Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Chris Jenkins Pt. One
Transcript
- 0:30Welcome back to the Pathway Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm
- 0:34Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. October thirty first, two
- 0:40thousand and two. Minneapolis, Minnesota, twenty one year old university student Chris
- 0:46Jenkins celebrates Halloween by going to a local bar with friends. After he is
- 0:52ejected from the establishment, Chris vanishes without a trace, and his body is
- 0:57found in the Mississippi River four months later. While police initially believe that Chris's
- 1:03death was an accidental drowning, his family uncovers disturbing evidence to suggest that he
- 1:08was a victim of foul play. The police chief eventually reclassifies the death as
- 1:12a homicide and issues an apology to the Jenkins family, but the exact circumstances
- 1:19of how Chris died remain unknown. After that, the path went chilly,
- 1:26So since we're nearing the end of October, we thought now would be a
- 1:29good time to cover a tragic cold case which happened to take place on Halloween.
- 1:33The unexplained two thousand and two death of Chris Jenkins. Chris was a
- 1:37student from the University of Minnesota who decided to go up partying on Halloween night,
- 1:42but after he was kicked out of a downtown bar under very questionable circumstances,
- 1:47he never returned home and would remain a missing person until he was found
- 1:49dead in the Mississippi River four months later. At first, the authorities were
- 1:55contend to write off Chris's death as a tragic alcohol fueled accident or even a
- 1:59suicide, but his family disagreed. Of course, you'll find a number of
- 2:02stories out there just like this one where a deceased individual's family with dispute law
- 2:07enforcements official ruling and maintain that their loved one was a victim of foul play.
- 2:13However, this is one of those rare cases where law enforcement eventually changed
- 2:16their mind and came to believe that the victim's death might have really been a
- 2:20homicide. After all, Chris's case is still officially unsolved, and there has
- 2:24been speculation that his death might be connected to a phenomenon known as the smiley
- 2:30faced murder theory, but you'll hear our thoughts on that a little later.
- 2:34As it is, this is a very odd case in which it's incredibly difficult
- 2:37to come up with a concrete theory which makes one hundred percent complete sense.
- 2:42Well, I'm really excited to hear more about this case because, like you
- 2:45said, typically we hear where families are advocating for police and medical examiners to
- 2:51take a look at their case and say, this is not a suicide,
- 2:53this was not an accident, and what ninety percent of the time they're shut
- 2:57down because a ruling is a ruling. There's a reason they came to that
- 3:00conclusion, and many people are not willing to take a second look. But
- 3:05in this case, they actually changed the ruling to homicide, which is a
- 3:08really big deal. I'm looking forward to understanding how they came to the original
- 3:14accident slash suicide ruling. I'm assuming possibly being under the influence and stumbling off
- 3:20of some hill cliff something, or even jumping from a location would be their
- 3:27explanation. But and then how they ended up changing that as well. So
- 3:30this smiley faced murder theory, I'm already incredibly intrigued and I can't wait to
- 3:35hear more. Our story begins in Minneapolis in two thousand and two. Our
- 3:42central figure is twenty one year old Chris Jenkins, who was originally born in
- 3:46Eden, Prairie and is entering his senior year as a student at the University
- 3:51of Minnesota. Chris is an honor student with a three point seven grade point
- 3:55average at the university's Carlston School of Management, and is also a goalie and
- 4:00co captain on the lacrosse team. He's currently living with roommates in a rented
- 4:05house in the Dinkytown district and is preparing to graduate in the spring. On
- 4:12Halloween Night, a cag party took place at Chris's residence, and he dressed
- 4:15up in the costume of a Native American. At around ten thirty pm,
- 4:20Chris, his girlfriend, Ashley Rice, and three of their friends left the
- 4:25party and went to the Lone Tree Bar and Grill, located at five twenty
- 4:29eight Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. Ashley was an employee at the bar,
- 4:34though she was not scheduled to work that night. Since Chris's costume did not
- 4:40have pockets, he asked Ashley to hold his wallet, cell phone, and
- 4:43keys for him inside her purse. Shortly after midnight on November first, Chris
- 4:48was ejected from the bar. Though the actual circumstances of how this took place
- 4:54have always been up for debate. The most commonly shared story is that a
- 4:59drink was accident spilled on Chris's pants, and when the security supervisor noticed this,
- 5:04he assumed that Chris had become so intoxicated that he urinated himself. Chris
- 5:10was promptly removed from the bar, and the bouncers standing by the front door
- 5:14reportedly received a radio communication to quote not let the white guy dressed up as
- 5:18an Indian back inside end quote. By this point, Chris had become separated
- 5:24from his friends in the bar and could not inform them about what happened,
- 5:28and unfortunately, his wallet, keys, and cell phone were still inside Ashley's
- 5:32purse. Not only that, but Chris's coat was left behind and he was
- 5:36not allowed to retrieve it, so he was now trapped outside in cold twenty
- 5:42degree temperatures wearing nothing but his Halloween costume. Since he had been driven there
- 5:46by one of his friends, Chris also had no ride home. He walked
- 5:50away from the bar and was last seen heading north, but unfortunately, this
- 5:55would turn out to be the last time he was confirmed to be alive.
- 6:00It seems very questionable about what would cause them to not allow part of his
- 6:05party to go out with him, especially if he was highly intoxicated, Like
- 6:09you would think you wouldn't dump somebody outside. You'd figure out who he's with
- 6:13and get them outside and say, hey, your friend's causing a problem,
- 6:15you need to go. But here it seems like they were pretty negligent of
- 6:19saying, like, listen, this kid's drunk, I'm putting him outside,
- 6:24doesn't have a jacket, it's freezing, and clearly they believe he's incredibly under
- 6:29the influence. So it almost feels like they didn't try to protect him whatsoever.
