Duval County Jury Finds Jones Guilty of 2023 Triple Murder

State Attorney Melissa Nelson announces that a Duval County jury found Jadarrius Jones guilty of three counts of First-Degree Murder in the 2023 killing of his grandparents, Gregory Merritt and Uneeda Hardy, and another man, Luther Williams. With the verdict, Jones will serve a mandatory sentence of life in Florida State Prison. The Honorable Tatiana Salvador will formally sentence Jones at a later date.  

After noon Jan. 15, 2023, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office responded to a Westside home for a shooting. They found Williams dead in the front yard with several gunshot wounds. Inside, officers found Merritt and Hardy in a bedroom dead from multiple gunshot wounds. While canvassing the scene, officers found numerous 9 mm shell casings. A witness at a nearby house told police Jones showed up at her home in a black car and walked inside armed with a gun. She described him wearing a fanny pack and white sneakers with blood on them. When another person in the house found out about the nearby shooting and saw Jones’ bloody shoes, he and Jones began fighting and Jones ran away. Officers found the shoes and the fanny pack — both actually belonged to Williams. Jones was arrested and, post-Miranda, admitted to shooting Merritt, Hardy, and Williams before driving off in the black car.

The case was investigated by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and prosecuted by Assistant State Attorneys Brooke Milo and Sheila Loizos.