Son charged in murder of local chess mentor

SAN JOSE >> Prosecutors have filed a murder charge against a man suspected of killing his father and injuring his mother in a stabbing at their Alviso home last weekend, according to court records.

Kevin Michael Jones, 37, was formally charged March 16 with murder and assault with a deadly weapon in the March 13 attack that ended with the death of his father, 69-year-old Michael Jones, and his mother being rushed to a hospital with stabbing injuries.

Kevin Jones also was charged with the attempted kidnapping of a child at a relative's nearby home minutes before the stabbing occurred, according to San Jose police and a criminal complaint filed by the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.

Kevin Jones was arraigned March 16 in Santa Clara County Superior Court. He did not enter a plea and was taken back to the county Main Jail in San Jose, where he is being held without bail.

Judge Shelyna Brown issued protective orders against Kevin Jones for four of his family members, who were not identified in court.

According to police, officers were called at 12:06 a.m. to a home at Summerset Mobile Estates in the 2000 block of Gold Street for a report of a stabbing and found two injured people. Michael Jones died at the scene, and his wife was rushed to a hospital and is expected to survive.

Soon after, patrol officers aided by a police helicopter located Kevin Jones and arrested him.

After the arrest, investigators connected the stabbing call to an emergency call made minutes earlier from a nearby home of another relative, in which Kevin Jones was alleged to have tried to force a child to leave with him, police said. He allegedly threatened the child and family there with a knife, but reportedly gave up and fled to his parents' home.

The criminal complaint indicates prosecutors will request that

Kevin Jones be kept in jail after his arraignment, with allegations accompanying all three felony counts referencing that he “has engaged in violent conduct that indicates a serious danger to society.”

Court records show that at the time of his arrest Sunday, Kevin Jones was the subject of an active bench warrant, issued March 10 for his failure to appear in court for charges related to an October 2019 domestic violence assault allegation in Los Gatos. As recently as last fall, he was under court-ordered mental health treatment after he was charged with vandalism for alegedly breaking a window and glass door at a Santa Clara liquor store in September 2019.

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Records also show that Kevin Jones' history in criminal court dating to 2004 includes arrests and charges of DUI, assault with a deadly weapon, robbery and burglary.

Michael Jones was remembered as a beloved coach with Bay Area Chess, a nonprofit that runs afterschool programs for thousands of Bay Area school children. He was said to have particularly excelled in teaching elementary-aged children to get a grasp of the game.

He had been coaching steadily in San Jose and Los Altos until about six weeks ago, when he was forced to take a break to undergo treatment for lung cancer.

The next court hearing in the case is scheduled for April 13.