- 6:33I get he was assumed to be a nuisance there, but why not
- 6:39allow his party to be reconnected with him and all of them leave. Yeah,
- 6:44Like, even if his death legitimately was an accident, it's pretty much
- 6:47a given that this was negligent behavior in the bar, just ejecting him and
- 6:51not letting him contact his friends and retrieve all his personal items in his coat
- 6:56and putting him outside in these cold weathers. And we're going to talk about
- 7:00this later on, But there was someone else in the bar who may have
- 7:02had an ulterior motive to ensure that christ was removed, and that might be
- 7:05the reason that happened, But it just seems ridiculous that they see someone spill
- 7:10a drink on his pants and just automatically assume that he urinated himself without even
- 7:14asking for his side of the story. I mean, from what I can
- 7:16tell, he was not causing a disturbance. He did not look drunk,
- 7:19so it just seems really irresponsible to just kick him out like that. It's
- 7:24almost worse if he is so intoxicated that he did urinate on himself. This
- 7:29is somebody who isn't If that was the case, and I'm not saying that
- 7:31it was, he wouldn't be cognizant enough to be able to phone somebody to
- 7:35come and pick him up. You would almost ensure in those temperatures that he
- 7:40would potentially freeze to death. And I'm just assuming that these bouncers were twenty
- 7:46something guys, because there isn't any nurturing energy in the bunch here. Just
- 7:50at least let the guy get his coat or let him retrieve his cell phone
- 7:54in his keys. It just seems like such a cruel action to take,
- 7:59even if he was so intoxicated, because lots of people get intoxicated, but
- 8:03you're putting him in the path of harm here. When Chris's friends could not
- 8:07find him inside the bar, they just assumed he went home on his own.
- 8:11Later that morning, Ashley visited Chris's house to return the items, which
- 8:15he'd kept inside her purse, but he wasn't there, and since there was
- 8:18no sign of his Native American costume, this seemed to indicate that he never
- 8:22returned at all. Words soon reached Chris's parents, Steve and jan Jenkins,
- 8:26along with his older sister Sarah, that he could not be found. The
- 8:31Jenkins family traveled to Minneapolis and attempted to report him missing, but the Minneapolis
- 8:35Police Department said they could not officially launch a search for him until he was
- 8:39missing for seventy two hours. One officer even tried to tell them that Chris
- 8:43had probably gone off on a road trip somewhere and was quote unquote sowing his
- 8:46oats. Of course, the Jenkins has found this idea to be ludicrous,
- 8:50since all of his important possessions were left behind at the bar and he had
- 8:54nothing on him at the time, and if Chris had gone to spend the
- 8:58night somewhere, he likely would have called contacted somebody, but none of his
- 9:01friends knew where he was even after the mandatory seventy two hour waiting period ended,
- 9:07it would still be a few more days before the Minneapolis PD took any
- 9:09action on Chris's case. The Jenkins family decided to organize their own search for
- 9:15Chris, and hundreds of volunteers, many of them students from the University of
- 9:18Minnesota, attempted to look for him. This is the worst. This is
- 9:22of course, because he's over the age of eighteen. They come up with
- 9:26this idea that, look, he probably left on his own. But it's
- 9:30insane these cases we cover where the family in their gut says, no,
- 9:33this isn't like them, Like he went to this party with his friends.
- 9:37They had clear plans that evening, and he should have arrived back at his
- 9:41residence. There's no reason he shouldn't have come home. And that waiting period
- 9:46is horrifying for the family, who's saying, please listen to us, something's
- 9:50wrong. And here, of course, the police are trying to reassure them
- 9:54by saying, like he's off sewing his oats. He ran off on the
- 9:58road, and a family and the girlfriend and all are saying, no,
- 10:01you don't understand. This is ridiculous. He left everything of importance, including
- 10:07the people he was with, with no mention of leaving. He did not
- 10:11go on his own. Yeah, I'm sure the police like have to respond
- 10:16to a lot of complaints about students disappearing, and that probably a lot of
- 10:20the time it turns out they just took off on a road trip or something
- 10:22and came back safely. But in this particular case, it makes no sense
- 10:26because Chris didn't have anything but the clothes on his back, and there's just
- 10:31no way that he would take off without his cell phone or any of his
- 10:33personal items. Okay, And like you're trying to tell us that he's out
- 10:37there sewing his oats a guy that is so drunk that he urinated on himself.
- 10:41Like, I don't know. I'm sure there's some women out there that
- 10:43wouldn't take issue with that, but I would think that most who he would
- 10:46then approach with a wet crotch looking like he's peede himself, aren't going to
- 10:52be in the mood to be getting down. So I just don't understand this.
- 10:56He's out there sewing his oats with what woman, Like he has a
- 11:01girlfriend? You don't just leave a bar in that state, And that's what's
- 11:05like on your mind, and you're able to successfully achieve it without your wallet,
- 11:09without your keys, without any other clothes. None of it makes sense.
- 11:13And I find it so triggering because I told you guys about the traumatic
- 11:18experience I had when I was in my addiction, like in my mid twenties,
- 11:22and I left a bar without anything, and I didn't have my coat,
- 11:26I didn't have my wallet, I didn't have anything on me, my
- 11:28phone was dead, And what a vulnerable position that puts you in. It
- 11:33was one of those situations where luckily I ended up living through it, but
- 11:39in a situation like this, where this situation seems even worse because the temperatures
- 11:43were even lower than what I dealt with. But it was winter when I
- 11:48had my experience, too, so I can completely understand. So if I
- 11:52seem triggered at any point in time during this, you both know why.
- 11:56Oh yeah, I remember that story, and I am glad you were found
- 11:58safe before they had to get the police involved. And of course, another
- 12:01key difference is that you were dressed in a Native American costume, which is
- 12:05going to look unusual for Chris if he's wearing that the day after Halloween and
- 12:09I don't think he's going to pick up many women while he's dress like that.
