After fleeing a Missouri juvenile detention center where he was being investigated for homicide, the boy is now being charged with murder and other offenses in relation to another shooting incident involving a guy who was shot and died while FaceTiming his mother.
In connection with the death of 19-year-old Jadun M. Byrd, Jonathon Xavier Jones, 19, is accused of murder, armed criminal action, and unauthorized use of a firearm.
According to authorities, Jones, who was 17 at the time of the tragic incident, has been approved to face an adult trial. According to officials, Jones was already detained on separate charges and is still detained.
A probable cause statement states that the homicide took place on March 2, 2022, in the 2400 block of Whittier Street in St. Louis.
Officers were dispatched to a shooting scene. When the police arrived, they discovered the victim, who had been shot, laying in a parking lot. It happened in a hospital.
When the victim entered the parking lot, a witness reported to the police that he had seen a white Dodge Journey traveling through the neighborhood and parked in a neighboring property.
The witness told police that as the Journey approached the victim, someone on the driver’s side rolled down the window and started shooting the man, according to the affidavit.
Leslie Byrd, the mother of the victim, reported to the police that she heard gunfire while FaceTiming her son at the scene of the crime.
“She saw her son hit the ground and could only see his face,” according to the probable cause statement.
She claimed to have heard someone say, “They just shot that boy up. And then somebody accidentally kicked the phone and I seen his head just roll and his hands curled up.”
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“They didn’t even rob him,” she continued. “They didn’t take anything from him. They just pulled up and shot and drove off.”
Video evidence showing the Journey circling the victim’s neighborhood and following him allowed authorities to immediately connect the suspect to the crime, according to the probable cause statement.
About thirty minutes before to the murder, surveillance footage showed a man—later identified as Jones—getting into the car and leaving.
Additionally, it showed him coming back with the car and getting out on the driver’s side thirty minutes after the death. The suspect’s fingerprints were allegedly discovered on the driver’s side of the Journey when it was discovered by police.
According to the document, many firearms, including one that matched ballistic evidence discovered at the murder site, were discovered during a search of the suspect’s residence.
According to the authorities, Jones’ phone was put into “Airplane Mode” just before the murder and took out of it soon after.
According to the probable cause statement, Jones was on the run at the time of the carnage after breaking out of a juvenile prison facility where he was being investigated for a homicide that was still under investigation.
According to authorities, Jones and two other people are suspected of killing a 29-year-old man in September 2021. The next month, he and another teenager broke out of a juvenile jail center. Both the escape case and the 2021 homicide trial are still pending, according to officials.
