() — A court hearing this Wednesday in Charlottesville denied bail to the student accused of killing three University of Virginia (UVA) football players after a school field trip.
According to a witness, suspect Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. shot one of the players, Devin Chandler, while he was sleeping, the Albemarle County prosecutor said. His UVA classmates, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry, were also shot dead.
Wednesday’s hearing also revealed that Jones was charged and convicted of reckless driving and hit-and-run in 2021 and had a concealed weapons charge the same year. Sentences for all these crimes were suspended.
Christopher D. Jones, suspect in the shooting at the University of Virginia.
Jones is still being held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, according to online records. He was assigned a public defender until his next hearing in December, a status hearing that will discuss whether Jones has retained a private attorney, Albemarle County District Attorney James Hingeley said.
Jones was on a field trip Sunday with his UVA classmates to see a play in Washington, a university spokesman said.
When the bus returned to the Charlottesville campus, according to authorities, the 22-year-old opened fire on the bus, killing Chandler, Davis and Perry.
Jones faces three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, UVA Police Chief Timothy Longo Sr. said.
He also faces two counts of malicious injury, each accompanied by one count of possession and use of a firearm. Two other people were injured in the shooting, Hingeley said.
The prosecutor identified the injured as Marlee Morgan and Michael Hollins.
One of them was in serious condition and the other has been released from the hospital, UVA Health spokesman Eric Swensen said Tuesday. Swensen did not identify either person.
Hollins, a junior running back on the college football team, was intubated but stable Tuesday morning, his family said. contacted the family of Marlee Morgan.
“We thought he was going to shoot everyone on the bus”
UVA student Ryan Lynch told KYW-TV, affiliated with , who was on the bus where the shooting took place and saw Jones push one of the victims.
“Chris got up and pushed Lavel,” Lynch said. “After I pushed him, he said, ‘They’re always messing with me.’ He said something weird like that, but it was really weird because they didn’t talk to him the whole trip.”
Then shots erupted.
“They kept coming, more and more shots,” Lynch told KYW. “We thought he was going to shoot everyone on the bus.”
But “the shooter just walked or, like, jumped off the bus,” Lynch said.
The rest of the football season is in limbo
The Cavaliers were scheduled to play Coastal Carolina on Saturday, but it was canceled, the university’s athletic department announced Wednesday.
“The game would have been Virginia’s final home game of the 2022 season,” a statement from the athletic department said.
“A decision as to whether Virginia will participate in its final game of the season, a November 26 (Saturday) date against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, has not been made at this time.”
Jones was the subject of a gun-related investigation
Jones was the subject of a pending case with the university’s judicial council when the shooting unfolded Sunday, authorities said.
“On September 15, in the context of reviewing a possible hazing matter, UVA Student Affairs heard from a student that Mr. Jones made a comment to him about possession of a weapon,” said Coy, the spokesman for University.
That person “did not see Mr. Jones in possession of a weapon,” and the “comment about possession of a weapon was not made in connection with a threat,” Coy said.
“In the course of their investigation, University officials spoke with Mr. Jones’s roommate, who gave no indication of the presence of any weapons. In the course of their investigation, University officials discovered that Mr. Jones had previously been tried and convicted of a misdemeanor concealed weapons violation in 2021, for which he received a 12-month suspended sentence and a small fine.”
Throughout the investigation, Coy said, “Mr. Jones repeatedly refused to cooperate with University officials seeking additional information about the claims that he had a firearm and about his failure to disclose the conviction for prior misdemeanor.”
Therefore, on October 27, “the Threat Assessment Team elevated his case to the category of disciplinary action,” Coy said.
The school’s judicial council has taken up the case, and the results are pending, the university’s police chief said.
Jones was also involved in an investigation into campus hazing that was dropped because witnesses were uncooperative, Longo said.
Jones is listed on UVA’s athletics website as a 2018 football player who did not appear in any games as a freshman. A UVA spokesperson told that Jones had a pre-existing injury that prevented him from playing on the football team in 2018.
Jones underwent medical treatment and rehabilitation during his time with the team and was only a member of the team for one season, the spokesman says.
“We will celebrate their lives”
On Tuesday, UVA football coach Tony Elliott spoke publicly for the first time since the shooting. He described the days after the attack as a nightmare.
“I’m ready for someone to pinch me and wake me up and tell me this didn’t happen,” Elliott said, adding that Tuesday “was so much better, we were able to go from pain to finding a little bit of joy in celebrating the lives of Lavel, D’Sean and Devin”.
Devin Chandler, D’Sean Perry, and Lavel Davis Jr. were killed in a shooting on the main campus of the University of Virginia.
The deaths of players Chandler, Davis Jr. and Perry left three huge holes in a team that felt more like family than anything else, the coach said. He went on to describe them, calling Chandler “the life of the party,” Davis “the big man on campus,” and Perry “the quiet guy everyone wanted to know about.”
Elliott praised the strength of his team and staff for coming together and being able to process the shooting. Elliott said the team has inspired him to keep going. At the same time, he said that the staff has made it their mission to ensure that the team has all the resources they need and that no one becomes isolated.
“The message to the team is that we’re going to celebrate their lives going forward and the impact they’ve had thus far and the legacy they’re going to be a part of helping us establish going forward,” Elliott said.
— Matt Foster, Amanda Musa, Chris Boyette, Chimaine Pouteau and Jessica Prater contributed reporting.