- 12:13Due to a lack of interest from police, the Jenkinses hired their own
- 12:18private investigator named Chuck Losch, who went to interview employees from the Lone Tree
- 12:22Bar and Grill. The security supervisor denied the claims that Chris had been thrown
- 12:28out of the bar, while the other bouncers became very defensive and provided no
- 12:33useful information. It turned out that an off duty police officer named Mike Casey
- 12:37was present at the bar that night in order to work security at the adjacent
- 12:41Henepin Center for the Arts. Ashley Rice knew Casey and had even borrowed the
- 12:46shirt from his police uniform as part of her Halloween costume as a sexy police
- 12:52officer. When Chris arrived at the bar with Ashley, she introduced him to
- 12:56Casey. Witnesses were called Casey being verys with Ashley. That night, after
- 13:01the bar closed, the owner held an employee meeting, which was attended by
- 13:05Ashley even though she was not working at the time, and when the meeting
- 13:11ended, it was Casey who gave Ashley a ride home. Rumors circulated that
- 13:16it was Casey who asked the security supervisor to eject Chris from the bar,
- 13:20and there was gossip that he wanted Chris out of the picture so that he
- 13:22could make the moves on Ashley. Chuck Losh's inquiries into the Lone Tree Bar
- 13:28quickly hit a dead end, as the owner essentially issued a gag order for
- 13:31his employees. He instructed them to stick to the story that Chris walked out
- 13:37of the bar on his own and not to speak with the police or any
- 13:39private investigators without an attorney who represented the bar. Officer. Casey made no
- 13:46attempt to contact the Jenkins family and was never formally questioned by the Minneapolis PDE.
- 13:52According to Chris's parents, the police told them, quote, he's a
- 13:56married man with children. We don't want to break up a family. End
- 13:58quote. Okay, this is really disturbing because you have an off duty officer
- 14:07who's I'm assuming moonlighting as helping with security there. He supposedly has an attraction
- 14:11to Ashley and wants to get rid of this kid who's with her so that
- 14:16he can make the moves on her. What enrages me is that the police
- 14:20department's time the family listen he's a married man, Like, that's just not
- 14:26in his cards. Okay, that's not in his deck of tools that he
- 14:30uses to have an affair. If anyone has spent time around high stress,
- 14:35high commitment, and loyalty to other people, and you think that affairs don't
- 14:41take place in the workplace or with people that are interacting with, you're crazy.
- 14:46Almost every law enforcement agency knows that several people in their department are having
- 14:50extramarital affairs. It's something that when I work with law enforcement, it's like
- 14:54it's just such a high stress, high crazy job and you get to to
- 15:00make deals and sometimes it's for money, sometimes it's for sex, sometimes it's
- 15:03for drugs. It's wild. So the fact that they just pacified and say
- 15:07he's a good man, he's married, He couldn't have done anything to contribute
- 15:11to this makes me furious exactly. And also considering that I don't know the
- 15:16exact age of Casey, but I assume that he's a number of years older
- 15:20than Ashley, who is still just a university student. But you have to
- 15:24sense that there might be something to this relationship because like how many older men
- 15:28would lend their police officer shirt to like a young girl so she could wear
- 15:33a sexy police officer costumes. So it just gives me the creeps that like
- 15:37he just wanted to like possibly get her boyfriend under the bar so he could
- 15:41hit on her. And then this guy, this this boyfriend suddenly goes missing
- 15:45and now the police don't want to cooperate because they're more concerned about this married
- 15:48man's reputation. Is that even allowed? Are you even allowed to lend your
- 15:52uniform to other people? Like? I don't think so, that's what I'm
- 15:56thinking. It does not sound like that goes with regulations because I know that
- 16:00most of the time, if you want to be a sexy police officer,
- 16:03you just buy a costume with a uniform shirt. It just doesn't seem right
- 16:07to be like lending an official uniform as part of the Halloween costume. No,
- 16:11it's definitely not right. It's like the Tachi way when people borrow someone's
- 16:15military uniform or by a military uniform from a thrift short It's like that was
- 16:21somebody's service uniform, you know, like I don't know, but there's some
- 16:25maybe police officer, no way, but there's something intimate about borrowing somebody's uniform.
- 16:30Like, I just don't feel like you would just have a casual kind
- 16:34of like just know you on the street or like acquaintance type relationship to lend
- 16:40somebody that, or to feel like you could even ask somebody to borrow that.
- 16:44Don't you guys think, Yeah, it does seem strange. I think
- 16:47like most police officers would be reluctant to do something like that, especially to
- 16:51like a young university girl who's probably like several years younger. She's gonna spill
- 16:56alcohol all over it, she's wearing it on Halloween night. It doesn't seem
- 17:00like the chance that you're going to get it in Christine conditioned back are that
- 17:03great. And I don't think Casey's wife would approve either. That's exactly what
- 17:08I was just about to say. And I don't think that this amazingly married
- 17:12man who has his family at the forefront would be at the bar on Halloween
- 17:17night loaning his uniform out either. Chuck Klosh would pursue other leads, which
- 17:23included checking the surveillance footage from two outside cameras at the Federal Reserve Bank.
- 17:29If Chris had attempted to head back to his house after walking away from the
- 17:32bar. The quickest route would have involved walking across the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.
