2.Julie Jones — Direct/Cross

JULIE JONES: Julie Jones, J-O-N-E-S.

JULIE JONES: I am married to Tim Jones, Sr.

JULIE JONES: Well, a little over 15 years ago, we might have been one of those first Match.com people. Timmy, actually, put a post up and I had not had a lot of luck working and dating, so I put a profile up. And I was actually conversing with Timmy, Jr. and his dad. So Timmy was typing and -- typing rather quickly, because you know that he has a computer background. And then one day, I saw that Tim, Sr. was online and I typed him and he's hen pecking, you know, really slow getting back. So you've got to remember this is back in the age before we had all that instant messaging. And I was like, what is going on? You're taking forever. And he kept saying call me, call me. Well, I didn't want to call, but I got tired of waiting 20 minutes just to hear a hello or a how are you. And I called him and the rest is history. We're here today.

JULIE JONES: I have three children. I had four, I lost a child, but I have three living right now.

JULIE JONES: I have Chad Sinkowski, he's my oldest. He's 27. I have Jacqueline, she's my middle child and she's 25. And then my baby is another Tyler, so we have a big Tyler and a little Tyler. And little Tyler is 23.

JULIE JONES: I'm trying to think, maybe about 2002, 2003, somewhere in there.

JULIE JONES: Yes, that was -- Tim was out of boot camp program and living with his father. His father had already been separated.

JULIE JONES: Yes, he did. And, you know, you've heard us talk about Sheldon and how we always kind of made fun of Timmy being really bright. And one of the other things is his sarcasm. So I had a job that I had to work one weekend a month and I asked Timmy to watch my kids. He had stayed with me, been with my kids. It was no big deal. And they were a little bit rambunctious. And he called me and he's like, when are you coming home? And I said, I've got two more appointments, I must do these. These are top clients. I'll be there -- you know, give me 45 minutes and a half hour to get home. You know, you're just going to have to, you know, handle it, you know. And he said, well, what if I can't handle it? I said, I don't know, call the police. Well, about an hour later, he calls back to say, I called the police and they're not going to come do anything. When are you going to be home? So he just -- you know, we had a lot of fun and funny memories about that. Because he was just happy watching the kids and they were happy to be with him, but when they got a little rambunctious, he wanted, you know, them to play with him and have fun and they didn't necessarily want to go outside and play basketball and things like that. So you've got to remember I had a girl and she was used to five brothers, so she could be a handful.

JULIE JONES: Yes, very happy. You know, Timmy needed a mom and a female figure in his life. So when I came in, he was at a crossroads. And we were able to talk, we were able to build a relationship and become friends. And a parent role as well.

JULIE JONES: Yes, I do.

JULIE JONES: Yes, they are.

JULIE JONES: Yes.

JULIE JONES: Yes.

JULIE JONES: Yes, I do.

JULIE JONES: This picture was taken -- this is Merah in the picture and it was taken in Pennsylvania. So when Merah was born, Amber, she was having, you know, a lot of those Braxton-Hicks contractions. So they lived 19 hours from us. And we didn't know whether to come, not come. She had already had two or maybe even three visits to the hospital and they were false alarms. So we waited until -- Tim suggested just wait until because he didn't want to -- you know, we would be there two weeks if she didn't have the baby. And so as soon as Tim called, we got in the car and drove. You know, Google says 19 hours, we made it in 19 hours with our stops all the way. And that's me holding her. She's still in the hospital blanket and that's -- that was our first grandbaby. It was -- I can't tell you how special it was. And you can kind of see in the background that -- this was also Timmy and Amber's first -- it was a small cottage. It was adorable, this little place. And they really just had a bassinet for the baby. So Tim and I, we went and bought a crib and a changing table and we just decked out that nursery for her. It was -- it was just incredible to have her in our life. That's where big Tim fell in love and calls her Merah Gracie. Her middle name was Gracie and he liked Gracie. He thought it was so delicate like her.

