Renton police have charged a man for the 1994 murders of a mother and her son.
Based on DNA evidence, Renton police believe they have solved the 28-year-old case of the shooting deaths of Stacy Ann Falcon-Dewey, 23, and her 3-year-old son, Jacob.
Renton police started the investigation into the murders on the morning of Oct. 28, 1994, after finding Falcon-Dewey and Jacob shot and deceased outside of Falcon-Dewey’s vehicle on a dead-end street in South Renton, according to the Renton Police Department.
Advancements in technology in the early 2000s led to a resulting match in DNA at the scene with 53-year-old Jerome Frank Jones, previously convicted for murder and incarcerated in California since 1995, according to the department.
According to court documents, the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab matched unknown male DNA collected at the scene with Jones in 2002, resulting in detectives flying to California and interviewing Jones at the Salinas Valley State Prison.
Jones admitted he lived in the Kent-Auburn area from 1994 to 1995, though he said he never met or knew Falcon-Dewey when questioned and shown a picture of her, according to documents.
Detectives confirmed with an apartment manager that a person named Jerome Jones lived in an apartment complex where Falcon-Dewey dropped her son off with a friend the evening prior to the discovery of Falcon-Dewey and Jacob’s bodies.
Based on circumstantial and DNA evidence, police developed probable cause and booked Jones into the King County Jail. King County prosecutors filed felony charges of two counts of aggravated murder in the first degree against Jones in February 2022.
According to court documents, prosecutors report that Jones bound Falcon-Dewey, beat her, raped her and likely shot her child to death in front of her prior to killing her.
“The extraordinary violence and cruelty of these murders demonstrates the extreme danger he presents to society,” court documents state.
Prosecutors detailed Jones’s criminal history including the murder of a man in California in March 1995, the assault of a corrections officer in custody, and additional felony assaults and unlawful possession of a weapon.
The King County Superior Court will hold Jones’s arraignment on May 9. The court denied Jones the opportunity for bail.
According to prosecutorial documents, if Jones is convicted of the charges he faces, he will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.