Thursday's Internet Edition, September 02, 2010.

Tiea Jones, 22, of Gandeeville was indicted on charges of murder and 1st degree criminal abuse in the death of her son.

Her boyfriend at the time of the death, Brian Gallagher, 30, was indicted on the same charges.

The indictments were returned Friday, May 21 by a Rowan County, Ky., grand jury.

Jones was arrested last Thursday. On Tuesday of this week, she was still in the Montgomery County Regional Jail in Mt. Sterling, Ky. A jail spokesman said Jones was being held on $75,000 cash bond set by District Judge Rhonda Royce.

Her son, Nathaniel Lee Jones, died March 30, 2009 at a hospital in Morehead, Ky. Police said Jones reported finding her son unresponsive at the home in Clearfield, Ky., she shared with Gallagher.

Kentucky State Police Detective Toby Gardner said an investigation indicated the child died of internal injuries from blunt force trauma to the stomach.

Sources said Gallagher, recently of Hillsboro, Ky., had worked as a firefighter.

He was arrested May 21 and released on $25,000 bond four days later.

Both Jones and Gallagher are scheduled to appear in Rowan County Court June 9.

Police said Gallagher lived with Jones at the time of the child’s death.

A neighbor said she felt something was suspicious all along.

“I knew when it happened, something had happened to that baby, because kids don’t just up and die like that,” Mary Robinson, who lived near the family at the time, told a Kentucky television station.

Police said they took their time with the investigation before presenting the case to a grand jury.

“We wanted to make sure we dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s,” Gardner said.

Jones is known in Roane County for her work with horses and at local horse shows.

According to the child’s obituary published last year, his father was Donald Eugene May of Newton, and paternal grandparents were Eugene and Patty May of Spencer and Jannetta “Sue” May of Left Hand. Maternal grandparents were listed as James Edward Jones II of Pt. Pleasant and Donna Jean (Stanley) Jones of Gandeeville.

Services for the child took place in Pt. Pleasant, with burial in the Snodgrass Cemetery at Left Hand.

Before Tiea Jones moved to Kentucky, a Spencer woman said she, and several others including her daughter, served as babysitter for the child while his mother went to school.

“He was a sweetheart,” Stephanie Tolley of Spencer said. “He would just sit on your lap. He was a good kid.”

Tolley said Jones did not have the best of parenting skills, and that the various babysitters knew the child needed their assistance.

“She had nothing to take care of him,” Tolley said. “But we never thought she would do such a thing.”