- 17:37The cameras outside the Federal Reserve Bank pointed directly at the bridge, but there
- 17:41was no sign of Chris at all in any of the surveillance footage from Halloween
- 17:44night or the early morning hours in November the first. The surveillance operator maintained
- 17:48that it would have been impossible for anyone to cross the thousand foot length of
- 17:52the bridge without being captured on camera. The Jenkins hired the services of some
- 17:57canine units, and two separate bloodhounds would attempt to track Chris's scent from the
- 18:03Lone Tree Bar. On both occasions, the dogs traveled to Times Square Pizza
- 18:07and Subs, located across the street from the bar. Before following Chris is
- 18:11sent into an underground parking garage next door and coming to an end at a
- 18:15spot in front of parking stalls eighty nine and ninety. In addition, dropless
- 18:21of blood residue, a piece of red string, and red feather fragments which
- 18:25possibly belonged to the headband from Chris's Native American costume, were found in the
- 18:29garage, Though this was all apparently dismissed as potential evidence by the Minneapolis PD.
- 18:34It's also worth noting that the friend who originally drove Chris to the bar
- 18:38parked their vehicle at another location, so there would have been no logical reason
- 18:42for Chris to enter the garage on his own, So there was no reason
- 18:47for him to go towards a vehicle, maybe thinking Okay, I can meet
- 18:49my friends at our car. But there does seem to be a scent that
- 18:52ends right there, meaning either he did go that direction and was met by
- 18:59somebody else and taken or went that direction, met with someone else and voluntarily
- 19:03got in the car. But then you add the droplets of blood and the
- 19:07feathers and the string. It's very disturbing. Do they eventually go back and
- 19:15link this evidence to the case, or did they just miss it at the
- 19:19beginning? It never went back. They do die further into it and look
- 19:23into the possibility that someone affiliated with the bar might have been parked in that
- 19:27garage on that particular night, but they aren't able to conclusively prove if Chris
- 19:33actually left inside a vehicle. But the idea that they was dismissed right away
- 19:37by the Minneapolis PD is pretty disturbing because like the string and the feather,
- 19:41fragments like those aren't normal things you're just ordinarily going to find a parking garage.
- 19:45So it seems pretty likely that these did belong to Chris's costume and that
- 19:49he was there at some point, Like at least you think that they would
- 19:53explore the theory that there could have been foul play based on the fact that
- 19:56there seems to be some actual evidence, rather than landing on he's sowing his
- 20:02wild oats when we have absolutely zero evidence of that transpiring. So more bloodhound
- 20:08tracking was performed in December of that year, and this time they followed Chris's
- 20:14scent outside the parking garage and through the downtown area for four point four miles
- 20:18before it came to an end at the northbound ramp of Interstate ninety four.
- 20:23This seemed to indicate that Chris had entered or been forced into a vehicle inside
- 20:27the garage, which transported him to another location, while one of the garage's
- 20:33attendants claimed that on Halloween night, either stall eighty nine or ninety had been
- 20:38occupied by a vehicle driven by a bouncer from the Lone Tree Bar. Though
- 20:42it's unclear which one one of the bloodhounds did walk by this person's vehicle and
- 20:48produced a mild hit for Chris's scent, but for whatever reason, there was
- 20:52no indication that this lead was ever followed up on by law enforcement. It's
- 20:56also worth noting that a weird message was found squawled on one of Chris's missing
- 21:00posters, which was posted only two blocks from the Lone Tree Bar. It
- 21:06read quote loaded in trunk, paid by dollars green end quote. Chuck Losch
- 21:12would also speak with multiple witnesses who were called seeing a group of at least
- 21:17ten people attacking an unidentified mail in front of Times Square, Pizza and Subs
- 21:22in the early morning hours after Halloween night. It's unclear if the victim was
- 21:26Chris, but it's been theorized that the attack may have been some sort of
- 21:30gang initiation. This is wild. Their initial assumption is Chris had an accident
- 21:37or completed suicide, and yet we have the undercover police officer who might have
- 21:41wanted him out of that bar so he could hit on Ashley. We have
- 21:45a cent that's followed to potentially one of the bouncer's cars with blood present.
- 21:51We also have a potential gang initiation or attack that happens in that same area.
- 21:56So how when you have these pieces of information, is your gut and
- 22:02an eventual ruling that it's an accident suicide and not undetermined at the least.
- 22:07And at this point, Chris's body has still not been found, and this
- 22:11is December, one year after one month after he went missing, So obviously
- 22:15this goes against the theory that he was out there sowing his oats. So
- 22:18it makes you wonder why don't they jump into action, like Chris has been
- 22:22gone for over a month now and we have evidence of foul plays, So
- 22:25it just blows my mind that the police are not taking this more seriously.
- 22:30Well, Chris would continue to remain a missing person until after the new year,
- 22:33but there would finally be answers on February the twenty seventh, two thousand
- 22:37and three, when pedestrians traveling across the Third Avenue Bridge reported seeing a male
- 22:41body floating on the east side of the Mississippi River. The body had gotten
- 22:45wedged in the branches of a large tree located next to the upper Saint Anthony
- 22:49Falls Dam. The victim was floating on his back with his arms crossed in
- 22:53front of him, and when he was retrieved, he was discovered to be
- 22:56dressed in a Native American costume and conclusively identified as Chris Jenkins. Even though
- 23:03Chris had been drinking before he disappeared, he was not believed to be overly
- 23:07intoxicated, as his blood alcohol level was only zero point one two percent.
- 23:11There are also traces of the date rape drug GHB in Chris's system, but
- 23:17since GHB is also a substance which can be produced by the body naturally,
- 23:21this did not necessarily mean that Chris was drugged prior to his death. Given
- 23:26the amount of time he was missing, Chris's body had relatively little decomposition.
- 23:30The medical examiner found no signs of foul play, but nothing to suggest that
- 23:34he died of natural causes, so the official cause of death would be listed
- 23:38as undetermined. The tragedy affected the community in a huge way, so for
- 23:42the first time in their history, the University of Minnesota decided to award Chris
- 23:48a posthumous degree. However, while the Minneapolis PD leaned towards Chris's death being
- 23:52an accidental drowning or a suicide, his friends and family disagreed. They immediately
- 23:57discounted the suicide theory because Chris showed no signs of depression and was excitedly preparing
- 24:03for the future, as he already had job interviews lined up after his graduation.
