Timothy Jones Jr. was convicted of killing his five children on Tuesday. (Photo: Jeff Blake, AP)

A father from South Carolina was found guilty Tuesday of killing his five young children, allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

Timothy Jones Jr. did not respond, as the Lexington County Jury delivered five verdicts of murder guilt after reviewing the case for two days. The same jury will return Thursday to hear the arguments of Jones's attorneys and lawyers before deciding his fate.

Jones, 37, was a single father and a computer engineer. After killing one of his children, he decided to kill the other four rather than allow them to end up with his ex-wife, prosecutors said. His lawyers should argue that his mental problems were compounded by his wife's drug use and infidelity.

In According to The State newspaper, confessions and statements to psychiatrists stated that on the night of August 28, 2014, he had an angry confrontation with Nahtahn, 6, after the child had broken an electrical outlet his home. To punish him, Jones forced the boy to do various strenuous exercises for a long time. He said he later found the dead boy in his bed.

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Prosecutors said that after the death of the first child, Jones had thought for several hours before deciding to strangle the other four children, all aged 1 to 8 years. He claimed to have done to send the children to paradise together.

Jones then wrapped the plastic children's bodies and accompanied them into the Southeast, making erratic trips and buying synthetic marijuana, according to Attorney Rick Hubbard.

He also admitted to having investigated countries that do not extradite suspects in the United States and how to disintegrate the bodies more quickly, while playing the favorite song of his eldest daughter, nine days before throwing it away. on a hill in the rural area of ​​Alabama.

"He left his kids in sacks," Hubbard said. "They looked like rubbish."

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The jury could have determined Jones to be guilty or guilty but mentally ill, not guilty on the grounds of insanity or not guilty, according to WYFF in South Carolina.

Jones's attorneys attempted to argue that Jones was deeply prey to a mental illness when he had killed his children, claiming that his mental health had been compromised by the fact that his wife had left him for a teenager and had been broken by the consumption of alcohol and synthetic marijuana.

"He's crazy," Boyd Young's lawyer told the jury. "You can not rationalize the crazy, but at the time, he thought it was the right thing to do."

But prosecutors said Jones knew what he was doing was bad.

"The worst of the worst to know that killing your babies is obscene, outrageous and absolutely morally unacceptable," Hubbard told the court. "Jones did that in seconds."

Contribute: The Associated Press.

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