9 years of fear: Ex-wife of Phoenix-area shooter describes him as her 'personal terrorist'

FLAGSTAFF – Connie Jones hadn't heard from her ex-husband in years. But she knew that one day he would come for her.

"I absolutely think he was looking for us," she told The Arizona Republic, after holding a press conference Tuesday in Flagstaff, Ariz. with her current husband and attorney.

Police say Dwight Lamon Jones, 56, killed six people in the Scottsdale area: a psychiatrist who evaluated his mental illness for the court; two paralegals in the office of his wife's divorce attorney; a psychologist who sublet space from his son's therapist; and two people in Fountain Hills whom he knew through his fondness for tennis.

Then, he took his own life.

Connie Jones' current husband, Rick Anglin, looked on Dwight Jones' death as an end, “so that our family can get back to some semblance of normal life. We’d like to find out what life is like without security precautions.”

Anglin is a former police officer. He met Connie Jones because she retained him to provide protection for her during her divorce.

Though Anglin had kept tabs on Dwight Jones, he couldn't say the last time he or Connie Jones had seen him anywhere near their house or her work.

But they were still afraid. Everything was advanced planning, he said, even going to the movies, where they would sit in the back row to make an easy escape.

"It became a way of life to have a different route to work every day," Anglin said.

Their security measures included using safe houses, countless rental cars and trained attack dogs. They took security with them to the grocery store.

"I felt I had a personal terrorist," said Connie Jones, a radiologist. She trained to use firearms and learned defensive driving, waiting for the day.

“We were certain she was going to be the one to have this final confrontation," Anglin said.

When the shootings started on May 31, they had just returned from vacation, a cruise.

The following day, they learned that Dr. Steven Pitt, a psychiatrist who evaluated Dwight Jones as part of the divorce, had been murdered. But they didn’t immediately associate his death with Jones.

But on the following day, on June 2, they learned two paralegals who worked in the Scottsdale office of Connie Jones' lawyer had been killed as well.

“I knew immediately,” Anglin said.

Anglin said he recognized the office where psychologist Marshall Levine was killed because he had been there many times.

Anglin called police that evening.

“I also told them where he was at. I knew where he was because he was staying at the same extended-stay hotel for nine years," he said.

He also told police what kind of car Dwight Jones drove, an older gold-colored Mercedes with special rims.

Police tracked him to that Scottsdale hotel, where he ended his life on Monday morning, June 4, as officers closed in.

'A very troubled man'

Connie Jones and Dwight Jones met while he was in the Army in North Carolina.

“There were good times,” she said.

He never worked after that. He would start a job and then quit because he felt people didn’t treat him right.

She thought he was depressed. She had done two years of psychiatry residence during her medical training and “looking in his eyes, there was no one in there.”

Toward the end of their marriage, things escalated.

“Dwight was a very troubled man for many years,“ she said. “If I left him, he would kill me. If he couldn’t find me, he would find my family."

She said he threatened to take their son away, to Mexico, so she would never be able to see him again.

She said he had considered murder-suicide of all three of them.

In 2009, Dwight Jones had clearly been unraveling.

There were two incidents at his son's school where he became belligerent enough, according to Connie Jones, that the school had taken out injunctions against him.

The couple had argued because Dwight Jones was berating his son for his performance at school basketball practice.

Connie Jones took him to task and the argument escalated. When she threatened to call 911, he held the phone in her face and dared her to do it.

She took the dare. In the 911 call, Connie Jones said her husband had a gun and had threatened to drown her in the pool. The night ended in his arrest on suspicion of domestic violence and, later, a guilty plea.

Then nine years of fear.

Connie Jones said she took out four separate orders of protection against Dwight Jones each year, from 2009 to 2012 — all stating she had reason to believe he was a continuing threat.

Regarding the court's treatment of her case, she said, “I feel he got the same treatment as a good father.”

Both Connie Jones and Anglin assumed that Dwight Jones' final crisis was precipitated because he was running out of money.

Over the course of their divorce, she said she paid him $97,000 from a checking account; another $6,000 a month for five years; $130,000 from two retirement accounts; $50,000 from their son’s college fund and half of her tax returns. She also covered a lot of his attorney's fees.

As far as they know, he never worked. Connie Jones told The Republic that he had not recently asked her for money.

"This is a man who is unable to function in life on his own," she said.

But there was no last encounter with Connie Jones.

"His death is the best thing to come out of this ordeal," she said. "I hope that where he is going, he will finally get what he deserves."

Follow Michael Kiefer and Anne Ryman on Twitter @michaelbkiefer and @anneryman

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