League City Hit and Run Driver Kills Man-Leaves Note

By Rhiannon Meyers / The Daily News & Allison Triarsi / 11 News

LEAGUE CITY, Texas — The mother of man killed in a hit-and-run Sunday said someone left a handwritten note of apology beside her son’s body.

"They said that they were sorry and that they had a family," said Roberta Jones. "But he had one. you know and he was my family."

Two days after Maurice Jones was found dead in a ditch along Dickinson Avenue, police were still searching for the person responsible.

They won't release many details about the note, but it contained information that leads them to believe the suspect might be a woman under age 40 with a newborn baby.

"It's a pure speculation that it was a female, but the handwriting appears to be of a female origin," said Scott Saldridge with the League City Police Department.

Jones, 34, was hit by a vehicle as he walked home from his night shift at a fast-food restaurant.

“It’s just so much,” his mother, Roberta Jones, said. “Maurice was pretty much everything.”

Police have limited information about what happened to Jones after he got off work at the McDonalds restaurant at FM 518 and state Highway 3 at 10 p.m. Saturday.

They know Jones started walking home along Dickinson Avenue, a narrow road that runs alongside a busy railroad, said Sgt. David Hausam of the League City Police Department. They know he chose to walk alongside the east side of road so he would be facing oncoming traffic, Hausam said.

“He did everything right,” the officer said.

Around the 1100 block of Dickinson Avenue, a vehicle headed south veered left, crossed the road, struck Jones then plowed through the ditch and came to a rest about 40 feet off the road, said Hausam, discussing the evidence collected from tire tracks.


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Jones was less than a mile and a half from home. A League City police officer found Jones’ body in the ditch about 7 a.m. Sunday.

Jones died from blunt force trauma, said John Florence, spokesman for the Galveston County Medical Examiner.

"I pray that the person who did this, you know, would more than just say 'I'm sorry,'" said Roberta Jones.

Since Sunday, hundreds of people have stopped by Roberta Jones’ home on Oregon Road to offer condolences for her son, who was best known for his contagious smile, she said.

Jones, a native of League City and a 1993 graduate of Clear Creek High School, moved home with his mother two weeks before his death, she said.

After high school, Jones worked for an electrical company and for various carpenters, but he had recently fallen on hard times, his mother said. He was let go from his carpentry job, and his sky blue pickup was out of commission, she said.

He was walking to and from his job at McDonalds, where he’d been working for a week, until he could get his truck fixed, she said. He spent nights after work on a sheet-covered couch, watching movies on his mother’s television until he drifted to sleep, his mother said.

“He was trying to get his life back together,” she said.

When he didn’t come home Saturday night, Roberta Jones said she thought her son had been too tired to walk home after work and decided to spend the night with one of his many friends.

“If he would’ve called me, I would have come got him,” she said.

His family is heartbroken by the loss of the man they say was the glue that held family together, said Earlene Green, his aunt. Quick with a piece of scripture, Jones was always the mediator in disputes, she said. Always the family handyman, Jones had most recently been helping his mother care for his aging grandmother, Green said.

He is survived by his daughter, Jada, 11.

A funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at New Beginnings Church, 1950 state Highway 3 in League City.

This story is available through KHOU, Ch. 11's partnership with The Galveston County Daily News.