Manhunt ends as murder suspect shoots self

THE frantic manhunt for a jealous ex-husband who allegedly killed three former in-laws and his infant daughter before fleeing with three young girls ended near the Tennessee line when the suspect shot himself in the face during a police chase.

Jerry William Jones, 31, was in a critical condition and under armed guard yesterday at a Chattanooga, Tennessee, hospital, but was expected to survive, authorities said.

The girls his 10-year-old former stepdaughter and two of his daughters, aged three and four were unharmed following the pursuit late on Thursday, and released to the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services, said Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vernon Keenan.

Family members hoped the girls, Brandy Jones, four, Tammy Jones, three, and Brittany Phelps, 10, would soon be reunited with their mother, Melissa Peeler, who was returning to the state last night from a vacation in Oregon, said their aunt, Kathy O'Donnell.

"They are beautiful little girls," Ms O'Donnell said at her home in Ellijay. "Brittany, the oldest one, is very smart. I'm sure she did whatever she could to take care of her sisters. She always does."

O'Donnell, whose parents, sister and infant niece were killed, said she wants Jones to survive. "I want to see him in the courtroom," she said.

"I want him to have to live with this everyday. I would want to know why he did this and what my mother did so bad that he had to put her through the hell he did. And my 10-month-old niece. Why would he do that to her?"

Jones, who has convictions for burglary and auto theft, is accused of shooting to death his ex-wife's parents, Tom and Nola Blaylock, her sister Georgia Bradley, and strangling his infant daughter, then driving off with his other daughters and stepdaughter in a stolen sports utility vehicle.

Authorities said the motive appeared to be jealousy. Jones had called his ex-wife, and told her of the killings, said David O'Donnell, his former brother-in-law. Jones told her he would "start killing the kids one by one" if she alerted authorities, he said.

Ms Peeler, who had left the children with her parents and sister to visit her boyfriend in Oregon over the Christmas holidays, called police, Mr O'Donnell said.

After a public alert was issued, police in Whitfield County got a tip that Jones' vehicle had been spotted headed north on Interstate 75 toward Tennessee, about 50 miles north of Ranger, where the slayings occurred.

Mr Keenan said Jones drove a short way off the interstate when a state trooper bumped the back of the car, forcing it to spin and crash into a telephone pole.

The 10-year-old got out and ran, and officers saw Jones slump in the front seat, Mr Keenan said. They pulled the other children out, one of them covered in Jones' blood.