Man confesses to killing woman in 2001, leads police to body
Police in Alabama say a South Carolina truck driver has confessed to killing a woman who disappeared 21 years ago and to hiding her body in a suitcase.
Police in Bessemer, Alabama told news outlets that South Carolina native Brian Jones traveled back to Alabama last month and admitted to killing 41-year-old Janet Luxford in 2001. Police said that he led investigators to a green bag with bones inside.
“He took a bus from South Carolina to Birmingham-area, and he sat outside of our station until he finally got up the nerve to give us a call,” Bessemer Police Lt. Christian Clemons told WBRC. Clemons stated that Jones led investigators to a location near a creek, where “she was still there” in the same suitcase she had been in. “
According to police, the coroner’s office is searching for medical records and using DNA to identify the remains, but the process could take up to nine months, WIAT-TV reported. According to police,
Luxford is originally from California but was living in Florida.
Jones was charged with murder and abuse a corpse. In a warrant filed with court documents, police wrote that they believed he killed Luxford on Feb. 18, 2001, “by hitting her in the throat, causing her to collapse and causing her death with a golf club. An attorney representing Jones didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, one of Luxford’s daughters called the Napa Police Department in September 2002 to report her mother was missing.
AL.com reported that Luxford left her home in Florida in 2001 after meeting Jones, a truck driver, at a Jacksonville, Florida, hotel where she worked. WBRC was told by Clemons that Jones said Luxford wanted money to return to California and that he hit her in the throat with a club. “
Amanda Luxford Fernandez was 12 when her mother vanished, and told the news outlet that she came home from school to find her mother gone along with photos and other personal items.
“She just disappeared off the face of the earth and there were no answers,” Fernandez, now, 33, told the news outlet. Fernandez said that her mother’s disappearance haunted her, as well as her two siblings. The only silver lining, she said, is knowing her mother didn’t purposely stay away for 21 years. We’re happy that we’re getting answers” she said. “But we’re also going after justice.” “
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