JULIE JONES: That's Tim and I. And, again -- so now, Timmy and Amber are in Mississippi. And this is when he was born, Elias. And Tim and I again were there. Now, this was taken in the hospital. So we got to be there for the birth of our grandbaby, which was exciting. And again, we held her -- him the first time. You know, we were there. It's just --

JULIE JONES: This was our backyard. This is Nahtahn. And this was coming home from the hospital. So we were there again. Nahtahn was born in Mississippi. So when he was born, I was there. And then when they came home from the hospital -- the babies were born in Tupelo and they had to go through us to get home, so they would come. That was his first day home from the hospital. And you have to remember that Amber -- we never met Amber's family. She didn't have any family and Timmy's mom wasn't there, so I got to play the grandma role and I also got to help Amber with the babies and be there after you give birth. It's a tough time for a mother to have children and be giving birth. So I got to -- I got to hold her -- well, him. This is Nahtahn. And that's our backyard.

JULIE JONES: That's Nahtahn at the hospital. So as I said, we were at the hospital. And you can tell, Amber just literally had him. And we put them all together and took their new family photo. And that's what you're seeing. You're seeing the new addition and the family photo, all of them.

JULIE JONES: Yes, we were there. I believe Tim took the picture or I could have taken the picture. So yeah, we were there and it was the first family photo with the new baby.

JULIE JONES: I loved being a grandmother. When they came and we got a chance to spoil them and have Christmas and do everything with them, it was so special. Timmy was going through school and they were building their family. And every weekend, we would have a cookout and the kids would come over. So for most of their lives, up until the last year, every weekend, I spent with those grandchildren. We'd go to the park. We'd do Easter egg hunts on Easter. We did everything together. I was very much a part of their life. I never ever did not feel like their grandmother. I changed diapers. I changed clothes and fed them cake on their birthday. And just had a wonderful time with them. I can't -- I can't tell you how beautiful it was. And I promised I wasn't going to cry because I bumble when I cry, but I want you to know that I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world.

JULIE JONES: We always called them the babies. You know, when it was just Merah, we were kind of like Merah or Gracie. And then when Elias came along, we kind of, you know, Merah or E or Elias, but then when Nahtahn came, all of a sudden, it was like okay, where are the babies? It became kind of a group. And they're very close in age and it's kind of like momma duck. When they would walk, they would kind of all be behind you in a little line. So they were always together. And so we just referred to them as the babies.

JULIE JONES: They called me grandma.

JULIE JONES: Yes.

JULIE JONES: It was a joint birthday party for all three of the kids. And they didn't know -- you know, they'd come over every weekend. They had no idea we were going to throw a birthday party for all three of them. And we literally got a bike for each child. And we put them on the dining room table with balloons and confetti all around the room. So when you walked into the front door, that's the first room that you saw. And I will never forget their little faces and the amazement of ah, are those for us? And they were just so excited. And they kept singing happy birthday to themselves that day. Nahtahn was looking for his Spiderman bike, so he had Spiderman. It was with the webs and everything. So that's what that was about. And you can see -- I mean, in Mississippi, you have to do cookouts. I just wanted you -- it's so hot, you can't really turn the oven on, so we always did that. It was part of being outside and playing with the kids. You can see the pool in the background that we talk about. So if you're running around and you get hot, we'd jump in, cool off and back to running around. We have just shy of an acre, so they had plenty of room to run and play.

JULIE JONES: I think it is from that summer. Matter of fact, I know it was from that summer, yes. And that's -- like I said, they're in their bathing suits. And we just would cook out, go swimming, ride the bikes and just have fun.

JULIE JONES: I think that was really the best summer that we had. Everybody wanted to kind of chip in and help out. Timmy was going through a rough patch, so it brought the family together. So my other two stepsons lived up north at the time, so they would try to come down. So when they came down, all the relatives would come over. So it was always a busy time with a lot of people coming and going and we were always doing. It was -- you know, you can tell, they were having fun. We enjoyed it. That was a swing that turned into a bed that you could lay down. So a lot of times, we would kind of just lay it down and rock them to sleep because I -- the children's always wanted to be part of everything, so sometimes on the weekends, even if it was a little late, they didn't want to go in and go to bed, so we would take it and lay that down and just kind of rock them. And they would still get to be part of the activities when the adults were sitting around and talking.

