Tony Santaella and Therese Apel

USA TODAY

LEXINGTON COUNTY, S.C. — A father accused of killing his five children will face murder charges when he returns to South Carolina, authorities said Wednesday.

Timothy Ray Jones Jr., 32, was arrested in Mississippi on Saturday on unrelated charges. After confessing to killing his children — ages 1 to 8 — he led authorities to the bodies Tuesday. The bodies were found on a dirt road off Alabama Highway 10.

During a news conference Wednesday, Lexington County Sheriff Lewis McCarty said no motive has been revealed, but officials believe the siblings were killed at the same time.

McCarty described Smith as "calm" as he led investigators to the children's bodies.

"We do feel deaths occurred in Lexington County (S.C.)," McCarty said.

McCarty characterized the bodies as being in an advanced state of decomposition and said the manner of death was not clear.

Jones drove up to North Carolina, then back into South Carolina, officials said. Then he traveled through Lake City and Orangeburg, S.C., then into Athens, Ga., before going to South Carolina and then traveling to Mississippi.

"We feel that he killed the five children at the same time. ... I don't understand why he did it, but yes, these children were in the car, deceased in garbage bags for some period of time," McCarty said.

Sheriff's officials in Smith County, Miss., said Jones waived his right to an extradition hearing, paving the way for him to return to South Carolina late Wednesday to be charged with five counts of murder.

The children's bodies are already in South Carolina. McCarty said he won't release the names until an autopsy is performed, which will determine exactly how the children died. Autopsies are set to begin Thursday.

He said he has spoken to the children's mother, who was in shock and distraught.

"I don't think that there's a person in this room that could speak to the mother of her children and not be emotional," McCarty said.

In a statement Wednesday, Jones' father described his son as a loving dad, and he sought privacy as the family grieves.

Outside his home in Amory, Miss., Timothy Jones Sr., the suspect's father, asked for privacy to "mourn the loss of our loved ones, not only our grandchildren, but our son as well."

He added, "We do not have all the answers, and we may never have them. But anyone who knows Little Tim will agree that he is not the animal he will be portrayed as through the media."

Mississippi State University confirmed Wednesday that Timothy Ray Jones Jr. graduated from there in 2011 with a degree in computer engineering.

Jones was arrested Saturday in Smith County, Miss., after he was detained at a traffic checkpoint. Deputies reported that he seemed to be under the influence. When they searched his SUV, they found what they believed were chemicals used to make meth and a synthetic form of marijuana, and what appeared to be bleach, muriatic acid, blood and possible body fluids in the car.

Smith County Sheriff Charlie Crumpton said authorities questioned Jones right away, interviewing him for two nights. He said Jones tried to tell police at first that the children were fine.

"He was saying, 'The kids have been taken care of, there's not a problem,' " Crumpton said. "We knew that wasn't right because they would have turned up somewhere."

Crumpton said Jones' moods fluctuated greatly during the police interview.

"His emotions would go from really calm to irate to crying. He just bounced up and down. He'd be high as you could go, then low as you could go," Crumpton said.

Crumpton wasn't sure whether Jones displayed any remorse.

"At some point, I was hoping I saw some of that," he said.

A Mississippi Bureau of Investigations agent contacted Wilcox County (Ala.) Sheriff Earnest Evans on Monday night.

The investigator, Evans said, told him that Jones had confessed to killing his five children and dumping them along a dirt road somewhere between Greenville and Camden, Ala.

Evans said that Wilcox and Butler county deputies searched the area, which encompasses about 45 miles, Monday night and Tuesday morning but found nothing.

When Evans contacted the Mississippi investigator again, about noon Tuesday, he was told that authorities were going to have Jones lead them to where he dumped the bodies.

Evans said investigators found the bodies in a ravine off a dirt road, unburied. He had searched that same area himself twice, he said, but had not seen anything because the bodies were not visible from the road.

Investigators determined that Jones had made a purchase with a debit card in Greenville and made a withdrawal from an ATM at Community Bank in Camden, Evans said.

The sheriff said Jones does not appear to have any connection to the area and that he most likely was on his way to Mississippi via Alabama 10, which leads to Meridian, Miss.

The children were last seen Aug. 28 when Jones Jr. picked them up from school, McCarty said. They did not attend school Aug. 29 or Sept. 2. The children's mother reported Jones and the children missing to the Lexington County Sheriff's Department on Sept. 3, McCarty said.

At that time, McCarty said, a missing persons' report was filed and placed into the National Crime Information Center computer database, and the investigation began.

McCarty said this was not the first time the mother has had difficulty reaching her ex-husband, which was among the factors that led law enforcement to hold off on issuing an Amber Alert. State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel said the children were believed to be with their primary guardian, Jones, another reason the alert wasn't sent.

When Mississippi deputies ran Jones' tags after his arrest, they got a hit in the missing person's database about the children. He was arrested for DUI and possession of a controlled substance, and deputies in Smith County called South Carolina officials.

There had been a complaint to the Department of Social Services on Aug. 7 about Jones and his treatment of the children. That same day, the Lexington Sheriff's Department and Department of Social Services went to the Jones residence and talked to Jones, the children and neighbors. They didn't find any signs of abuse but were set to revisit the home within 45 days.

Records describe a messy divorce in October 2013. Jones' wife was having an affair with a neighbor, according to the divorce file. Jones was given primary custody, and a therapist called him "highly intelligent" and a "responsible father."

Jones was an Intel engineer and made more than $70,000 a year, and his wife didn't work outside the home or have a driver's license, according to the records.

McCarty called the case unprecedented in his three-plus decades in law enforcement.

"I've never seen a case like this," McCarty said. "We all see things in our career that have an impact on you. This case has impacted anyone ... who's had anything to do with this."

Contributing: Scott Johnson, Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, The Associated Press. Santaella reports for WLTX-TV, Columbia, S.C.; Apel reports for The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger.