Arthur Jones, 29, was 23 years old when he was arrested and charged with the murder of a teenager in 2015, despite the fact that video footage showed he was 70 miles away from where the crime was committed at the time of the shooting. More than six years later, Jones has filed a lawsuit against the Hattiesburg Police Department, the City of Hattiesburg, and the detective who pursued the charges.
Jabarri Goudy, 17, was killed outside of a Hattiesburg, Mississippi, club at around 2 a.m. n July 5, 2015. Just days later, Jones was arrested and charged with Goudy’s murder 70 miles away. Although surveillance footage showed Jones was in Gulfport when the shooting occurred, authorities moved forward with bringing charges against him and Jones remained behind bars for nine months, and even after getting out on bond the charges remained over his head for a time when another suspect was indicted in the teen’s death.
Jones and Keith Lee, who was also wrongly accused in the teen’s death as an accessory because he provided an alibi for Jones, filed separate lawsuits in 2018 against Sgt. Neal Rockhold, who pursued the charges despite the evidence that the two weren’t involved in Goudy’s death. However, the suit was put on hold after Rockhold was deployed by the military. Now, the case is going to trial and Jones is seeking monetary relief from both the city of Hattiesburg and Rockhold after he was wrongfully imprisoned.
According to the suit, Rockhold was well aware of the “misconduct, the suppression of exculpatory evidence, and the fabrication of a false case against Jones.”
“There has never any legitimate evidence connecting Plaintiff Arthur J. Jones Jr., to the murder of Jabarri Goudy and the Plaintiff was not even present in the City of Hattiesburg at the time of the murder,” the suit says.
