Mom of 5 slain children sobs on stand at ex-husband's trial

Amber Kyzer dabbed tears from her eyes for most of her testimony Monday and sobbed at the death penalty trial of her ex-husband, charged with killing their five young children.

But then a prosecutor asked her to read a letter she wrote the oldest child, trying to comfort her over the divorce and the pain of suddenly being in a broken home.

"You kids are my world and Mommy and Daddy were really blessed to have you," Kyzer said, pausing, then burying her head in her hands on the witness stand and breaking into heaving sobs.

CORRECTS TOWN TO COLUMBIA NOT LEXINGTON - Tim Jones looks around the courtroom during his trial in Columbia, S.C., Monday, May 20, 2019. Timothy Jones, Jr. is accused of killing his 5 young children in 2014. Jones, who faces the death penalty, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. (Tracy GlantzThe State via AP)

"Oh god. Oh god. My babies. My babies," Kyzer cried as the judge rushed to get the jury out of the courtroom.

Kyzer's ex-husband on trial for his life, Timothy Jones Jr., stood up and looked at her, but showed no emotion in footage of the trial being livestreamed from the Lexington County Courthouse.

Kyzer testified in the sixth day of Jones' death penalty trial.

Amber Jones cries from the witness stand while being questioned by 11th Circuit deputy Solicitor Suzanne Mayes during the trial of her ex husband, Tim Jones, Columbia S.C., Monday, May 20, 2019. Timothy Jones, Jr. is accused of killing their 5 young children in 2014. Jones, who faces the death penalty, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. (Tracy GlantzThe State via AP, Pool)

Jones, 37, is charged with five counts of murder. Jones' lawyers don't dispute that he killed the children. But they are trying to have him found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Prosecutors said he killed 6-year-old Nahtahn in a rage after finding the boy, fascinated by electricity, had broken an outlet in their home near Lexington in August 2014. Jones then strangled 8-year-old Mera and 7-year-old Elias with his hands and 2-year-old Gabriel and 1-year-old Abigail with a belt, prosecutors said.

After killing the children, authorities said Jones wrapped their bodies in plastic and put them in his SUV, driving aimlessly around the Southeast U.S. for most of nine days before leaving their bodies on a hilltop in Camden, Alabama.

CORRECTS TOWN TO COLUMBIA NOT LEXINGTON - State Judge Eugene Griffith pauses the trial as Tim Jones' ex-wife Amber Kyzer breaks down while testifying in Columbia, S.C., Monday, May 20, 2019. Timothy Jones, Jr. is accused of killing their 5 young children in 2014. Jones, who faces the death penalty, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. (Tracy GlantzThe State via AP, Pool)

Jones was arrested at a Smith County, Mississippi, traffic checkpoint, where an officer testified he recognized a strong odor coming from the car he recognized as "the smell of death."

Prosecutors called the pathologist who did autopsies on the children to the stand Monday, but refused to show pictures of the bodies. Defense attorneys wanted them shown because it might aid in Jones' insanity defense to show how badly decomposed the bodies were in the back of the SUV, but Circuit Judge Eugene Griffith refused.

Last week, prosecutors played Jones' confession to police. In it, he said he was angry at Nahtahn for breaking an electrical outlet and forced him to exercise for hours since he would not admit what he did and feared the 6-year-old was plotting to kill him. Jones said he found his son dead several hours later, although the pathologist testified it appeared the boy was killed by some kind of violence she could not pinpoint.

CORRECTS TOWN TO COLUMBIA NOT LEXINGTON - Tim Jones' ex-wife Amber Kyzer reacts to a photograph of her son while being questioned by 11th Circuit deputy solicitor, Suzanne Mayes, during the trail of Tim Jones, in Columbia, S.C., Monday, May 20, 2019. Timothy Jones, Jr. is accused of killing their 5 young children in 2014. Jones, who faces the death penalty, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. (Tracy GlantzThe State via AP, Pool)

"The voices started kicking in," Jones recalled thinking after finding the boy dead. "Saying 'you better do something, you are (expletive), Tim."

Kyzer's testimony Monday started with tears as she told the prosecutor the full name and dates of birth for all five of her children. Prosecutor Suzanne Mayes asked her why it was her first time in the courtroom during the trial.

"I can't handle it," Kyzer answered.

CORRECTS TOWN TO COLUMBIA NOT LEXINGTON - Tim Jones' ex-wife Amber Kyzer is questioned by 11th Circuit deputy solicitor Suzanne Mayes, during the trial of her ex-husband, Tim Jones, in Columbia, S.C., Monday, May 20, 2019. Timothy Jones, Jr. is accused of killing their 5 young children in 2014. Jones, who faces the death penalty, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. (Tracy GlantzThe State via AP, Pool)

She testified she fell in love with Jones because he was smart, accomplished and appeared to have his life together. But she said after they married, he became rigid in his religion and demanding on her.

"Women are to be seen and not heard. I was merely to take care of the children. To keep them out of his way," Kyzer said.

After they divorced, Kyzer allowed her husband custody of the children because he had a job that paid $80,000 as a computer engineer, and a car. She would get a ride to the Chick-After fil-A in Lexington to see them every Saturday under Jones' watchful gaze.

Tim Jones sits in court as his defense attorneys Rob Madsen, Casey Secor and Boyd Young confer during the trial of Tim Jones in Lexington, S.C., Monday, May 20, 2019. Timothy Jones, Jr. is accused of killing their 5 young children in 2014. Jones, who faces the death penalty, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. (Tracy GlantzThe State via AP, Pool)

On Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014, after no one had heard from her kids for nine days, Kyzer went to the restaurant as police watched. Jones never showed up.

The trial took a 30-minute break after Kyzer's sobs, and defense lawyer Boyd Young asked her only a few questions. She said Jones was a good father while they were married, but he seemed to start having mental problems after they divorced.

Jones' lawyers said in their opening statement Jones' mother has been in a mental institution for 20 years and he had undiagnosed schizophrenia. Then Jones' thin grasp on reality broken by his ex-wife's infidelity, the difficulty of raising five young children on his own and a feeling he was failing to live up to his religious beliefs.

Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP . Read his work at https://apnews.com/search/jeffrey%20collins .

WASHINGTON (AP) — A soon-to-be-released Biden administration review of Israel's use of U.S.-provided weapons in its war in Gaza does not conclude that Israel has violated the terms for their use, according to three people who have been briefed on the matter.

The report is expected to be sharply critical of Israel, even though it didn’t conclude that Israel violated terms of U.S.-Israel weapons agreements, according to one U.S. official.

The Biden administration's first-of-its-kind assessment of its close ally's conduct of the war comes after seven months of airstrikes, ground fighting and aid restrictions that have claimed the lives of nearly 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

A presidential directive agreed to by the White House under pressure from congressional Democrats and others mandated the review of whether Israel had complied with international law in its use of U.S.-provided weapons and other security support during the course of the war.

Two U.S. officials and a third person briefed on the findings of the national security memorandum to be submitted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Congress discussed the matter before the report's release. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not yet public.

A senior Biden administration official said the memorandum is expected to be released later Friday, but declined to comment on the findings.

Axios first reported on the memorandum's finding.

Lawmakers and others who advocated for the review said President Joe Biden and previous American leaders have followed a double standard when enforcing U.S. laws governing how foreign militaries use U.S. support, an accusation the Biden administration denies. They had urged the administration to make a straightforward legal determination of whether there was credible evidence that specific Israeli airstrikes on schools, crowded neighborhoods, medical workers, aid convoys and other targets, and restrictions on aid shipments into Gaza, violated the laws of war and human rights.

Their opponents argued that a U.S. finding against Israel would weaken it at a time it is battling Hamas and other Iran-backed groups. Any sharply critical findings on Israel are sure to add to pressure on Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military and further heighten tensions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government over its conduct of the war against Hamas.

Any finding against Israel also could endanger Biden’s support in this year's presidential elections from some voters who keenly support Israel.

The Democratic administration took one of the first steps toward conditioning military aid to Israel in recent days when it paused a shipment of 3,500 bombs out of concern over Israel’s threatened offensive on Rafah, a southern city crowded with more than a million Palestinians, a senior administration official said.

The presidential directive, agreed to in February, obligated the Defense and State departments to conduct “an assessment of any credible reports or allegations that such defense articles and, as appropriate, defense services, have been used in a manner not consistent with international law, including international humanitarian law.”

T he agreement also obligated them to tell Congress whether they deemed that Israel has acted to “arbitrarily to deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly,” delivery of any U.S.-supported humanitarian aid into Gaza for starving civilians there.

At the time the White House agreed to the review, it was working to head off moves from Democratic lawmakers and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont to start restricting shipments of weapons to Israel.

Israel launched its offensive after an Oct. 7 assault into Israel, led by Hamas, killed about 1,200 people. Two-thirds of the Palestinians killed since then have been women and children, according to local health officials. U.S. and U.N. officials say Israeli restrictions on food shipments since Oct. 7 have brought on full-fledged famine in northern Gaza.

Human rights groups long have accused Israeli security forces of committing abuses against Palestinians and have accused Israeli leaders of failing to hold those responsible to account. In January, in a case brought by South Africa, the top U.N. court ordered Israel to do all it could to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive.

Israel says it is following all U.S. and international law, that it investigates allegations of abuse by its security forces and that its campaign in Gaza is proportional to the existential threat it says is posed by Hamas.

Biden in December said “indiscriminate bombing” was costing Israel international backing. After Israeli forces targeted and killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in April, the Biden administration for the first time signaled it might cut military aid to Israel if it didn’t change its handling of the war and humanitarian aid.

Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, in the 1980s and early 1990s, were the last presidents to openly hold back weapons or military financing to try to push Israel to change its actions in the region or toward Palestinians.

A report to the Biden administration by an unofficial, self-formed panel including military experts, academics and former State Department officials detailed Israeli strikes on aid convoys, journalists, hospitals, schools and refugee centers and other sites. They argued that the civilian death toll in those strikes — such as an Oct. 31 strike on an apartment building reported to have killed 106 civilians — was disproportionate to the blow against any military target.

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at a hospital in Rafah, Gaza, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)

U.S. President Joe Biden boards Marine One at Moffett Airfield in Mountain View, Calif., Thursday, May 9, 2024. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Pool Photo via AP)