JULIE JONES: Oh, yes. We wanted to help. I'm nervous and I'm scared and I hurt and I want you to know how much these babies were my world. And I would have done anything to find them and I know that my husband was. We were united. We often had to sit and talk over the last four, almost five years about that event. We wouldn't change a thing. We were there. We helped them find those babies. And I worked with Creech, Lieutenant Creech. Tim and I went through pictures together. He laid out pictures and I told him, I said, you know, that's Merah. Don't call her Merah, call her Merah Gracie. And I told him what she was doing in the picture. And he laid out a picture of Elias and I said -- at first, we said, Well, we really call Elias E. And then he laid out a picture and Elias was in a little suit and that was when they went to church and they had the children dedicated. So I said, No, this picture, you've got to call him Elias Xavier Jones. And we put that emphasis on his full name. And then Nahtahn, they had a picture of Nahtahn. Nahtahn has this adorable little smile. And he had -- I don't know how he picked it up, if it was from a movie or something, but he would take a glass and if you put it here without a plate, he would just say, you know, cup of water. But when you would put it on a saucer, he would go, Cup of tea, Grandma, cup of tea. And so I told him to say cup of tea and give it a little English accent just like Nahtahn did in order to help us find them. And then Gabriel --

JULIE JONES: Well, and Gabriel, I just said Gabriel's got the cutest little smile, he doesn't do too much. So, you know, there's not really too much I can say. And then he pulled out a picture of Elaine. And I had never held Elaine, I didn't get to see her or meet her. And it just -- it hurt, it hurt.

JULIE JONES: Oh, I am so grateful to them. They -- they helped us find the babies. They brought them home. They did what we asked. They brought them home.

JULIE JONES: Yes.

JULIE JONES: So we had a memorial for the children in Mississippi. They were very much a part of our community. Amy, Mississippi is a small town. And we live on a corner, so a lot of people had seen the children playing in the yard. So we held a memorial and we had put five wreaths and we had blown up pictures put inside of each wreath. And after the memorial, we put the pictures up in Tim's office. Tim's office had all family pictures. That's what he used as his pictures on his wall, was just eight-by-tens of different photos of the whole family. And he kind of took some down and made a space for these pictures. Well, I put the wreaths -- we have a door, a French door at the foot of our bed, so I had lined the wreaths. And my sister, she helped me because she said I know you're grieving, but -- so each day, she would call me and I would take a flower from the wreaths until eventually there was no more flowers. And then I took the bows and then I took the balloons. I can't tell you how long those silver balloons last because they still were floating. And it helped me to grieve. And then with Big Tim, he would go in his office and he would just sit in front of those pictures and cry for hours on hours on hours day after day. And I couldn't help him. And I had to get rid of the pictures. So I asked Casey, Please take the pictures. I don't know what else to do. I can't get them out of the office. And he's been crying every day for the last three weeks. And then he'll have one day where he doesn't cry and then he's back to three weeks of crying again. He had talked about suicide and joining the babies. And I was afraid. I was -- I was losing everything.

JULIE JONES: We had -- we had their ashes. We had an urn. So their urn was there. And then they went to Disney World, so we had their Disney hats that they wore in the picture with the urns. And we had a couple of little items that they had made at school. Different craft projects that you do at school with your kids, we had those. And they were -- you know, Merah wrote her name on the back. They are very special to us. So they're still there. And I moved -- the ashes are in the living room. They're not in his office.

JULIE JONES: Oh, I love Tim. I love him very, very much. I do.

JULIE JONES: He's my son. I don't know when it happened or how, but somewhere along the line, there is no step. He's my son.

