Jones was facing a possible 17-year prison term. Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser said he was pleased with the outcome.
“He played Russian roulette with the wrong office,” Gmoser said. “Now he is going to do nine years, and he’s got a lot of time to think about this.”
Prosecutors said the couple was watching movies when a horror film sparked a game of Russian roulette. The defense says Jones heard his 20-year-old girlfriend clicking the chambers on the gun he had just loaded and ran to her rescue.
The trial started on Monday and by Tuesday afternoon the defense rested without calling a single witness. During his closing argument, Assistant Prosecutor Dan Phillips told the jury there is only one way the killing happened. He said when Jones loaded one bullet in the .38 caliber handgun, he thought the chamber revolved the opposite way.
“When he put it (the bullet) in what he believed was the fifth hole, he thought he had four shots to play with her, to joke around with his girlfriend,” he said. “But he made a fatal, horrible mistake. A mistake does not absolve him of guilt, he knowingly loaded the gun, knowingly pulled the trigger of that gun, and when you do that, it is felonious assault.”
The jury saw taped discussions Jones had with police, and Phillips said the story changed several times, but all of the versions had Blevins playing with the gun and Jones trying to stop her. After the shooting, Jones ran from the scene and threw the weapon in the river.
Defense attorney Raeshon Mansoor told the jury during opening statements, “this was actually an accident … an unfortunate event that occurred by chance.”
Jones heard Blevins clicking the gun when he left the room to get something to eat, according to Mansoor. When he returned, Jones tried to grab the gun to stop Blevins and “bam — the gun fires and hits Amanda in the cheek,” Mansoor said.
Jones stared down at the table in front of him when Phillips showed a photo of the crime scene with Blevins laying face down, a pool of blood by her head and her legs properly crossed, as from a sitting position, and one foot hooked underneath a bed. He said Blevins couldn’t be standing, playing with the gun.
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