- 24:07Yeah, there's nothing here. None of his friends said anything about something
- 24:11going wrong that evening. He had plans after the night out, So it
- 24:18doesn't seem like suicide is one of the explanations I'd at all come to here.
- 24:22He was separated from his party on Halloween night and wasn't seen for what
- 24:29five months were his body's discovered in the water. So I'm just devastated here.
- 24:34I can't imagine what the family is going through, saying like, Hi,
- 24:38did anyone want to do a thorough investigation? Was anyone going to help
- 24:41us find our son? Or was it just easier to pretending nothing to happen
- 24:47until you were forced to when the body was discovered. And it's particularly frustrating
- 24:52because this was only a couple miles away from the bar where he originally went
- 24:56missing, and you think to yourself, if anyone had been performing in search
- 24:59of this area, like right after Chris went missing, maybe things would have
- 25:03turned out differently and we'd have more insight into what actually happened to him.
- 25:07There was also some question of how Chris wound up in the river to begin
- 25:11with, since he had no broken bones. This seemed to discount the idea
- 25:15of him following or jumping off either the third Avenue bridge or the head of
- 25:19an Avenue bridge, which was located approximately one quarter mile northwest from where Chris's
- 25:26body was found. Believe it or not, one police officer stated that perhaps
- 25:30Chris had drowned after jumping into the water while attempting to save a duck.
- 25:37Misresolved, Yeah, that's clearly how this theory ended up, going from being
- 25:42in the confines of his brain to him speaking it into reality in front of
- 25:47other people as beyond me. Since the Minnesota PD officially considered the case to
- 25:52be closed, the Jenkins family were forced to conduct their own independent investigation and
- 25:59consulted with noun forensic pathologist doctor Michael Bodden. Doctor Bowden's biggest issue with the
- 26:04accidental drowning theory was that Chris was found with his arms crossed in front of
- 26:10him and he had his hands clenched if one were to accidentally fall into a
- 26:14body of water. Their first natural reaction would be to attempt to swim,
- 26:18which is why drowning victims are usually found face down with their arms out towards
- 26:23their sides. Their clothing is usually disheveled, and it's not uncommon for one
- 26:29or more of their shoes to be missing, but this was not the case
- 26:33with Chris or his Halloween costume, as his nylon shirt was tucked into his
- 26:37drawstring pants and he was still wearing both of his oversized slip on moccasins.
- 26:42Chrisma's family also found it unusual that he was found with no bruising on his
- 26:47body. Since he was a lacrosse goalie, it was very common for Chris
- 26:52to get bruises on his legs or forearms, and he'd played in two games
- 26:55and gone to practice during the day before he vanished. Since these bruises were
- 27:00not present on Chris's body, this led to speculation that he was alive for
- 27:03at least three or four days after he went missing, allowing enough time for
- 27:07his bruises to heal. Who There's a lot to think about in this part,
- 27:14Okay, So if he had been a victim of an attack, then
- 27:18he would have definitely had bruising even three to four days later. And it
- 27:22seems odd to me that you would hold a person like Chris captive. He's
- 27:27twenty one years old, he's a strong athlete, and you would have him
- 27:32in the same close. He wouldn't be beaten those kinds of things. I'm
- 27:37wondering how you would hold somebody like that against their will for three to four
- 27:41days and then dump their body. And it does seem like something had happened
- 27:45and he was then placed in that location, because, like you said,
- 27:48Jules, if he had been alive and conscious at all, he would have
- 27:52been trying to save his own life, not the duck's life, but his
- 27:56own life. And yeah, I would have probably taken that stupid, you
- 28:00know, Native American costume off and put him in something else if I was
- 28:06holding him hostage for several days. It just none of it makes sense for
- 28:10any of the explanations. If he was held for three or four days,
- 28:12we would likely see either needle marks because you'd have to sedate him in some
- 28:18capacity, or you would see bruising on the wrist because they would have to
- 28:22bind him in some way to be able to control him. You would either
- 28:26need drugs or the ability to bind him. So it just doesn't really seem
- 28:30to line up with like what you said, Ash, Like his costume is
- 28:33pristine and he doesn't have bruises all over his body, so how would they
- 28:37have been able to subdue him? And I don't put much credence into the
- 28:41bruises thing, because even though it was common practice for him to get bruises
- 28:44while playing lacrosse, I don't think anyone is one hundred percent sure that he
- 28:47got bruises in the games and the practice that he went through right before he
- 28:52went missing. So for all we know, he may not have had any
- 28:53bruises on his body at that point before he went missing. So this is
- 28:57kind of a red herring, okay, And like, I just have a
- 29:00few questions about the duck. So do ducks often get into dire straits in
- 29:06the water? Do ducks often get into situations where they could be potentially drowning?
- 29:10And how would Chris be able to spot this duck in the dark and
- 29:14know that the duck was in danger? Did the duck quack out for help?
- 29:18Yeah, that makes me wonder how does a duck get into danger in
- 29:21the water unless it's going into the path of an oncoming boat or something like
- 29:25that. I don't think you should be too worried if you see a duck,
- 29:26They're not going to drown. So yeah, I do not know what
- 29:30this police officer was thinking. And that why you would actually say this out
- 29:33loud in front of Chris's family. Sounds like a theory that somebody would come
- 29:38up with while they were like smoking a joint or something, and they'd be
- 29:41laughing about with their friends, not an actual theory that you would share in
- 29:45public with other human beings. It's embarrassing. Hydrologists from the University of Minnesota's
- 29:52River Lab, who are known for profiling the Mississippi River, were also consulted
- 29:56about this case, and they had a hard time believing that Chris's body could
- 29:59have in the river the entire time he was missing. While temperatures during Minneapolis
- 30:03winters can often get cold enough to freeze over the Mississippi River, this did
- 30:07not actually occur during the months after Chris went missing, and the first real
- 30:11freeze occurred in early January of two thousand and three. After that, there
- 30:15were three separate periods of daytime thawing, with the last one occurring on February
- 30:21to twenty seventh, right before Chris was discovered, So if Chris's body had
- 30:25originally gone into the river shortly after he went missing, it likely would have
- 30:29flowed downstream and been seen during those four months. The area beneath the third
- 30:33Avenue Bridge was also searched by police and canine units on multiple occasions in November
- 30:38of two thousand and two, and they never saw any sign of Chris.
