CAMDEN, Ala. — Authorities expect to charge a South Carolina man in connection with the deaths of his five children after he led officials to a secluded clearing in Alabama where their bodies lay wrapped in individual garbage bags.

Timothy Ray Jones Jr. has been charged with child neglect and police expect to lodge additional charges against him, the Lexington County, South Carolina, Sheriff’s Department said.

Jones, 32, is awaiting extradition to South Carolina from Mississippi, where he has been jailed since his arrest Saturday on a drunken-driving charge, Smith County Sheriff Charlie Crumpton said in a statement.

Police have not released details on how the children — ages 1 to 8 — died.

“They were wonderful. They were happy,” Julie Jones of Amory, Mississippi, told The Associated Press by phone. She identified herself as Jones’ stepmother. “They were wonderful, beautiful.”

Wilcox County, Alabama, District Attorney Michael Jackson told The AP that Jones is suspected of killing the children in South Carolina before taking their bodies to Alabama.

Lexington County Coroner Earl Wells was arranging for the children’s bodies to be taken back to South Carolina for autopsies and identification Tuesday night, sheriff’s officials said.

It also was unclear when the children were killed, how much time passed before their bodies were disposed of, and what motivation Jones might have had to do it.

“This is a very tragic situation,” Jackson said. “These kids’ lives were snuffed out before they had a chance to enjoy life. Justice will be served.”

On Wednesday morning, the dirt road where the bodies had been found — an isolated area between the Alabama towns of Pine Apple and Oak Hill, about 25 miles west of an Interstate 65 exit — was abandoned. Investigators had worked late into the night using flood lights, but there was no longer any sign of vehicles or people. Boot prints and tire tracks were especially prevalent around a pile of dead trees atop a sandy soil hilltop, guarded from view by the two-lane highway.

Jones had joint custody of his children with his ex-wife, police said, and had recently told neighbors he and the kids were going to move out of South Carolina.