Jeffrey Aaron interviewed Christopher Darnell Jones Junior at length, spending a total of 16 hours learning about him. He concluded Jones suffered from major depression, substance abuse and – above all – trauma related stressor disorder. Both of his parents had abused him as a child, his mother reportedly telling him once that she hated him and would kill him if she could. She would often lock him out of the house, forcing him to sleep at a laundromat or at the home of a coach.
In high school he played football. It was, Arron said, a life-changing thing that gave him a place to belong. He had always felt that he didn’t measure up, but in football he excelled.
His mother often threatened to withhold permission for him to play, so before his senior year he left her home in Richmond and went to live with his grandmother in Petersburg.
He was voted homecoming king at his new school and achieved a grade point average above 4.0, because he took advanced classes. He was admitted to the University of Virginia and secured a spot on the football team as a walk-on.
He described his first year at college as the best in his life, but he was never sure he fit in. He pledged a fraternity and underwent brutal hazing before getting in. Then a chronic ankle injury cost him his place on the football team.
When COVID hit, he headed back to Petersburg. Aaron said he was distressed and despairing, considered suicide and began using drugs. His sister was in a terrible accident, and he was unable to visit her in the hospital. He crashed his own car into a pole at high speed and was hospitalized. Aaron says he likely suffered a traumatic brain injury that could have impaired his ability to think.
He dropped out of UVA, had two more accidents and was briefly jailed for possession of a gun.He told the psychologist he needed it, because he was selling marijuana.
By 2022, when he returned to UVA, he showed signs of paranoia – believing people were trying to hurt him.Aaron says Jones thinking started to unravel, said things that didn’t make sense and did not respond to reason.
At times he appeared normal, but then he would begin to mumble and express irrational fears.This quality of going back and forth is not associated with schizophrenia, nor is the organized way that Jones was thinking at the time.
When he felt threatened, Aaron said, it would trigger disordered thinking and sudden outbursts.On the day of a field trip to Washington, D.C., and ex-girlfriend showed up.That made him anxious.As he boarded a chartered bus, someone stepped on his toes.
When other students laughed, he was convinced they were laughing at him – planning to kill him. As a child he had been bullied and humiliated. Now, Aaron said, those emotions came back with force.
As the bus pulled onto campus Jones felt he was in danger and had to do something.He told the psychologist that his brain was shouting at him:Do it. Don’t do it. Do it. Don’t do it.
He stood and fired shots that killed three and wounded two others. He escaped from the bus and drove toward his mother’s home in Richmond. He told Aaron he knew it was "the worst thing he had ever done. It was terrible."
Jones made a deal with the prosecutor – that he would plead guilty in exchange for a promise of eligibility for parole. Virginia considers inmates for early release once they turn 60, but it will be up to the judge to decide how long his sentence will be.
