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Left: Ryant Jones (St. Helena Parish Sheriff’s Office). Clockwise from top right: Rhonda Powell, Hayden, and Braylon (GoFundMe).
A Louisiana man was charged with three counts of first-degree murder after allegedly stabbing several members of his own family.
According to a news release on the St. Helena Parish Facebook page, police responded to a domestic disturbance on the afternoon of Jan. 9. When officers arrived, Rhonda Powell, 40, her son Braylon, 10, and her nephew Hayden, 1, were found dead from fatal stab wounds.
Officers arrested Ryant Jones, 31, who was Powell’s brother and reportedly had a history of schizophrenia. Hayden was Jones’ son.
On a GoFundMe page, Deondra Robertson-Warner, the cousin of Rhonda Powell, said that Jones was a member of their family and was “experiencing a mental health episode” at the time of the alleged crime. She told WAFB, a local CBS affiliate, that the day before the killings, Jones’ family were trying to get treatment for him when he started “showing signs of aggression.”
Warner said that Jones’ family “pleaded with or implored that the doctor give him the shot which usually works. Instead, the doctor gives him a pill. They also requested, both the brother and my aunt, requested that they commit him and that they keep him because he was showing signs of aggression with his brother. They didn’t think it was a good idea to send him home.” She said that Jones believed “that somebody is plotting against him.”
He was ultimately sent home.
Had Jones been committed, Warner said, the tragedy that her family experienced would not have happened. She told WAFB that “no one in that home survived because the mental health system failed him. Had he been committed, he would be where he needed to be today, and my other family members would be alive. That baby would be alive, those babies would be alive, my cousin would be alive today. And my aunt wouldn’t be trying to have the strength to bury three members of her family and wonder what will happen to the other one.”
Jones was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and is being held at Livingston Parish Detention Center.