CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) 鈥� A former University of Virginia student was sentenced on Friday to life in prison for and wounding two other students on the campus in 2022.
Judge Cheryl Higgins gave Christopher Darnell Jones, Jr., who had been on the football team, the maximum possible sentence after listening to five days of testimony. Jones .
The penalty includes five life sentences, one each for the killings of Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D鈥橲ean Perry, and the aggravated malicious wounding of Michael Hollins and Marlee Morgan, .
Authorities said Jones opened fire aboard a charter bus as he and other students arrived back on campus after seeing a play and having dinner together in Washington, D.C. The shooting erupted near a parking garage and prompted of the Charlottesville campus until was captured. Many at the school of some 23,000 students huddled inside closets and darkened dorm rooms, while others barricaded the doors of the university鈥檚 stately academic buildings.
Jones鈥� time on the team did not overlap with the players he shot and there was no indication they knew each other or interacted until briefly before the shooting.
Jones will be able to apply for parole when he turns 60, .
Higgins said no one was bullying Jones that night and no was threatening him. The sentence was not 鈥渧indictive鈥� but rather based on a logical analysis, said Higgins, who is an Albemarle County Circuit Court judge.
Jones had 鈥渄istortions in his perception鈥� or reality, but understood his actions, she said, noting that he texted people before the shooting that he would either 鈥済o to hell or spend 100-plus years in jail.鈥� Jones discarded clothing and the gun afterward and lied to police he ran into five minutes later, the judge said.
Within days of the shooting, university leaders to investigate the school鈥檚 safety policies and procedures, its response to the violence and its prior efforts to assess the potential threat of the student charged. School officials acknowledged Jones previously was on the radar of the university鈥檚 threat-assessment team.
The university last year with victims and their families. Their attorney said the university should have removed Jones from campus before the attack because he displayed multiple red flags through erratic and unstable behavior.
Jones tearfully addressed the court for 15 minutes during his sentencing hearing, apologizing for his actions and for the hurt he caused 鈥渆veryone on that bus.鈥� Some victims鈥� family members got up and walked out as he spoke.
鈥淚鈥檓 so sorry,鈥� Jones said. 鈥淚 caused so much pain.鈥�
Speaking to the families, Jones said: 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know your sons. I didn鈥檛 know your boys. And I wish I did.鈥�
Michael Hollins, a football player who was wounded and survived, told reporters after the sentencing that justice was served 鈥渇or the most part.鈥�
“Even though that no amount of time on this earth in jail will repay or get those lives back, just a little bit of peace knowing that the man that committed those crimes won鈥檛 be hurting anyone else,鈥� Hollins said.
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