Convicted: South Carolina dad faces possible death penalty for murdering 5 kids

LEXINGTON COUNTY, Ky. (KTLA/AP) -- A jury found a South Carolina father guilty of murder Tuesday in the deaths of his five young children, allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

The Lexington County jury considered the case for about six hours over two days before returning the five guilty verdicts for murder against Timothy Jones Jr.

Now that same jury will return Thursday to begin hearing evidence from prosecutors who will portray Jones as a selfish, evil father who decided his children should die instead of stay with his ex-wife and should be executed for his crimes.

Jones' lawyers are expected to argue he was a doting, single father whose mental problems piled up until stress and drug use drove him over the edge.

Jones, 37, confessed to exercising 6-year-old Nahtahn until he died after an electrical outlet was broken in his Lexington home in August 2014.

Prosecutors said Jones then considered what to do for several hours — watching a prison rape scene from a movie and heading to a store for cigarettes with his oldest child while leaving the others at home with the body — before deciding to kill them all.

Jones would eventually strangle 8-year-old Mera and 7-year-old Elias with his hands and, in his confession, said he used a belt to choke 2-year-old Gabriel and 1-year-old Abigail because his hands were too big, prosecutor Rick Hubbard said in his closing argument Monday.

Jones then wrapped the bodies of all five children in plastic and drove around the Southeast U.S. for nine days, running a few errands, buying synthetic marijuana, but mainly making erratic trips, Hubbard said, citing bank and cellphone records.

Jones searched the internet for countries that don't extradite suspects back to the U.S. and took his passport. He researched how to disintegrate bodies faster. And he played what he said was his oldest daughter's favorite song, “Butterfly Kisses,” a mushy refrain about a father's awe at his daughter's love despite his imperfections, according to his confessions to police and phone records.

Jones dumped the bodies after putting them in garbage bags on a hillside near Camden, Alabama, and was arrested a short time later at a traffic checkpoint in Smith County, Mississippi, after an officer said he smelled the horrible odor of decomposition from the SUV.