- 30:42It turned out that there were large amounts of snow and ice on Chris's upper
- 30:45body, particularly his right hand, which seemed to indicate that they had been
- 30:51exposed to the elements, and the last day a major precipitation in the area
- 30:55was February third. If Chris was already in the water by that point,
- 30:59then his body likely would have been placed there at a different location, possibly
- 31:03after he was already dead. It may have floated downstream for a short period
- 31:07of time before it got caught and froze into some tree branches, but wound
- 31:11up being concealed for weeks after the river froze over. When the river on
- 31:15thought in February the twenty seventh, that's when Chris's body became visible, Chuck
- 31:21Losh spoke to witnesses who had crossed the Third Avenue Bridge on February the twenty
- 31:23sixth, the day before Chris was discovered, who looked down into the river
- 31:29and were certain his body was not there. On February the twenty seventh,
- 31:33another witness who crossed the bridge claimed that they saw Chris's body entangled in tree
- 31:37branches about one hundred yards away from the spot where he was eventually recovered.
- 31:41She called nine one one, but it seems likely that before police arrived,
- 31:45the body had floated in the direction of the upper Saint Anthony Falls damn.
- 31:51When the tree branches got stuck, they prevented Chris from going over the falls.
- 31:55The hydrologists also theorized that Chris's body originally entered the river approximately one mile
- 32:00from where he was found. This meant his possible entry point would have been
- 32:04northwest of the Hennepin Avenue Bridge, a location Chris had no reason to visit
- 32:08on his own if he was attempting to walk from the bar to his residence
- 32:13on the night he vanished. Another unusual anomaly was that the combined weight of
- 32:16Chris's lungs seemed to equal half the weight a one normal, healthy lung.
- 32:22This seemed to suggest that his cause of death may not have been drowning,
- 32:24but suffocation, possibly by having a plastic bag tied around his head. If
- 32:30he was murdered in that passion, that could account for why there were no
- 32:34noticeable signs of foul play on his body. Could he also have been smothered
- 32:37with a pillow or something that wouldn't have required physical hands or a ligature around
- 32:42his neck? That's true. Yeah, a pillow and also a bag like
- 32:45anything that was not going to leave any noticeable marks. And it makes sense
- 32:49where you look at Chris's body is almost in pristine condition. They said there
- 32:52was very little decomposition, which allowed them to see that there weren't really signs
- 32:55of physical attacks on his body. But it seems like he was really frozen
- 33:01in the water the whole time, so that would preserve it and keep it
- 33:06as if it had just been placed there. But it could have been there
- 33:08for months based on what you were saying, correct, it's true. Yeah,
- 33:13like it could have been there for months, but just in a location
- 33:15where it cannot be seen by the general public. Yeah. I don't put
- 33:19much credence in the girl either, who said I'm or the person who said
- 33:21I'm positive that they were not there that day, you know, the February
- 33:24twenty sixth, and then someone says, February twenty seventh, he was there.
- 33:29Yes, his body could have moved, but someone would have just been
- 33:30wrong as well. You could just glance down and you might not see it.
- 33:35One thing I do find really startling is the way that he's posed.
- 33:37It almost seems to be like a funerary posed, right when you pose somebody
- 33:43with their arms crossed, like across their chest. It just doesn't seem to
- 33:47be the way that somebody would drown. But I don't think that he would
- 33:52be moved to that position at that point. It just seems likely that with
- 33:55the freezing, his body then became visible and those eyewitness maybe just didn't get
- 34:00a good enough look or were mistaken. Maybe they just weren't at a good
- 34:04vantage point when they chose to glance down there. We talk about eyewitnesses all
- 34:08the time and how easy it is to be incorrect, but to believe wholeheartedly
- 34:13that what you were saying is the truth because you were recalling it as your
- 34:16truth, but it just isn't really the universal truth. Yeah, if someone
- 34:22asked me months after the fact, Hey, when you were walking across the
- 34:24bridge on this particular day, did you happen to glance down into the water,
- 34:29It's like, I'm not going to remember that with accuracy. So I
- 34:30may convince myself that I look down, but in actuality I may not have
- 34:35been looking at all. In two thousand and four, Stephen Jan Jenkins had
- 34:39a meeting with the newly appointed Minneapolis Police Chief Bill McManus, who assured them
- 34:45that a new investigation would be launched into Chris's death. But it would only
- 34:50be a month and a half later when Chief McManus sent them a letter informing
- 34:54them that the case was now officially closed. A surprising discovery was made during
- 35:00the spring of two thousand and six. During a review of autopsy photographs,
- 35:06one of the Jenkins' neighbors noticed what appeared to be a clump of hair clutched
- 35:09in Chris's left hand, and sure enough, this hunch turned out to be
- 35:14accurate, as human hair was found sealed in an envelope simply labeled foreign matter
- 35:19in left hand, which is why it had never been tested. DNA testing
- 35:23would eventually determine that the hair did belong to Chris, though there was no
- 35:28explanation for why he was clutching a clump of his own hair in his hand
- 35:31anyway. By this point, Bill McManus was no longer Minneapolis Police chief,
- 35:37and another man named Tim Dolan had been appointed to the position. The jenkinses
- 35:43decided to present their findings about Chris's death to Chief Dolan, and this time
- 35:47the new evidence seemed to make a strong impression, as Dolan ordered the case
- 35:52to be reopened. Later that year, Stephen jan would be called into a
- 35:57meeting with the medical examiner and two officers from the homicide unit, who finally
- 36:01conceded that Chris had likely been a victim of foul play. On November twentieth,
- 36:07two thousand and six, Chief Dolan held a press conference in which he
- 36:10announced that Chris's death had now been reclassified as a homicide, and he even
- 36:15issued a formal public apology. He stated, quote, we made an assumption,
- 36:22and because of that assumption, we probably caused pain. Well, I
- 36:24know we caused pain in the Jenkins family, more pain than they had to
- 36:29suffer and then they already had suffered. And for that, for the Minneapolis
- 36:35Police Department, I want to apologize to the Jenkins family. End quote.
