now, thanks to a tip from rick anglin, they were getting closer. i m convinced that we re dealing with dwight jones at this point. rick recognized that all the crime scenes related back to dwight and connie s divorce and custody battles from nearly a decade earlier. plus, forensic analysis had already told police all four victims had probably been killed with the same weapon. and there was a critical piece of evidence that might link the weapon to dwight. that bit of dna on a shell casing recovered from the scene of steve pitt s murder. dna tests can take weeks or months. that was time police didn t have. we had some family members of mr. jones that were in northern arizona. with the help of the phoenix police department air unit we flew a detective up there. at the same time, other investigators were on the hunt for dwight. we had a vehicle description for mr. jones. it was a 2001 gold mercedes e320.
inside was a gun. however, that gun was a 22-caliber not a 40. that gun was not a match for any of the four homicides? it was not. meaning that if it s dwight jones, he still has that gun with him? right. and meaning they don t necessarily have enough yet to link dwight jones to these four murders. but there was still the dna. a detective who flew late sunday night to get dna samples from dwight s family now rushed those swabs back to the lab and within about four hours, we had a positive hit on mr. jones. we at dateline cover a lot of murders, some of which take years to solve. this case was not one of those. less than 84 hours after this homicidal rampage began, investigators were confident they had id d their killer. we knew who was our suspect and murderer. at the same time the dna was being analyzed, detectives were retracing dwight s steps.
sure exactly what set off dwight jones. after the bloodshed was over, some videos surfaced that jones had posted before the murders. hello, youtube, welcome to my channel. reporter: in them, dwight raged against his wife and the professionals who worked on the custody case. you ve ruled i have a psychiatric problem based on some piece of that she hired? reporter: the videos underscored some troubling questions. dwight jones was obviously disturbed, so why wasn t he stopped? did the legal system fail everyone? could six murders have been prevented? i do feel very strongly that the court system did not protect me. reporter: connie jones says her ex-husband was violent for years, but that courts ignored one red flag after another. my life wasn t valued. my son s life wasn t valued enough to stop him, which inadvertently harmed other
22 years married to a mentally ill and abusive husband. she was about to learn her personal ordeal might have led to a crisis for a whole city. i ll take you out to this [ bleep ] pool and drown you. back in 2009 after that frightening standoff with police at their home in scottsdale, arizona, dwight jones was arrested on multiple charges, but ultimately pleaded guilty to a single count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct. he was prohibited from owning a firearm during his probation, just 12 months. it s minimal. it s like being a disturbance in your neighborhood. it s not holding your child hostage for an hour. dwight was also committed to a mental institution for evaluation. connie remembers the report on dwight said he was not an imminent threat. but the psychiatrist that evaluated him called me and told me that he was dangerous. and that i should get a bodyguard.
undercover. later he became a private investigator. and when he heard about steve pitt s murder, his experience told him it had to be related to his work. anglin knew pitt worked on criminal cases, so the universe of suspects was vast. then he heard about the murders of the two paralegals in scottsdale. and suddenly, that universe shrank. once they announced on the news that it was elizabeth feldman s office, i was certain who it was. you knew? i knew. knew exactly how steve pitt and the feldman law firm were connected and who was behind the murders. rick knew because, years earlier, he d taken on the case of a scottsdale doctor named connie jones. yes. i had my own terrorist, my own personal terrorist. connie was on summer break from college in 1984 when she started dating a young soldier named dwight jones.