stephen jones was either a scared college freshman in fear for his life why would they even try to chase me why did they do this to me he was surrounded bullied threatened an attack or a murderer who retaliated by gunning down four fraternity brothers at northern arizona university killing one of them there was no threat to his safety in fact with that gun in his hand he was the most deadly person in sight it was during an off-campus party on october 9th 2015 at this apartment complex known as the courtyard that tragedy struck partygoers hear
what sounds like an argument it wasn't a memorable night until everything went south zac volpo is a delta chi brother who was there that night there's a verbal confrontation going on in the street all of a sudden i see the group move into the parking lot that's when i saw the flashlight flick on zach runs across the street into the nau parking lot and he's horrified his fraternity brothers colin brew and nick pearing are down both had been shot twice i was in so much shock i had no idea so i like saw like a
puddle of blood next to me so you are second floor up second window in right there mikey scholar a sophomore at nau jumps from her bed and runs down to the parking lot you begin to see people on the ground here yes and the first person i see is nick what mikey doesn't quite realize is that at this moment the shooter is still on the scene right behind her before you know it there's more gunshots and she's literally administering first aid to somebody who'd been shot yes and then you hear gunshots behind you and i
hear gunshots again i said he's still shooting don't move don't scream that is when the two fraternity brothers nick prado and kyle zintek were hit nau police begin arriving with body cameras rolling so i got one here with a gunshot wound this video shows the chaos still unfolding the young boys bleeding lying shot on the ground mikey scholared applying pressure to nick pearing's wounds and on the other side right there a quick glimpse of a frantic 18 year old on the ground but this one is being handcuffed [Music] the hysterical student on that body cam
is nau freshman stephen jones [Music] you identified yourself to me as the as the shooter nobody else none of my friends there's nobody else involved no nobody but me i take all the responsibility okay twenty-year-old colin brew laid dead on the ground while his three fraternity brothers are raced to the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds but in the back of that squad car the suspect stephen jones isn't acting like a deranged rampage shooter more like a distraught kid oh my god [Music] how bad i've been here i don't know yet repeatedly begging for his mom
can i call my mom just have a seat over there in that chair the teenager is led into a tiny interrogation room still handcuffed and when he's finally able to see the blood on his hands that's fine horror and what they have allegedly done at first reluctant stephen begins to describe a team night at a different party until he says his group somehow loses track of one of the friends looking for him steven says one of them knocked on the door of the party at the courtyard 10 or 12 dudes came out and it started
like what are you talking about porridge and then we just decided to turn around and walk away what were they saying i'm gonna kill you but you couldn't fight or go back to the freshman dorm they were obviously very drunk toxicology reports will later prove that colin brew was in fact very drunk more than three times the legal limit and he also tested positive for marijuana and for xanax stephen says someone punches him in the face like rock my world like i have no idea what was going on my glasses fell off i could barely
see now it's not clear who did throw that punch but eyewitnesses all later confirm that it was not colin drew jones tells police that as he retreats towards his red mustang he's pursued chased into the parking lot and that's the moment jones says when he opens the glove compartment and pulls out his glock 22 handgun i turn on the flashlight and i pointed at him i said i have a gun don't move and then and shoots colin brew and nick pierre he was running at me he was staring right at me he was saying he
was going to kill me i was afraid for my life jones says after shooting colin and nick the rest of the frat guys in the parking lot descend on him pummeling him on the ground jones says he frantically fired in the air just to get those kids off of him but he shot two more students i wasn't trying to hurt anybody i wasn't aiming at anybody after more than two hours of questioning freshman is led off to jail charged with first degree murder his trial begins in flagstaff arizona a year and a half after the
shootings he pleads not guilty in their opening statements prosecutors and defense attorneys paint dramatically different pictures of what happened in that nau parking lot to the victims the defendant was an assassin emerging from the darkness prosecutor eamon barker argues stephen jones was a calculating cold-blooded killer the question for you during the trial will be what was the defendant's intent when he shot these four unarmed victims it's a question the defense is eager to answer in its opening statement this is a case about an 18 year old kid who had found himself in a situation where
he was surrounded bullied threatened and attacked and did what he had to do to protect himself but the young men who were shot dispute that insisting no one threatened stephen i wouldn't even say it was an aggressive situation it was a verbal argument from what i could see they're people who say that stephen jones was just defending himself against of a bunch of bullying frat guys that's his defense never even saw the kid until he came back with a gun so the trial lasts almost two weeks and the testimony does little to clarify what actually
happened that night or even how it all started then stephen jones does something rarely done in a first degree murder trial hello my name is steven jones he takes the stand in his own defense i knew that if i waited even another split second i would get seriously hurt or die but prosecutors hammer the fact that stephen walked 90 feet toward colin brew before he says colin charged him even though he told police he was in front of his car you keep saying to the officers that you're right in front of your car right correct
so each time you were describing that you were just wrong about it right correct jurors head out to begin deliberations and five days later the jury is hopelessly deadlocked this court is therefore going to declare a mistrial in this case some breaking news coming out of flagstaff they tried but just couldn't agree prosecutors intend to try stephen jones again next month hoping they'll have better luck with a new jury for nightline i'm matt gutman in flagstaff arizona hi everyone george stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the abc news youtube channel if you'd like to get
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