MARION COUNTY, Fla. — According to his confession, Michael Jones said he killed Casei Jones because he was mad at her, and then killed her four children because they were related to her.
Michael Jones said his wife of two years always accused him of cheating and July 10, he said, she called him at work with more accusations.
According to court documents, he said when he got home, she hit him with a bat. He said he beat her to death with that same weapon, put her in a tote and stored her in the closet.
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Records show this happened while her four children slept.
Jones then said then used her cellphone and Facebook to keep up the charade that she was still alive.
In the meantime, he said, he dropped off the two boys with his biological father and the girls with their grandmother.
But when he got them all back home in August, he said he killed Cameron Bowers while his brother slept next to him.
Jones said he choked the 9-year-old and stuffed the boy in a suitcase surrounded by kitty litter and put him in another tote.
The next night, he confessed to drowning 5-year-old Preston Bowers while tightening a zip tie around his neck.
He said for days, the boy was in a trash bag, until he, too, was placed in a tote.
A few days later, he said, he went to the Belleview City Hall, contemplating turning himself in. But instead, he drove home and drowned both Mercalli and Aiyana Jones in the bathtub, putting both in a different container.
He said he kept his family in the house until an eviction notice came. That's when he said he put all the totes in the car, covering the smell with moth balls and fly spray and went to stay with his ex-wife.
Jones learned he was wanted, so he headed north.
He was found Sept. 15 after he crashed the van with his wife's body still inside. The children had been placed in the woods nearby.
When detectives asked why he didn't leave his wife in the woods too, he said he couldn't bring himself to do it.
His ex-wife said Jones made her lie to them about the last time she saw Casei Jones, but said he never told her he killed anyone.
When asked why he didn't just leave the kids with their family members after the murder, he didn't have an answer.
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