<p>State prosecutor William Dill told jurors Thursday that suspected serial killer Jeremy Jones had inflicted "panic, terror and horror" on the family of Lisa Nichols when he raped and killed her in September 2004.</p><p>But defense attorney Greg Hughes said police had wrongly arrested a drug addict who would tell them anything they wanted to hear.</p><p>Both sides presented their opening arguments Thursday in the capital murder trial of Jones, who is charged in the rape and killing of Nichols, 44, of Turnerville.</p><p>Jones, 32, of Miami, Okla., has maintained his innocence. If convicted, he could be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.</p><p>Dill said Jones burned Nichols' body in her mobile home in an attempt to destroy evidence. He said Jones, who was staying with a neighbor of the victim, later refused to help the victim's daughters when they discovered the body.</p><p>Wearing a sports coat and tie, Jones sat between his two defense attorneys and appeared attentive when Dill pointed to him and said, "Jeremy Jones didn't try to help because he knew _ he knew _ it was his handiwork."</p><p>In an opening statement for the defense, Hughes conceded that Jones' statements to detectives about the case led to his indictment, but he argued that police arrested the wrong man. He said Jones was addicted to methamphetamine and, because of his drug use, had been "awake for several days" when officers arrested him.</p><p>The defense attorney said Jones agreed to give multiple statements to investigators "to get out of miserable living conditions" in a cell used for inmates considered at danger of committing suicide, and he would tell detectives "anything they want to hear."</p><p>State Attorney General Troy King sat at the prosecution table Thursday with the victim's 23-year-old daughter, Jennifer Murphy. King's office took over the case in April when the victim's daughter complained about delays in the prosecution.</p><p>King, a Republican being opposed in next year's election by Mobile County's Democratic district attorney, John Tyson Jr., said, "It's not political for me. There was no campaign going on when the victim's daughter came to me."</p><p>Jones has also been charged with murder in separate slayings in Georgia and New Orleans, and investigators in several other unsolved slayings have expressed an interest in Jones.</p><p>Jones is charged with murder in the death of Amanda Greenwell, a 16-year-old neighbor in Douglasville, Ga., whose remains were found in April 2004, and Katherine Collins, a 45-year-old New Orleans woman whose body was found in February 2004.</p><p>Authorities have said Jones confessed to or is being investigated in the deaths of a couple and the disappearance of two teenage girls in Oklahoma, as well as the killing of another woman in Georgia.</p><p>Amanda Greenwell's father, Rick Greenwell of Douglasville, Ga. said he had been attending Jones' trial since Monday to support the Nichols' family. Greenwell described Jones as a "charmer, but a harmer." He didn't recall seeing Jones when Amanda was killed, but said they lived in the same trailer park. "I remember his girlfriend. I guess he was a night owl."</p><p>Greenwell said it was a six hour drive from his home to Mobile and that he plans to attend the trial until Friday and then return home.</p>
