Man tells cops he killed girlfriend, left body in suitcase 21 years ago, AL officials say

A man got on a bus to Alabama to tell police that more than 20 years ago he killed his girlfriend, stuffed her body in a suitcase and abandoned it, authorities said.

Now, 65-year-old Brian Edwards Jones has been sentenced on a murder charge to 21 years in prison in connection with the death of Janet Luxford, AL.com reported from court documents.

McClatchy News could not locate his attorney records Oct. 8.

On Feb. 18, 2001, Jones and Luxford, 41, got into an argument that “got out of hand” at a hotel in Bessemer, then he fatally struck her in the throat with a club, Bessemer Police Lt. Christian Clemons told WBRC in 2022.

He put her body in a green suitcase and dropped it off at a wooded area, but said her death was an accident, police told news outlets.

After Luxford’s daughter hadn’t seen her mother in a while, she reported her missing in 2002 out of Napa, California, police said, according to WVTM.

The missing person case went cold until March 2022, when it became a homicide investigation.

“He took a bus from South Carolina to (the) Birmingham-area and he sat outside of our station until he finally got up the nerve to give us a call,” Clemons told WBRC.

Then, Jones led them to the location of her remains, police told news outlets.

Luxford’s daughter, Amanda Luxford Fernandez, told AL.com in 2022 that her mom “loved with everything she had.”

“She was a great woman,’’ Fernandez said. “She was sweet, she had a Southern drawl and she loved country music. Reba McEntire had always been her idol.”

Jones, of Ladson, South Carolina, was charged with murder and abuse of a corpse, but prosecutors dropped the second charge when he pleaded guilty to murder Oct. 7, Jefferson County records show.

Bessemer is a suburb of Birmingham.

This story was originally published October 8, 2024 at 2:26 PM with the headline "Man tells cops he killed girlfriend, left body in suitcase 21 years ago, AL officials say."