The father of the University of Virginia shooting suspect said his son was “real paranoid” during the last time he visited about a month ago.
Christopher Darnell Jones Sr., the father of the suspect, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., said his son visited home to do laundry, and they discussed the son’s experience at school, according to the Norfolk-based CBS affiliate WTKR.
“Yeah he was real paranoid, when I talked to him, about some things,” the elder Jones said. “He wouldn’t tell me everything. He said some people were picking on him or whatever, he didn’t know how to handle it. I just told him to just go to school, don’t pay them no mind, do what you got to do, you only got one more year.”
Police allege Christopher Jones Jr., a 22-year-old student at the university, shot and killed three members of the football team and injured two others on Sunday.
He was taken into custody on Monday and has been charged with three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony.
Christopher Jones Sr. said he and his son’s mother separated when their son was five years old and he was not involved in his son’s life for 11 years.
WTKR reported that the younger Jones stayed in an apartment with his father and grandmother when he wasn’t at school.
Christopher Jones Jr. won an award for scholastic achievement, made national honor society and was accepted to UVA while he was a senior in high school, but a Richmond Times Dispatch article from when he graduated high school reported that he had gotten into fights for years, faced suspensions and struggled after his father left their family.
“What happened? Why did it have to get this far? He could have called me,” Christopher Jones Sr. said.