HENRICO COUNTY, Va. -- Hours afterthree UVA football players were shot and killed in Charlottesville, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., the man police say killed the student-athletes, was arrested more than 70 miles away in a Henrico County, Virginia neighborhood.
A neighbor's doorbell camera captured the arrest on video.
Henrico Police arrested Jones without incident.
Police arrested Jones at the intersection of Acton Street and Edgelawn Street, just off Darbytown Road, in eastern Henrico on Monday morning.
Crime Insider sources said Jones parked the black SUV that police had asked people to be on the lookout for in that neighborhood. From there, he walked through the woods to a convenience store. At least one Henrico business owner said he saw Jones on his lot.
"I was like man that's the guy that just walked by the shop. I would've never thought it," Nowell Jinnette, owner of Acors & Griffith, Inc., said. "He was like two and a half feet from me and I didn't put it together because I thought it was too far away."
It was unclear why Jones was in that specific neighborhood on Monday, but before he enrolled at UVA, Jones attended both Varina High School and Petersburg High School. During his last year in high school, he played football for Petersburg and received a scholastic award along with making the National Honor Society.
"When I saw [the shooting] on the news this morning, I broke down crying," a woman, who knows Jones and asked her identity be hidden, said. "[Jones] was very nice. He didn't seem the way he's been described on the news."
Jones's father said he couldn't believe it was his son when police called him Monday morning.
“My heart goes out to their families. I don’t know what to say, except I’m sorry, on his behalf, and I apologize," Chris Jones Sr. said.
It had s been about a month since Chris Sr. last saw his son, who had come home to do laundry.
Chris Sr. said he had a conversation with his son while he was there about some things happening at school.
"He was real paranoid when I talked to him about some things. He wouldn’t tell me everything," Chris Sr. said "He said some people were picking on him or whatever, he didn’t know how to handle it. I just told him to just go to school, don’t pay them no mind, do what you got to do, you only got one more year.”
Chris Jones Jr. is expected to appear before a judge on Wednesday.
This is a developing story, so anyone with more information can email newstips@wtvr.com to send a tip.
