By NC WANTED Staff

Posted: Jul. 30, 2009
Updated: Aug. 6, 2009

CUMBERLAND COUNTY — Chun Jones lay in bed helplessly on July 24, 2003, overhearing the sounds of her husband’s murder, but unable to stop it.

Walter Allen Jones, 54, was shot to death on his back porch after going outside to investigate noises coming from the back yard.

Chun, who is a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair, heard the shots and began shouting his name over and over. But he didn’t answer. She was still calling his name when Cumberland County sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene.

Chun Jones passed away earlier this year, without ever knowing who killed her husband.

The couple lived a quiet life in Cumberland County. They ran a successful urban clothing business, selling their products at flea markets throughout North and South Carolina and Kentucky.

Walter was a former Army drill sergeant, but Chun described him as a kind man.

“I think I love him so much because he helped people,” she told NC WANTED in the last media interview before her death. “Don’t matter what they are or how they look, he just helped people.”

Investigators believe Walter knew his killer.

The family business meant that the Joneses had a lot of cash in the house, and some cash had been stolen from their home a few weeks earlier.

The Joneses had an alarm system, but whoever was trying to break in the night of July 23, 2003, knew the exact point of entry into the house that the alarm did not cover. The alarm only started sounding when Walter opened the back door to investigate noises outside.

“A person that’s going to break into a house, [if] the alarm goes off and he hears somebody opening the back door, he’s going to run… I believe that the perpetrator, once Mr. Jones opened the door and stepped out, that they both made eye contact. Mr. Jones knew who the perpetrator was, and that is why the perpetrator decided to kill Mr. Jones, out of fear of getting caught,” explained Lt. Charlie Disponzio of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators interviewed many of Walter’s work associates, Lt. Disponzio told NC WANTED, but no suspects were identified. Everyone had a solid alibi or passed a polygraph test.

But investigators are still confident that whoever killed Walter Jones told someone about the crime and Disponzio hopes that person will come forward with the information that could solve this case.

“This is a true victim,” Disponzio said. “[Mr. Jones] was a man who served his country. Now he was a businessman. When he wasn’t working, he was home with his wife taking care of his wife. So, the sad thing is this is an unsolved case of a true victim. Not someone who put himself out there to be victimized.”

If you have any information about the unsolved murder of Walter Jones, call NC WANTED toll free at 1.866.43.WANTED (1.866.439.2683) or click on "Report a Tip" Your identity can be kept confidential.