Amber Kyzer, the mother of five young children who were killed by their father, shocked a courtroom Tuesday when she asked the jury to spare her ex-husband of the death penalty. “He did not show my children any mercy by any means. But my kids loved him and if I’m speaking on behalf of my kids and not myself, that’s what I have to say,” Kyzer said on the witness stand. “I hear what my kids went through and what they endured. And as a mother, if I could personally rip his face off I would. That’s the mom in me. That’s the mama bear,” she told the courtroom. A jury will ultimately decide her ex-husband’s fate.

Timothy Jones was found guilty of killing all five of his children, and driving their bodies through several states for more than a week. Jones’ defense argue that he struggled from an undiagnosed mental illness that was made worse by the use of synthetic marijuana. Jones said in a confession he felt his 6-year-old Nahtahn was trying to attack him by conspiring with his ex-wife. His attorneys tried to show that the murders were the result of a mental break caused by his wife leaving him for a teenaged neighbor, after she says the strictly religious Jones had become unbearably controlling over her and the children.