A 62-year-old man traveled via bus from South Carolina to western Jefferson County, Alabama, in March to confess to murdering his girlfriend 21 years ago.
Brian Edward Jones called Bessemer police once he arrived in Birmingham and told them that in February 2001, he killed his girlfriend and stuffed her body in a suitcase, which he subsequently dumped in a wooded area nearby, according to AL.com. Jones claimed he killed his girlfriend, Janet Jones Luxford, accidentally after getting into a fight with her in a nearby motel, the outlet reported.
Luxford was last seen alive in 2001, and has been listed on multiple missing persons databases ever since, the report continued. Her daughter called the Napa Police Department in 2002 to report her missing from her Jacksonville, Florida home, according to the Doe Network.
Jones was charged with murder and abuse of a corpse after his confession, according to his arrest record. He was booked into Jefferson County Jail in late March, the outlet reported. (RELATED: Suspect Named In Missing Toddler Case Gripping Multiple Countries After 15 Years)
“We were in disbelief that somebody had come to us confess to a murder much less than one that is 21 years old,’’ Lt. Christian Clemons said.
“On top of that,’’ he said, “it was a murder we didn’t even know happened in Bessemer.”https://t.co/fRmajJzCBS— Jeremy Gray (@jgray78) April 20, 2022
Lt. Christian Clemons said that Bessemer police had no idea that the murder had taken place, the outlet continued. “We were in disbelief that somebody had come to us to confess to a murder much less than one that is 21 years old,” Clemons reportedly stated, “We consider a once-in-a career type case.”
He told investigators that he would have come forward sooner, “but did not want to disappoint his parents,” Clemons told the outlet. “He seemed enormously remorseful, and appeared to be someone who had been carrying weight of this around for a long time and was relieved to have it over.”
Investigators withheld information on the arrest until Luxford’s next of kin could be informed, AL.com reported. Her body has not been officially identified, but Jones led investigators to skeletal remains in the general area where he dumped her body in 2001, the report continued.