Jones v. Commonwealth

CLAYTON, Justice.

James Foster Jones appeals from a judgment sentencing him to 30 years’ imprisonment for the March 5,1976, murder of Burt Grubbs, whose death resulted from a blow at the base of his skull. The facts of the case are basically as follows.

Jones and Lee Etta Hahn were married in 1970; in January of 1975 they were divorced. For a time after the divorce, Lee Etta lived alone. As her resources dwindled, however, she moved into the home of the 78-year-old Grubbs, a friend of her family for several years. This arrangement upset Jones greatly — so much, in fact, that he threatened to…