By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – Murder suspect Aline Jones made her first appearance in Clallam County Superior Court Monday. Court documents say Jones has admitted to investigators that she killed 65-year-old Susan Ferrell of Nevada with a hammer, but told investigators it was self-defense.
Ferrell was killed in the Diamond Point house of her father, Raymond Rhodes, who died on October 14. The 44-year-old suspect says she was Mr. Rhodes’ live-in caregiver, and that Rhodes signed a quit claim deed, turning possession of the house over to her and her former boyfriend, who lives in Florida and with whom she has children.
Jones said Ferrell came to Sequim from her home in Nevada to settle her father’s affairs. She said on Thursday, October 26, Ferrell was upstairs in the house cleaning when she found a living will and the document that indicated her father had signed the house over to Jones, had become enraged and attacked her with a hammer.
Jones claims she went into “kill or be killed” mode, wrestled the hammer away and struck Ferrell three times in the head, killing her. After that, investigators say she went to great lengths to conceal what had happened.
They found drag marks across an upstairs patio, above where the body was found on the ground. They found a large area of carpet had been cut away, blood stains underneath, and a can of instant carpet stain remover sitting nearby. Jones admitted to the deception.
She told them she put Ferrell’s possessions and the bloody hammer into a heavy garbage bag. She cut the quit claim deed and the living will, which she said had blood spots on them, into tiny pieces. She then drove away in the victim’s rental car and parked it in a parking lot. She threw Ferrell’s purse into a nearby ditch to try to make it look like a robbery. Along the way she said she disposed of all the other evidence by throwing it out of the window as she drove.
After ditching the car, she said she walked to 7 Cedars Casino, had a drink and a salad, and did some gambling. From there she took a Clallam Transit bus back to Diamond Point as the darkness of night began to settle. She admits she pushed the body off the elevated patio, then placed a concrete block near the body to make it look like Ferrell had fallen and hit her head. She cut the piece of carpet out with a box cutter, loaded it into her own car, and drove back to the casino. Along the way, she tossed the carpet out of the window. Investigators say she can later be seen at the Long House gas station, on security video, washing the floor mat of her car, which she later said had blood on it.
Investigators got a search warrant to check Jones’ hands, arms, neck, torso and other areas. They said she did not have the defense wounds one would expect to see if she had been in a two-way fight for life.
Jones is currently being held on $500,000 bail on the charge of Murder in the Second Degree, along with other charges related to tampering with a body and other evidence. She has been assigned a public defender.
When asked if the death of Raymond Rhodes appeared to be in any way suspicious, Michele Devlin with the Clallam County Prosecutor’s Office said she could not comment.
(KONP staff photo of suspect Aline Jones)