- 36:39Stephen jan accepted their apology and there would be some new developments in the investigation.
- 36:45Let me just say, holy heck. When do we ever hear of
- 36:52a whole department taking accountability and the police chief saying, I'm pretty sure we
- 36:57messed up and I owe a big apology to this mom and dad who lost
- 37:01their son and were not given straightforward answers and were kind of misled for the
- 37:07last four years. That alone, when I work with families, the validation,
- 37:13the respect, the just empathy that you show for a family like what
- 37:19Chief Dolan did. Wow. Wow. Even though they didn't have answers in
- 37:23two thousand and six, they did get a piece of the puzzle where they
- 37:28said, we were heard, we were believed. Chris received a form of
- 37:32justice that day by saying he didn't take his own life. This was no
- 37:36drunken accident. Our baby went to a Halloween party, was being a twenty
- 37:40one year old kid, and he lost his life due to somebody else's hands.
- 37:45It's interesting when you talk about the fact that Chris could have had his
- 37:49own hair or did have his own hair in his hands. What if he
- 37:52was being smothered by a pillow, had a sweatshirt tied around his face really
- 37:57tight or something, and he's gripped at the edge of that material, trying
- 38:01to rip it off of his head, trying to pull a huge blanket pressed
- 38:08against him, a big pillow press against him, and he's gripping at his
- 38:12head so hard that he's pulling his hair out and his hands clenched like that
- 38:15in his death. That would make sense to me because I think that if
- 38:20this was an accidental drowning, like I'm sure he would be flailing his arms
- 38:23and trying to clutch onto something. But if you're in the water, I'm
- 38:25not sure you can get enough momentum to literally pull your own hair out of
- 38:30your head. But if you're being held down and struggling like you're being suffocated
- 38:34or something, then yes, I think it is possible that you might pull
- 38:37your own hair out just out of desperation. I think that's a good theory.
- 38:40Ash That makes total sense to me. Around the same time period,
- 38:45an investigator revealed that there was a suspect slash witness and custody in another state
- 38:51on an unrelated charge. Well, it would turn out that a witness had
- 38:53told authorities that they were present when Chris was murdered. They said an acquaintance
- 38:59of theirs attempt to rob Chris on Hallowey Night in two thousand and two and
- 39:02proceeded to toss him off the Hennepin Avenue Bridge into the Mississippi River. However,
- 39:07there were some major credibility issues with this story. As you recall,
- 39:12none of the security cameras at the Federal Reserve Bank captured footage of Chris walking
- 39:15onto this bridge on the night he went missing. The bridge was also brightly
- 39:20lit and had heavy traffic at all hours of the night, so it seemed
- 39:23unlikely that anyone could have thrown a person into the river from there without any
- 39:28witnesses seeing anything. If that wasn't enough, the bridge also had a high
- 39:31safety railing, along with a steel support beam and vertical metal cables. If
- 39:37Chris had been thrown over the railing, he certainly would have hit the beam
- 39:39and the cables on the way down, but he had no injuries on his
- 39:43body. In July two thousand and seven, the Hennepin County District Attorney's office
- 39:47announced that they had been approached by the Minneapolis pd about filing charges against the
- 39:52suspect for Chris's murder, but they ultimately declined to do so, but would
- 39:57not provide any further details. So, okay, in July two thousand and
- 40:02seven, they say that they're going to arrest somebody right file charges and nothing
- 40:10happened. That's true. Yeah, And at the time they did not provide
- 40:15any details about the suspect or what evidence they had against them. But we're
- 40:20going to talk about it later. But there are some other people who committed
- 40:22another murder in Minnesota that I do believe that this is the suspect they were
- 40:28planning to arrest, but for whatever reason, they just decided against it.
- 40:31But I don't think this person has ever been eliminated as a suspect. Let
- 40:36me ask you this. Have the other people that we've looked at before.
- 40:38We had the bouncer at the bar, we had the police officer who was
- 40:42off duty, and we had the individuals that they think were attacking some one
- 40:46at the pizza place. Were any of those people interviewed and excluded as suspects
- 40:54or were they always on the suspect list. It's never been officially confirmed.
- 40:59Like the gang members who attacked the guy near the pizza place. I don't
- 41:01think they ever identified who those people were, and the details about the bouncers
- 41:07are very vague. I'm not entirely sure if they were questioned. I don't
- 41:09even know, like if the identities of the bouncers have been released publicly.
