COLUMBIA, South Carolina: A man accused of killing his five children was an exconvict whose homes were visited by social workers a dozen times in the last three years. The children seemed happy and welladjusted despite occasional spankings, and the family took a summer trip to Disney World and the beach, according to documents released by the Department of Social Services on Thursday. Authorities never found anything serious enough to take the children away, but the documents show Jones as a single father and computer engineer struggling to raise his children in South Carolina.

In the social worker’s last visit – two weeks before the children’s disappearance – a social worker summed up Jones’ life: “Dad appears to be overwhelmed as he is unable to maintain the home, but the children appear to be clean, groomed and appropriately dressed,” wrote the case worker, who name was blacked out, on an Aug. 13 report. On August 28, Jones picked up his children, ages 8, 7, 6, 2 and 1, from school and day care. Acting Lexington County Sheriff Lewis McCarty said the three boys and two girls were likely killed soon after that, with Jones loading their bodies in trash bags in his Cadillac Escalade, driving around the Southeast for days with the decomposing bodies.

An intoxicated and agitated Jones was arrested in Mississippi on Saturday, and authorities said he had a form of synthetic marijuana on him. Officers found children’s clothes, blood and maggots in his SUV. Three days later, he led police to the bodies on a remote hillside in Alabama. Authorities said they still don’t know his motive, how the children were killed and why they were buried there. Jones was returned to South Carolina on Sept 11 to face murder charges.