14 years after Jahi Turner disappeared in San Diego, police make an arrest

It has been 14 years since Jahi Turner was last seen.

In the days that followed the 2-year-old’s disappearance, scores of volunteers scoured neighborhoods around Balboa Park. Bulldozers moved thousands of tons of trash at a landfill, looking for clues that could give investigators, and the boy’s family, answers.

On Monday, San Diego authorities said that Jahi’s stepfather, Tieray Jones — the person who first reported him missing — had been arrested. Authorities will seek to have Jones returned to San Diego to face charges of murder and felony child abuse causing death.

Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis, joined by San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman, prosecutors and investigators, called Jahi’s disappearance “without a doubt one of the highest-profile unsolved cases in San Diego County.”

“I wasn’t sure this day was ever going to come,” Dumanis said. “This case has weighed heavily on all of us, and our hearts go out to the family.”

Jones, 37, was arrested without incident in North Carolina and is expected to be arraigned on a fugitive complaint Tuesday.

When Jahi was reported missing April 25, 2002, Jones told police that he had taken his stepson to a playground near 28th and Cedar streets that day, leaving him alone for 15 minutes when he walked to get a soda from a vending machine 100 yards away.

He said the boy was gone when he returned.

“We never gave up on finding justice for Jahi,” Dumanis said.

The district attorney and police chief expressed sympathy for Jahi’s mother, Tameka Jones, who was 18 and deployed on a Navy ship when she learned he was missing.

“I personally remember the day of Jahi’s disappearance vividly,” said Zimmerman, who was then a watch commander. Zimmerman said the entire department mobilized and conducted an extensive search for the boy over several weeks. The department’s homicide unit and the district attorney’s office worked to develop leads, identify motivation and pursue multiple theories, but the leads ran cold.

The chief did not reveal what led to Jones’ arrest, but she said investigators began to piece together new leads in the case about two years ago.

“From that first call, I never lost hope we would either find Jahi alive or bring his killer to justice,” she said.

Authorities noted that Jones has a criminal record but did not disclose the details.

The San Diego Union-Tribune previously reported that Jones was jailed in Maryland in 2002 on suspicion of failing to appear in court on misdemeanor marijuana possession charges. He pleaded guilty to one of those charges in February 2003 in Frederick, Md., and later served time on a probation violation.

In 2004, Jones was charged with attempted murder and assault stemming from a shooting along a Frederick parkway. No one was wounded in the shooting, and Jones pleaded guilty to assault. He was sentenced to five years in prison, according to the Frederick News-Post.

At the time Jahi was reported missing, Jones said that he had searched near the playground for 15 minutes before calling police. When patrol officers arrived, they searched into the evening with the assistance of dogs, a helicopter and sheriff’s search-and-rescue volunteers on horseback and on foot.

It wasn’t long before police expressed doubt that they would find the child alive.

Five days later, police began sifting through the Miramar landfill but turned up nothing.

Private investigator Bill Garcia, who helped coordinate volunteer searches, commended the Police Department for arresting Jones. “For some reason, this child who was only here [in San Diego] two days has just captured the hearts of San Diegans,” Garcia said.

Jahi had been staying with his grandmother in Maryland before his mother and stepfather brought him to San Diego the weekend before he disappeared.

Among the hundreds who participated in the searches were people who were living on the streets as well as working professionals, Garcia said.

“And they were out there a lot,” he said.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Littlefield writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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