District Court Judge Bryan Meismer, who presided over Jones’ trial, read from the sentencing memorandum at the Cedar County Courthouse on Friday afternoon. The other two judges on the panel, Timothy Burns of Douglas County and Patrick Heng of Red Willow County, sat on either side of Meismer.
Jones declined to address the court when given the chance. He sat attentively throughout the hearing and did not visibly react when Meismer announced the death sentence.
“These were terrible, despicable, and unforgiving murders,” Meismer said.
A death sentence in Nebraska triggers an automatic appeal to the Nebraska Supreme Court. Todd Lancaster, Jones’ defense attorney, said the defense will likely challenge the constitutionality of the death penalty on appeal.
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers issued a statement after the sentencing, saying the death penalty was an "appropriate sentence." Special prosecutor Corey O'Brien, who began prosecuting the case while working at the Attorney General's Office and remained the head prosecutor after departing the office in 2025, said the same.
"The investigation and prosecution of this case, in my opinion, was about as good as could ever be hoped for," O'Brien said.
Motivated by alleged inappropriate comments that 85-year-old Gene Twiford made toward his wife, Jones broke into the Twiford home with a pry bar shortly after 3 a.m. on Aug. 4, 2022. Gene was found shot to death on the bedroom floor. Jones fired multiple rounds at Gene’s wife, Janet, “before she even had a chance to get out of her bed,” according to court records. And upon encountering the couple’s adult daughter, 55-year-old Dana Twiford, Jones fired at least seven shots, striking her in the chest and killing her.
After killing the Twifords, Jones doused parts of the home in gasoline and set it on fire. He then went to the home of his across-the-street neighbor, Michele Ebeling. Jones shot Ebeling near her back entryway and then set the house on fire. His motive for killing Ebeling is less clear. In court documents, he is recorded as saying Ebeling and her boyfriend were “weird” and stared at Jones’ wife.
Cedar County 911 received a call at 3:11 a.m. reporting an explosion at Ebeling’s home. Firefighters and paramedics arrived soon after, and Ebeling was pronounced dead at the scene. It was more than six hours later that another 911 call came in reporting smoke from the Twiford residence. The fire was out by the time firefighters arrived, but the living room was covered in soot. Though the Twifords’ bodies were discovered after Ebeling’s, investigators believe the Twifords were killed first.
Investigators quickly linked Jones to the murders. A backpack found at Ebeling’s home contained receipts for gasoline purchased by Jones the day prior. He left a pistol, purchased under his name, on the floor of the Twiford home. He was arrested on Aug. 5 and admitted to the burn unit of a Lincoln hospital for treatment of severe burns sustained while setting the fires.
Jones’ wife, Carrie Jones, was arrested months later and charged with first-degree murder for the killing of Gene Twiford. Under Nebraska law, a person who aids and abets a murder can be charged with the murder itself. She was convicted by a jury in 2025 and sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty in her case.
After Jones was found guilty at trial in 2024, a jury found that multiple aggravating circumstances were present in the murders, making him eligible for the death penalty. The three-judge panel had to consider whether the aggravating factors were outweighed by mitigating factors.
The panel largely rejected the mitigating factors brought up by Jones’ defense. Though the panel gave “some weight” to the fact that Jones had no criminal history prior to the murders and his veteran status, it gave no weight to claims that Jones was persuaded to commit the murders by his wife or his mental health struggles.
Family members of the Twifords and Ebeling spoke to media after the sentencing. Ebeling's daughter, Richele, urged people to remember her mother as "deeply loved person with a kind heart and strong spirit." The death sentence, she said, may be justice, but it does not equal healing.
"While the sentencing holds the person responsible accountable under the law, it does not undo the harm that was done or restore what we have lost," she said. "Justice, in this sense, is limited."
Gail Curry, daughter of Gene and Janet and sister of Dana Twiford, said the conclusion of the legal process won't mark the end of the family's story.
"Their love lives on through our family," Curry said. "As our mom always said, 'all our love always.' That's how their story will continue. With love and family."
Nebraska has a torrid legislative history with capital punishment. The death penalty was abolished by the Legislature in 2015 after legislators overrode a veto from former Gov. Pete Ricketts. But Nebraskans voted in favor of a referendum to reinstate it by a wide margin in 2016. Critics of the death penalty argued that the referendum language was confusing and misleading.
The last person to be executed in the state was Carey Dean Moore, who was executed on Aug. 13, 2018. He was the first in the state to die by lethal injection – a four-drug cocktail that also included diazepam, a sedative, cisatracurium besylate, a muscle relaxant, and potassium chloride, which is used to induce cardiac arrest.
His execution was nearly held up because a German pharmaceutical manufacturer sued the state to block the use of its drugs for the killing. Moore’s execution received national attention due to the lawsuit – and because it was the first in the U.S. to be carried out using fentanyl.
Former Corrections Director Scott Frakes said in a court filing that it is “difficult, if nearly impossible” to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injection executions. He said he contacted at least 40 suppliers in six states, and only one was willing to provide the drugs. When the state tried to purchase additional drugs from that supplier, the supplier was “unwilling to provide” them.
Still, other states have executed dozens of people via lethal injection since 2018, though none have used fentanyl. Nevada intended to execute a prisoner using fentanyl in 2022, but it never occurred after the medical professionals who agreed to take part in the execution backed out.
O'Brien, the prosecutor in the Jones case, said it can be frustrating as a prosecutor that death sentences are carried out in Nebraska infrequently. But he said it's important to do things the "right way" when handing down the "ultimate sanction" of death..
"When you have such immense power, we have to do it the right way," he said. "I think it's important that they be carried out, but I think it's also important that we do it the correct way and show that the process tries to follow the utmost integrity."
Source: nebraskapublicmedia.org, Molly Ashford, April 10, 2026
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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