A 74-year-old woman was released late Monday evening after spending over 32 years behind bars for her conviction in a 1981 double murder.
Mary Virginia Jones was released from Century Regional Detention Facility for Women in Lynwood, California after a judge reduced her charges from first degree murder to voluntary manslaughter and time-served.
“I thank God. I give Him all the glory and all the praise because if it weren’t for Him, I wouldn’t be out. He gave me a miracle. Isn’t that good?” Jones said after being released. “God does everything in His time. Not when I want Him to, but in His time.” She was greeted by friends and family that had waited years for “Mother Jones,” as they call her, to receive vindication.
Jones was convicted for her role in the 1981 murder of two men until law students at USC’s Post-Conviction Justice Project (PCPJ) intervened to assist in the reopening of her case. PCPJ often assists inmates in getting their cases reviewed again by court officials who may have missed key evidence. Jones agreed to a no contest plea to voluntary manslaughter, according to a USC Gould School of Law news release.
USC students argued that Jones would not have been convicted if expert evidence about Battered Woman Syndrome was allowed during her original trial.
At the time of the murder, Jones was involved in an abusive relationship with Moses Willis, a man she took into her home because she believed he wanted to turn his life around. Jones was held at gunpoint and ordered to drive two kidnapped people to an alley where they were later murdered by her then-boyfriend. Jones fled from the scene, as her boyfriend committed the murders, believing he would shoot her next. A week before the crime, Willis shot at Jones and her daughter and threatened their lives if they went to the police.
Now that Jones is a free woman she says she is looking forward to going home and visiting family.