Missouri — A 28-year-old man in Missouri has been arrested for allegedly killing a 35-year-old pregnant woman and the child she was carrying while five children, all under the age of ten, watched in horror.
Vanier J. Jones was arrested last week and charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Christina Lynn Rentchler, 35, and her unborn child, according to court documents reviewed by Law&Crime.
Jones is also charged with armed criminal action, first-degree assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and unlawful possession of a handgun.
According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, on April 23, 2025, officers from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department responded to a report of a shooting at a residence in the 4100 block of Farlin Avenue.
When first responders arrived at the scene, they said they quickly found the victim, later identified as Rentchler, who appeared to have multiple gunshot wounds, including one “in the back of the head.”
A subsequent autopsy performed by the county medical examiner revealed that the victim was in the second trimester of her pregnancy at the time of death. The examination also determined that Rentchler’s death was the direct cause of the death of her unborn child.
The affidavit also contained harrowing details about the fatal shooting and who was forced to witness the alleged crime.
“In the house during the murder were five juveniles Victim 4, Victim 5, Victim 6, Victim 7 and Victim 8,” according to the witness statement. The juveniles’ ages ranged from two to ten years old. Some of the juveniles were [Rentchler’s] children.”
Following the shooting, investigators interviewed the eldest child at the hospital, who identified Jones as the shooter and stated that he had recently started staying at the house with her and her family. The child also gave a brief account of what led to Rentchler’s tragic murder and how he avoided a similar fate.
“She stated the Defendant had gotten angry and shot [Rentchler],” according to the document. “She stated that she then played dead, and heard the Defendant ask Victim 1’s children where their mother was prior to the Defendant killing Victim 1.”
Jones allegedly told police after being arrested that he had nothing to do with Rentchler’s murder and that he was with someone identified in the document as “Witness 1.” However, when police spoke with the witness in a taped interview, they stated that “not only was Witness 1 not with the Defendant when the homicide occurred, but the Defendant admitted to Witness 1 that he had just killed a woman.”
Further investigation revealed that Jones had previously been convicted of multiple felonies and had “absconded from his federal supervised release at the time of the homicide.”
