Harold Jones

Harold Jones (11 January 1906 – 2 January 1971) was a British child murderer who killed two preadolescent girls in Monmouthshire, Wales, in 1921, when he was aged 15. Jones was acquitted of the murder of his first victim, eight-year-old Freda Burnell, at Monmouthshire Assizes on 21 June 1921. Seventeen days later, he murdered an 11-year-old neighbour named Florence Little. Jones pleaded guilty to Little's murder and also confessed to having murdered Burnell at his second trial. Owing to his being under 16 at the time he committed the murders, Jones escaped execution for his crimes; instead being sentenced to be detained at His Majesty's pleasure on 1 November 1921. He was released from prison in 1941, later marrying and fathering a child. Jones died of bone cancer in 1971 at the age of 64. Early life Harold Jones was born in the Welsh colliery town of Abertillery, Monmouthshire, in January 1906, the eldest of four children born into a poor family. His father, Phillip, worked as a coal miner and his mother was a housewife. Jones and his siblings attended a local council school where he was regarded as a popular and exemplary pupil, showing a particular flair for sports, and holding aspirations to become a professional boxer. He is also known to have spent much of his free time reading and to have occasionally played the organ at local church services.