JULIE JONES: Oh, God, no, no. I want mercy. I don't want him put to death. I think Tim -- you know, he's smart. He's brilliant. We've told you about that over and over again. He can pay a debt to society. This man -- I have two other children who have graduated college. He taught them how to learn and to do the math. He tutored when he was in college. He can -- he can pay a debt society by giving all these GEDs. You know, our community talks about, you know, rehabilitating the inmates. Timmy has that ability. Think of how many people he could get GEDs for over the next 40 years and they could become productive members of society. He still has a lot to give. He has so much to give to me. I love him.

JULIE JONES: Oh, definitely. I have -- my daughter, unfortunately, when we had the memorial service for the grandbabies, she didn't know she was pregnant. So about three weeks after, she found out she was pregnant. And that pregnancy was very hard. I have a four-year-old granddaughter. And the other day when I was visiting with Timmy, she said, Grandma, you tell Uncle Tim that I want my granny and papaw back. Because we were here with him. He's very much a part of the family. We all know him and share stories and talk with him and keep him a part of our life. I've been waiting for this trial to conclude so that we could have a relationship. We've been talking about moving to South Carolina. It's beautiful here. I love it. And we want to be near him. We want him in our life.

JULIE JONES: A little over 15 years, yeah.

JULIE JONES: Oh, yeah. When you have six children with three are his and three are mine and we've got ex-wives and ex-husbands and we've got this grandmother and that grandmother or great-grandmother to the grandbabies, there's a lot of confusion and stuff. And the Jones family -- I come from a small family. I have one brother and one sister and we don't have a lot of cousins or anything like that. And the Jones, I mean, they've got so many cousins and -- I mean, it's a national debt when we have a family outing to, you know, to feed everybody. But with all that, there's conflict and there's love.

JULIE JONES: Yes. One of the things that he has done is he's made us closer. He's made us so much closer. We are open and we talk about our feelings. We share our feelings. The five, we all -- the five children, Timmy's brothers and sister, all have memories that they want to share and they want to talk about. And they have bad days and they have good days and they've reached to each other to get them through those days. Carolyn and I, Tim's ex-wife, everybody thought we were sisters. You know, we have a mission to -- you know, we both took on the mission to raise Timmy because he didn't have a mom, then we took on the mission to raise the other five children together, united. United we stand, united we fall. And this family is united.

JULIE JONES: So they moved to Mississippi when Merah was about -- oh, let's see, she was less than a year, so I want to say maybe about ten months. So they had started the relationship in Chicago and we moved to Mississippi shortly after. So they got married in the summer or -- no, they would have got married in June. So they got married in June and that fall, we moved to Mississippi, Tim, Sr. and I. And then they went down to Mississippi and were with family. They didn't live with us at that time. And then they left and went up to Pennsylvania and they were maybe in Pennsylvania for a year, at most. And then after they had Merah and it was -- you know, we were trying to -- you know, you've got to think back to that age. It wasn't where you just press a button on your phone. You had to do Facetime and the computer and you got to get a camera and you attached it to your computer and all that to kind of talk to each other. And we would talk to each other. And then, eventually, they just came down. And Timmy was realizing -- and I think every young man when they become a father realizes that he needed to get back to college, that he needed that degree to better himself. So that's when they came back to Mississippi. So they were there, they left, they came back.

JULIE JONES: So I'm trying to think when Merah was born and then they came back -- it was cold, so I'm going to say January or February.

JULIE JONES: Okay, I'm trying to think of the year. So Merah would be 13. We're in '19. Okay, my brain is just -- so it would be 13 years ago.

JULIE JONES: They never left Mississippi until they went to South Carolina, so that whole time.

JULIE JONES: Eleven years.

JULIE JONES: When they first came down with Merah, they lived with us for, oh, maybe three months or so. And then they went -- and Timmy went to Itawamba Community College.

JULIE JONES: No, he graduated Itawamba College and then after he graduated, he went straight to Mississippi State.

