Much about the expert testimony in Tim Jones’ murder trial is confusing.

Defense and prosecution attorneys have assembled more than 100 witnesses, many of them experts in criminal cases.

They have done exhaustive work – as has the judge and jury – to make sense of what drove Jones to his murderous acts.

This leaves troubling questions about what was done or failed to be done to protect Jones’ children before his self-confessed murders.

We know that he was badly abused by a loony mother as a child, that he became involved with drugs, went to prison, became a religious convert there and probably had little chance of ever becoming a loving father to his 5 children.

A family court gave him custody of these vulnerable children because their mother Amber did not want them and Jones did.

• Why did Department of Social Services bureaucrats leave the children in their father’s care and vulnerable to his abuse?

They knew the children were being beaten and bruised. One even took photographs of their bruises as evidence they were vulnerable to an abuser.

A DSS worker testified that she warned Jones not to spank the children or abuse them.

But what good did that do?

• Why didn’t his family and others intervene?

In his own testimony, Jones’ father said he knew his son was deeply troubled, He tried to intervene but was unsuccessful.

• Why did teachers, others who knew the family and even the children’s mother stand by and take no protective action?

Their mother cried on the witness stand about her dead babies. She tried to call Jones multiple times the night they died. But did she try to report her fears to authorities?

The biggest questions of all are yet to be answered: Can a jury give him the death penalty?

Will a death penalty verdict begin what may be a decade-long series of costly death sentence appeals?

The case is far from over.

– Jerry Bellune