From Staff Reports

Sentencing for the murderer of three Virginia football players began Monday in Charlottesville with Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingley requesting Judge Cheryl Higgins to go above the minimum sentence for Christopher Darnell Jones Jr.

Jones accepted a plea deal a year ago for three counts of first-degree murder after shooting and killing Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler in November of 2022. Jones also shot Mike Hollins and Marley Morgan, both of whom survived the attack.

Jones, a former UVA student, faces a minimum of 23 years in prison, but up to 54 years.

While Jones will await sentencing, Brenda Hollins, the mother of former player Mike Hollins, spoke for the victims’ families when she said, “This is a life sentence for all of us. God has the final say.”

One of the defense attorneys told the court that Jones had succumbed to the scars of childhood abuse and poverty that led to killing his fellow students, and that the domestic abuse in his home eventually made him paranoid and delusional.

The prosecution argued that Jones had collected several firearms in his dorm room — against university policy, and presented by an Albemarle County detective, concerning a rap song that Jones sang and published online a year before the murders.

Lyrics of that song included a verse about killing someone in their sleep. According to witnesses, Jones shot and killed Chandler while he was sleeping on the bus, returning from a class trip to D.C.

According to sources who attended the opening day of the sentencing, there were weeping mothers among other witnesses and Albemarle detectives who took the stand on Monday, the first of what is expected to last five days.

Hollins’ mother was among those who testified, along with her son, describing the grief she and her family have endured for three years.

While the defense argued that Jones claimed the players had antagonized him on the trip, both Mike Hollins, who was shot in the back, and Morgan Dean, a student who was on the trip, countered that wasn’t the case.

Dean said she overheard Jones yell, “Y’all been f***ing with me all day,” when the shooting started. She then testified, “I saw the defendant shoot Lavel in the back of the head.”

Hollins testified the players did not give Jones any difficulty on the trip.

“There wasn’t any drama on the bus,” Hollins told the court. “It’s three years later and I can still feel it.”