JULIE JONES: Okay, so Itawamba College would be about 25 minutes this way. We were here and Starkville would be about 45 minutes to an hour this way. Is that what you were asking?

JULIE JONES: Oh, every weekend. I mean, that was when -- so, as I said before, Amber didn't have a mom here and Timmy was going to school and Jackie and -- Jackie and Amber were almost like sisters. So every weekend, they would come over. We would see the babies. And my husband's business brought him into Starkville probably four times a week, at least, and he would stop by and see them during the week.

JULIE JONES: Yes. Yes. I think she liked to come there. You know, she'd come in and I'd be like give me that baby, you know, what are we doing here. And we all would like to play with the kids.

JULIE JONES: No, we -- it was hard. So we went to them when he took the job at Intel. So we were going back and forth to them at that point.

JULIE JONES: '12, yes.

JULIE JONES: How many children?

JULIE JONES: We had -- we started out with three -- actually, we started out with none, if you want the whole story. We started out with no children. Then Timmy -- Timmy was -- he was upset that Amber was leaving the three older ones alone at night, so he went and got them with Travis and we had them for about three or four weeks. And then Big Tim couldn't believe that she was leaving the baby, when we got that phone call, and he went out there. I know you've heard his story. And so he changed his mind because he was going to have Amber keep Gabriel. And you've got to remember, she's also pregnant at this time with a child that we don't know if it's our grandchild. And then we got Gabriel and we had the four of them. But we didn't get them all at once.

JULIE JONES: There was a plan to keep them there. Timmy was still back and forth. We were hoping that we would be able to have him work remotely. In the beginning, he was allowed to work remotely. And then it's my understanding that he was kind of new at the job and if he got to work remotely, a lot of other people wanted to work remotely, so the remotely was taken away. And we were hoping that he was establishing himself and would be able to work remotely.

JULIE JONES: Yeah, come back and do what he had done in the beginning, yes.

JULIE JONES: Uh-huh, and we would be with the grandkids, be able to enjoy them.

JULIE JONES: No, it did not work out.

JULIE JONES: Yes.

JULIE JONES: He was picking on his sister. So you've got to remember that Timmy and Jackie were very close, so that whole summer they were together, Jackie was in college. So Timmy had basically asked her to be full-time nanny during the week and then on the weekends, they would do things together. They even took a vacation for two weeks up north and spent time together. So they bickered and bantered back and forth. And they were bickering and bantering and Big Tim was like, Stop that, you guys, you know, you're worse than the kids, you know. And --

JULIE JONES: Tim packed up the kids --

JULIE JONES: -- and went back to Mississippi and then --

JULIE JONES: Yes.

JULIE JONES: No, I was not aware of any of it. We had tried to come out at Thanksgiving and it fell through. But I was not aware of any of it, no.

JULIE JONES: Well, it was Thanksgiving when he was still together with Amber, so it would be -- I think that's -- I'm not sure if there was stuff back then.

JULIE JONES: No, it was Amber who didn't want us to come.

JULIE JONES: No. No. I had seen him -- so the first time he came alone, he came alone and that was the first time I ever saw him have a drink. He also had a cigarette. I was like, Tim, what is going on? First alcohol and now you're smoking? Because he had never -- never. I mean, he stayed with me often. I just never saw it. It was a new what's happening. And then that lasted maybe two more visits, he came and was smoking. And then he said that's it. He wasn't smoking and he wasn't drinking. And then that whole summer, he was back to how he was before.

JULIE JONES: Yes.

JULIE JONES: Yes. Then we -- you know, Tim -- Big Tim wanted to, you know, hear an apology and it didn't happen. Well, it hadn't -- it's happened by now, but it hadn't at that point.

JULIE JONES: Uh-huh.

JULIE JONES: Yes. It was mutual. That day that he called Tim was our wedding anniversary and Tim had called him when we were having dinner. And they were laughing and getting ready for him to come and visit us. We were all excited.

JULIE JONES: Uh-huh, yes.

JULIE JONES: Yes, I would have.