Woman killed in home in Prince George’s County
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Version 0 of 1. The body of an Upper Marlboro woman was found inside her home Tuesday morning, hours after Prince George’s County police twice went to the house to check on her welfare but left without reaching her. Amanda Jones, 56, was found slain about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in her residence in the 900 block of Andean Goose Way, police said. Jones suffered unspecified trauma to her body, police said, and detectives were working to find her killer and determine a motive in the case. Jones had been on the phone Monday night when the call cut off after a scream or the sounds of a scuffle — prompting the person on the other end of the conversation to contact police asking them to check on Jones’s well-being, according to officials familiar with the investigation. The caller’s identity was not immediately clear, those officials said, and county police did not disclose who had called them. Police went to the home about 10 p.m. Monday and returned after a second call about Jones’s welfare was placed at 7:25 a.m. Tuesday, according to county police. Both calls were to the non-emergency police number, county police said. It was after a third call Tuesday morning that police entered the home and found Jones’s body, said Prince George’s police spokeswoman Julie Parker. Officers didn’t enter the home after the first two calls, according to police. “We are working to verify what the dispatchers told our officers about the non-emergency calls for a check on the welfare at the home,” Parker said. Forced entry is a last resort, she said, and officers need “reasonable suspicion before you kick a door in.” Tuesday was not the first time police had been called to the house on Andean Goose Way. In 2011, Jones’s 20-year-old son, Charles Smith, was fatally shot by a police officer after a chase that began at the same house where Jones died Tuesday. Jones told The Washington Post at the time that her son had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 12 or 13. On the day he died, Jones said, she knew he needed help — he had stopped taking his medication months earlier and had fired shots inside their home. After police arrived, her son tried to grab an officer’s gun, and another officer fatally shot him Neighbors remembered Jones fondly Tuesday night. “She was a friend who gave without expecting anything from anybody,” said Garland Branch, a longtime neighbor. On Monday evening, Jones drove by their house and saw Branch’s wife, Patricia, in the yard. She rolled down her window. “Hey girl!” she yelled, in animated affection. Jones ran a day-care business out of her basement, according to neighbors. “She was the babysitter for the neighborhood,” Patricia Branch said. “We were all part of each other’s village.” An earlier version of this story included a photo released by the Prince George’s County Police Department showing a house that wasn’t part of the crime scene. Julie Zauzmer, Dana Hedgpeth and Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report. |