Jealousy fueled shooting

A jealous, verbally abusive husband or a mentally deficient, disturbed victim of a cheating wife — these were the choices set before jurors Wednesday during the opening of James Louis Jones’ murder trial.

Jones, 41, is accused of murdering his estranged wife’s boyfriend, Stephen Phillip Floyd, on the night of Nov. 29, 2003, at Cynthia Jones’ mobile home in Sutherlin.

Jones, who sat nearly motionless in court with his head down throughout the day, allegedly shot Floyd several times after he came home to find the pair engaged in what he believed was sexual relations. The two have since divorced, and Cynthia has taken the last name Brown.

As the prosecution works this week to prove Jones is guilty of murder, his defense attorney will try to convince the jury the man’s emotional state at the time of the incident is cause to convict him of a lesser charge such as manslaughter.

“This is not a case of murder,” said defense attorney Butch Aller. “It’s not a case of pre-meditated, cold-blooded murder.”

Deputy District Attorney Deb Stoll told the jury of Jones’ continual accusations throughout their four-year marriage that his wife was having an affair. Just two days prior to the shooting, on Thanksgiving Day, the Joneses had quarreled over the subject and drawn police to the scene. Jones later gathered his belongings from the home and left.

The night of the shooting, Brown and Floyd sat in the living room talking, listening to jazz. Floyd had taken a bubble bath, Brown testified, and he came into the living room in a towel, taking a seat on the couch beside her.

“I didn’t want to be alone, I was scared,” Brown testified, also explaining that she was fully clothed.

Brown said her husband’s accusations over the course of their marriage were false — until she met Floyd, a co-worker at a furniture manufacturer. The pair became intimate shortly before the shooting.

When James Jones walked in to find his wife with a naked man on the couch, something snapped, Aller said.

After Jones’ parents divorced as a young boy, Aller explained, he was essentially raised by his grandparents in Sutherlin.

The man didn’t do well in school due to “mental limitations,” Aller said, and finished high school without a diploma. Jones’ previous marriage fell apart around the time his wife gave birth to a child he didn’t believe to be his.

The night of Nov. 29, Jones suspected he’d catch his wife, Cynthia, with another man. He parked down the street and walked up to the house.

“What he saw was this person, a man, with no clothes on … with his wife,” Aller said.
Jones suffered extreme emotional disturbance, Aller argues, a legal phrase that could lead to a lesser conviction like first or second-degree manslaughter, instead of murder.

The prosecution and defense questioned witnesses throughout the day, including Brown, a Sutherlin police officer and an old friend of Jones’. They also listened to 911 calls made between Jones and the police as he holed himself up in the home with Floyd’s dead body for several hours.

Once Brown escaped the home to call 911, police attempted to coax out Jones, who allegedly planted an inoperable gun under Floyd’s arm. On the phone with an officer, he continually repeated that he knew he’d made a mistake and said he didn’t realize what he was doing.

“I saw him on top of my old lady,” Jones said on the tape. “… I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t want to do that.”

Brown and others testified about Jones’ emotional state before, during and after the shooting. Next week, psychologists will explain to the jury exactly what constitutes extreme emotional disturbance.

Though 911 tapes reveal a frantic Brown saying her husband seemed “out of control,” moments after the shooting, she testified Monday that she believes he had intent.

“It was like he had a purpose,” she said. “He knew what he was doing.”

• You can reach reporter Chelsea Duncan at 957-4246 or by e-mail at cduncan@newsreview.info.