SCHOOL WARNED CHILD’S HOME LIFE WAS ‘A RECIPE FOR DISASTER.’ THEN AARON DIED.

By the time anyone really searched for Aaron Jones, he had been dead for months.

The 13-year-old’s body was found in late April 2017 wrapped in a blanket under a tarp and a pile of rocks in a desolate desert lot behind a weekly motel. Aaron had been missing since January.

A grand jury indicted his father and stepmother on murder charges following testimony that the boy suffered horrific abuse from the adults who were supposed to protect him.

Confidential Clark County records that track child protection contacts with families, obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, viv

idly document a decade of chaotic home life for Aaron and his siblings with seemingly unfit parents.

Aaron’s care was so concerning that educators at his school warned that his home life was “a recipe for disaster.”

His mother, Dijonay Thomas, was said to have deteriorating mental health and cognitive abilities, repeatedly losing track of her children. His father, Paul Jones, pleaded guilty to child abuse before gaining custody of Aaron and his sister, records show.

Jones and his wife, Latoya Williams-Miley, then both 33 years old, lived with 13 children in a one-bedroom Siegel Suites on a seedy part of Boulder Highway filled with transient motels, locals casinos and car dealerships.

The county UNITY records reveal child protection workers had contact with the family about 100 times, but failed to act on warnings about their home life, and made inexplicable and inconsistent decisions in their attempts to protect the youngster.

The final action that sealed Aaron Jones’ fate was a court officer who gave custody of the boy to an abusive father in June 2016, records show.

“In this case, as an entire state, we failed Aaron and should have provided him with more resources,” said Jared Busker, interim director at the Children’s Advocacy Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for changes to protect abused children. “Our caseworkers need more time with families to make a better informed decision.”

Aaron is just one of dozens of children in the past eight years who died or were severely injured at the hands of abusive caregivers despite Child Protective Services investigations of their families, raising questions about whether recent attempts at reforming human services agencies in Nevada have worked. Child advocates also are concerned the coronavirus crisis is preventing CPS from finding abuse by stressed caregivers as children do not attend schools where abuse might be discovered.

County spokesman Dan Kulin said CPS officials by law cannot comment on a specific case, but said the county’s goal is to keep families together whenever possible.

“We are constantly looking for ways to improve and have made

AARON’S FAMILY CAME TO THE ATTENTION OF CPS IN 2006 WHEN THERE WAS AN ALLEGATION THAT HIS MOTHER HAD BURNED HIM, UNITY RECORDS SHOW. CHILD PROTECTION WORKERS COULD NOT FIND ANY MARKS ON THE BOY.

AT THE TIME, AARON WAS EAGER TO GO TO PRE-SCHOOL, SHOWING OFF HIS NEW CLOTHES AND HAIRCUT TO CPS STAFF, THE UNITY NOTES SAY. HE LIKED ANIMALS, DISPLAYING A PET TURTLE FOR VISITORS AND MAKING ANIMAL NOISES TO GET ATTENTION FROM CPS WORKERS.

L.E. Baskow Las Vegas Review-Journal @Left_Eye_Images Aaron Jones, 13, died sometime in the winter of 2017 and his body was found under rocks behind Siegel Suites off of Boulder Highway. This fire pit filled with debris, seen June 27, is thought to be near that very spot.

Nevada Child Seekers Aaron Jones, 13, shown before his decomposed body was found in a lot in northeast Las Vegas on April 25, 2017.

Bizuayehu Tesfaye Las Vegas Review-Journal @bizutesfaye Aaron’s stepmother Latoya Williams-Miley and father Paul Darell Jones, charged with murder in the death of 13-year-old Aaron Jones, appear in 2017 at the Regional Justice Center.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Aaron Jones’ family was the focus of repeated child protection investigations and court actions over the decade before he died.