Suspected South Carolina child murderer earlier accused of domestic violence

By Harriet McLeod CHARLESTON S.C. (Reuters) - A South Carolina man charged with murdering his five children last month before driving their bodies across several states and dumping them in Alabama was accused more than two years ago of domestic violence, police records show. The children's mother, Amber Jones, told police in May 2012 that her then-husband, Timothy Ray Jones Jr., from whom she was estranged, threatened to "snap her neck" and to shoot neighbors she was staying with, a Lexington County Sheriff's Office incident report said. On another occasion, her husband played "chicken" with an 18-wheel truck while driving with his kids in the car, avoiding a collision by inches, she told police. Jones also threw a brush at her, spat in her face and head-butted her, Amber Jones told police, the report said. "Don't push him too far. He's going to snap," she said Jones' father warned her, according to the report. Jones was not arrested in connection with his then-wife's claims, which are listed in the report as "family offenses - non-violent," Lexington County Sheriff's Office spokesman Major John Allard said on Friday. The accusations were noted by state child protection workers who had visited the Jones family at least a dozen times since 2011 on reports of child abuse and neglect, records show. State child protection officials never removed the children from the home. Jones was arrested in Mississippi on Sept. 6 after being stopped at a driver's license checkpoint. He confessed to the killings and led police to the children's bodies, which he had wrapped individually in trash bags and dumped in rural Alabama, authorities have said. Jones, who worked for Intel Corp in Columbia, South Carolina, had joint legal custody of the children. Amber Jones reported them missing on Sept. 3. (Editing by Jonathan Kaminsky and Lisa Shumaker)