Police: Man lurked in ex-girlfriend’s home before fatally stabbing her
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Version 0 of 1. Amanda Jones’s ex-boyfriend broke into her Upper Marlboro house Monday night and waited 40 minutes for her to come home before stabbing her to death, according to police charging documents. A friend who was on the phone with Jones before their conversation was disconnected reported that he heard her screaming “like she was being attacked,” according to recordings of calls he made to public safety communications employees to ask that police visit Jones’s home. The additional details were released Thursday, a day after Mitchell Cole, 56, was charged with first-degree murder in Jones’s death. Jones, also 56, died Monday night, Prince George’s County authorities said. But her body was discovered at about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday after parents dropping off children for day care in her home could not get in, police and family said. Parents contacted Jones’s daughter, who entered the house on Andean Goose Way and found her mother dead on the basement floor, the charging documents state. [Family of woman found dead in Upper Marlboro home struggle to keep faith ] Jones had pulled into the garage of her house after 9 p.m. Monday, when Cole confronted her, the charging documents state. At the time, Jones was on the phone with a friend, who heard “screaming and struggling with someone” as Jones’s phone “went dead,” detectives reported. Cole went voluntarily to police headquarters after detectives contacted him, police said. They said he admitted that he had broken into Jones’s home and offered details that indicated he knew about how she was killed and where her body was found. Court records show that Jones filed at least one peace order against Cole in recent years. He is jailed on a no-bond status, police said. Police visited Jones’s house twice to check on her welfare — once Monday and again Tuesday morning — before her daughter discovered her body. The police visits were made after the friend whose conversation with Jones had abruptly broken off called the communications center asking that officers check on Jones’s well-being. “I’m really worried about her,” the man reported in his call when asking for police to check on Jones. “The way she was screaming, it seemed like she was being attacked.” Jones was killed about 25 minutes before the person on the phone with her called to report concerns, Prince George’s police said Thursday. During both visits to the house, based on what dispatchers had told them to look for, officers found nothing awry, police said. Officers did not enter the house either time because call-takers at the communications center did not inform dispatchers about the reported struggle inside the house, police said. “Something’s gone wrong in that house,” the man told a public safety communications employee during a second call, again requesting a check on Jones by police. Officials at the communications center said that they are reviewing the matter and working with police to ensure that officers get key information needed for such calls. |