Richardson, a frustrated Richardson asked if he himself was on trial due to the nature of the prosecution’s questioning.

Later, when asked by Commonwealth Attorney Susan Baumgartner if he believed Jones felt remorse for his crimes, Richardson said he knew Jones “well enough to know” he did. The answer was met with a reaction from those in the court room, many of them friends and family of the victims, audible enough for the Judge to remind the audience they had to remain silent during the proceedings.

Blount, now Powhatan Public Schools director of human resources, testified that, out of the thousands of high school students she has worked with in her three decades in education, Jones would be “the last one” she would think could be commit the crimes he pled guilty to.

Jones and Blount both wept as she recounted how a local car dealership had donated Jones a vehicle his senior year of high school, so that the football star, homecoming king and straight-A student could keep his night job at Taco Bell – earning money to support his grandmother – without having to ride the bus.

“He was so proud of his car, and I was so proud of him,” Blount told the court, as a photo of the moment Jones picked up his car displayed on courtroom monitors. “He did this in spite of the odds against him.”

Blount and other witnesses Wednesday described what those odds were, depicting Jones as the product of abusive and negligent parents, who modeled violence as appropriate behavior, an upbringing that turned him from a happy and promising young man into someone with mental health issues, including delusions and paranoia.

Jones’ uncle, Antonio Clarke Sr., testified that Jones’ father, Darnell, frequently beat Jones and his three siblings.

“It felt like a warzone,” Antonio Clarke Jr., Jones’ cousin, testified. “There was this aggression in the home. … Chris took a lot of the brunt of it.”

But Jones didn’t start exhibiting signs of mental issues until he after moving to Petersburg his senior year of high school, the Clarkes told the court.

By 2022, when Jones came home from his UVA during the spring and summer, “He was a whole different Chris,” Clarke Jr. said.

“He had a lot of paranoia,” Clarke Jr. said. “He kept looking over his shoulder.”

On cross examination of both Clarkes, Commonwealth Attorney Richard Farley suggested that was because Jones was a drug user and dealer, who was concerned others in the drug business believed him to be a “snitch.”

Jones wiped tears from his eyes as Clarke Jr. talked about growing up as children together, but he became the most emotional he’s been during the hearings during Blount’s testimony.

She described him as a motivated and successful student, a popular classmate and leader at school and on the football field.

Blount recounting making up the morning of Nov. 14 and seeing Jones’ photo on the television news, with information about the UVA shooting.

“I thought he was shot,” Blount said.

Blount ended her direct testimony by saying she believes, if Jones is given a sentence that allows him to get out of jail eventually, that he’ll be a productive member of society.

“I know in his heart he’s a good human being,” Blount said, her words eliciting groans from the family members of the deceased in the gallery. “He’ll show us. I know he will.”

But on redirect, Baumgartner pointed out that Blount also didn’t believe Jones was capable of committing the crimes he did.

The testimony offered Wednesday morning paled in comparison to the mitigation report the defense filed with the court at the opening of the day’s proceedings. That document more powerfully and graphically laid out Jones’ abusive upbringing.

But the mitigation report also provided the prosecution with a key moment during the end of the day. The defense’s final witness of the day was Silas Hardison, an alumnus of UVA’s chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, which Jones joined while a student. Hardison’s testimony hinged on a phone call he had with Jones in May of 2022, while Jones was still in Petersburg with his grandmother.

Hardison described the call from Jones as “erratic” and “illogical” as he described how he believed his co-workers were “after him” and his grandmother. Hardison offered that Jones could stay at his house in Lynchburg, but Jones declined.

“That confidence was gone,” Hardison said of Jones at the time. “I had never heard him that fearful.”

During cross-examination, Hardison got emotional when asked how often he checked up on Jones after the call, expressing regret over not doing so as much he “should’ve.” 

Then, Farley identified a text message sent from Jones to Hardison that was included at the end of page 46 and beginning of page 47 in the mitigation report, in which Jones continues to express fear over his co-workers stalking him, and then appears to threaten violence toward them “if it come down to it.”

“I’m either gone die or do 100+ years mane but Ian goin out like no sucka I need to relocate,” Jones wrote.

When asked by the same prosecutor if it was fair to say he did not fully know what Jones was capable of at the time, Hardison agreed.