Henry Lee Jones

Since then, Jones has repeatedly attempted to have his sentences commuted, but so far has been unsuccessful. His last appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court was denied in 2019, with the court instead upholding the original verdict. As of May 2022, he remains on death row at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Throughout the proceedings, Jones questioned the validity of the evidence presented by both the prosecutors and their medical examiner, Dr. Sajid Qaiser, as well as the testimonies of witnesses. At times, he simply complained that he did not have full access to all evidence in the case, and on one occasion apologized about causing confusion in regards to an incident concerning a report and one of the witnesses. In the ends, the jury found him guilty on all counts and recommended the death sentence. After the announcement of the guilty verdict, Jones appeared unfazed, and supposedly even smiled. He was officially sentenced to death in May 2014, with the verdict being openly welcomed by Perez's father and the father of Keith Gross.

In May 2009, Jones was found guilty of the Tennessee crimes and sentenced to death, whereupon authorities from Florida indicted him for Perez's murder. While Jones claimed he was innocent in that case, family members and the prosecutor demanded the death penalty for him. During the proceedings, Jones, who chose to act as his own attorney in spite of attempts from the judge to convince him otherwise, complained that belongings like his legal paperwork, glasses and Bible were left behind in Tennessee. According to Jones, he chose to represent himself after he fired his public defender for encouraging him to waive his right to a speedy trial. For security reasons, the trial location was moved from Titusville to the Viera Justice Center in Viera.

On August 22, 2003, accompanied by a 20-year-old homeless male prostitute named Tevarus Young, whom he had picked up from a bar in Fort Lauderdale in his Dodge. After paying him to perform oral sex, Jones asked Young to accompany him on a road trip to Bartlett, Tennessee, where he had once resided. While driving through the town, Jones stopped by the house of 82-year-old Clarence and 64-year-old Lillian James, an elderly couple who were well-known for their friendliness towards strangers. Clarence politely asked Young to move a lawn mower to the backyard, which Jones utilized to his advantage to go inside. There, he tied the pair up and proceeded to stab and strangle both of them before ultimately slitting their throats with a pair of scissors. The blood-soaked Jones was soon discovered by Young, whom he ordered to help remove the bindings from the bodies and ransack the house, and after searching through it, the pair took the spouses' credit card and some jewellery before fleeing the scene. According to later testimony from Young, Jones threatened to kill him if he ever told anyone about the crimes and even raped him at a rest stop, before the pair made a stop in Mississippi to buy a white four-door Lincoln Town Car.

Jones was first indicted for murder on October 7, 2003, with prosecutors announcing their intent to seek the death penalty against him. At this initial trial, prosecutors were allowed to present evidence from the Perez murder, which convinced the jury of the defendant's guilt and resulted in a guilty verdict. In the meantime, Young pleaded guilty to two counts of facilitation of first-degree murder and was sentenced to 13-and-a-half years imprisonment.

On May 14, 2002, another girlfriend of Jones' reported him to Fort Lauderdale police for allegedly drugging and raping her mentally-handicapped teenage son. According to the statement, Jones and the victim had spent most of the day drinking, riding bikes and using Percodan together, until they eventually went to "chill" at the girlfriend's house. After drinking and swallowing more Percodan, the victim was supposedly left near-incapacitated, which allowed Jones to drag him to the bedroom and continuously rape him for three hours. Six weeks after the initial report, the Assistant State Attorney for Broward County, Lauren Covitz, announced that she would not press charges due to the unlikely chance of a conviction. Because of this, Jones was never prosecuted for this supposed crime.

Sometime in July 2002, Jones befriended 24-year-old Keith Gross, an employee at a local store named Kitchens to Go, and the pair would often smoke weed together. Presenting himself as "Bam", Jones was introduced to Gross' employer and friend, Ken Walker, who warned him to steer clear of his new "friend" because he had a bad feeling about him, which Gross ignored for the most part. On September 9, 2002, Walker had invited Gross to come over to his house so they could watch a game of football, but Gross failed to arrive. Walker became worried even further when he failed to arrive at work the following day, and after waiting for a few hours, he went to Gross' apartment on Sunrise Boulevard to check on him.

From the period of 1999 to 2001, Jones was repeatedly jailed for a variety of offenses ranging from stalking, drug possession and violating restraining orders, but either served short sentences or the charges were dropped. On October 10, 2001, he was arrested and charged with assaulting his then-girlfriend and stealing a gray 1988 Ford Fiesta from a car dealership, but as the district attorney felt that they were lacking credible evidence, the charges of grand theft were dropped and Jones was allowed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges, for which he was given an 8-month prison sentence.

During his time in prison, Jones proved to be a violent and insubordinate inmate who was reprimanded a total of 36 times for offenses such as fighting and assaulting other inmates, weapons possession, disorderly conduct, etc. The most notable of these crimes was inciting a prison riot at the Liberty Correctional Institution in Bristol on January 23, 1991, for which he was given more prison time. Despite all of his infractions, he was released from the Tomoka Correctional Institution in Daytona Beach on July 1, 1997, due to prison overcrowding.

On October 3, 1981, the then-18-year-old Jones and a 19-year-old accomplice named Jackie Johnson went to the Johnny Harris Pontiac car dealership in Fort Lauderdale, where they planned to steal a car. After they were presented with several models by 45-year-old salesman Joseph Giovanni, they picked a tan 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix and asked to go on a test drive with it. Jones drove the car while Giovanni sat next to him and Johnson sat in the back, and after some time, the pair held Giovanni at gunpoint. After finding a deserted area, all three got out of the car, whereupon Jones and Johnson robbed Giovanni and forced him into the trunk. They then picked up Jones' girlfriend, 17-year-old Annie Mae Robbins, and drove around for two hours until they found an orange grove, where they left Giovanni behind and sped away.

Henry Lee Jones (born August 23, 1963) is an American criminal and serial killer who has been sentenced to death on multiple occasions for the murders of three people in Tennessee and Florida in August 2003. In addition to these crimes, he remains the prime suspect in a fourth killing dating back to 2002, and possibly other murders.

Henry Lee Jones was born on August 23, 1963, in Cleveland, Mississippi. Little is known about his upbringing, but later on in life, Jones claimed that he grew up without a father and was regularly beaten with various objects by older relatives. At some point during his teens, he moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he soon would delve into a life of crime and serve several prison sentences for minor offenses.