- 41:14And of course Officer Casey, they didn't want to interview him back in two
- 41:17thousand and two because he was a married man and they didn't want to damage
- 41:21his reputation. But I would like to think that when Chief Dolan took power,
- 41:24he did finally have Casey interviewed, but I don't think they found any
- 41:28evidence that he was directly complicit in Chris's murder. In two thousand and nine,
- 41:34John Jenkins published a book titled Footprints of Courage, which celebrated Chris's life
- 41:38but also expressed the family's frustration at having his death ignored by the Minneapolis PD
- 41:45for four years. Well Jan greatly admired Chief Dolan's attempts to make things right,
- 41:50she also found herself dissatisfied with the lack of progress from investigators. Since
- 41:54Chris's case was reopened in twenty eighteen, The case was featured on episode of
- 42:00the true crime investigation Discovery TV series Breaking Homicide, which revealed some new pieces
- 42:07of information for starters. On the same night Chris disappeared, two men nearly
- 42:12got into an altercation at the Lone Tree Bar because one of the men had
- 42:16walked in off the street and was attempting to hit on the other's girlfriend.
- 42:21Chris apparently intervened and attempted to play peacemaker in order to get both sides to
- 42:25cool down. A fight never wound up taking place, but it's unclear if
- 42:30the incident played a role in Chris getting ejected from the bar. The show
- 42:35also contained an interview with an anonymous informant who shared an unsettling story about frequenting
- 42:40the Lone Tree Bar about two months before Chris went missing. This man had
- 42:45contacted the Jenkins family fifteen years earlier, but this was the first time that
- 42:51he was willing to go on the record. The informant claimed that he ordered
- 42:54a drink at the bar, which he thought tasted weird, so he decided
- 42:59to go outside. The gets a mare. However, as he was walking,
- 43:01he could feel himself losing his senses, and he then remembered two bouncers
- 43:07grabbing him and removing him from the bar to take him towards a parked vehicle
- 43:10outside. The informant was able to pull out his phone and contact one of
- 43:15his friends inside the bar, who quickly showed up and intervened before he could
- 43:20be placed in the vehicle. The informant now suspected that someone had drugged his
- 43:23drink with JHB and that this was an attempted abduction. Well, that's absolutely
- 43:30horrifying since we know for a fact that he's kicked out of the bar under
- 43:34circumstances that don't seem very threatening, and it wasn't like he was in a
- 43:38fight, It wasn't like he was making people feel uncomfortable. He's kicked out
- 43:44of the bar. We know that a scent is tracked to a parking location
- 43:47where we believe at least one of the bouncers was parked, and there was
- 43:51blood there. So if this informant is telling the truth, his situation very
- 43:58much could align with what happened to And we know that Chris had a presence
- 44:01of GHB in his body. Now, he did not have a very high
- 44:06blood alcohol content. It was point one two, which is over the legal
- 44:09driving limit. But that doesn't mean that you're, you know, incredibly intoxicated
- 44:15necessarily, and we do know that once you pass away the GHB, those
- 44:21chemical components can present themselves in decomposition. But what if he actually was slipped
- 44:27GHB and what if he was taken to that parking spot where the bouncer was
- 44:31and abducted the way that this individual says they almost were. Yeah, and
- 44:36it's such a strange story. And unfortunately we still don't know the identity of
- 44:39the anonymous informant and know how much credibility he has. But it's the way
- 44:44he describes it. It's like, does this bar just have like this crew
- 44:46of bouncers who like to sleep slip GHB into the drinks of men and then
- 44:51like attempt to abduct them. Because he specifically said that these bouncers were taking
- 44:54me towards a parked vehicle before my friend intervened. And I keep wondering,
- 45:00like, did you tell the police about this back when this happened right before
- 45:04Chris went missing, because it should be a major red flag if it feels
- 45:07like this bar is drugging people and then trying to abduct him. I wonder
- 45:10if they were too embarrassed to say something. I mean, you're you're a
- 45:15man, and you were somehow compromised, and you have grown men trying to
- 45:20take you somewhere. I wonder if it's one of those things where it's like,
- 45:22geez, I'm never going back there, and I'm going to tell everybody
- 45:24I know not to go there. But I'm kind of embarrassed or I don't
- 45:28really understand what happened to me, so maybe I'm crazy. I wonder if
- 45:30there was a lot of that going on in this individual's head. I think
- 45:34it's likely if it indeed did go down like that, it would be something
- 45:38that you would have those feelings of shame. But I also question, like
- 45:43from another perspective, if those bouncers were in there and they were somehow trying
- 45:49to drug people with GHB or maybe the bartenders work, I would think the
- 45:52likely targets would be women or girls and people that they're going to take advantage
- 45:58of. Less likely going to be the cross place saying men. I mean,
- 46:00there's a potential there, but imagine a scenario where they're trying to drug
- 46:06a girl but by accident he got this guy got the drink, and so
- 46:10rather than have you know, him be a huge puddle and mess outside and
- 46:15have potentially the police get involved, because now other people are going to find
- 46:20out that he's been drugged, and then there could be kind of finds levied
- 46:23against the bar or an investigation that they then were going to put him into
- 46:29a vehicle and just dump him elsewhere, so that it wasn't their problem.
- 46:34That is true, Like it couldn't have been. It may not have been
- 46:36like an attempt to abduct him and kill him, because if it was just
- 46:38like an accident where they drugged the wrong drink and like the intended target was
- 46:43a young woman, it may just be a case where, well, if
- 46:45we take him out of here and dump him, he'll have no memory of
- 46:46what happened, and he won't have anything if he wants to contact the police.
- 46:52But the biggest revelation on breaking homicide involved the convicted murderer named Jeremy Alford.
- 46:58In two thousand and five, Jeremy and his younger brother Luis Alford were
- 47:01charged with the murder of a man named Douglas Miller. They were both sharing
- 47:06a mobile home with Miller in New Brighton, Minnesota, and were about to
- 47:08be evicted before they proceeded to stab and bludgeon Miller to death. The brothers
- 47:14were captured in their home state of Iowa the following day. Jeremy eventually pleaded
- 47:19guilty to first degree murder and received a life sense, while Louise was found
- 47:22guilty of second degree murder and received a twenty five year sins Anyway, Jeremy
- 47:27Alfred would tell the FBI that he was involved with a gang of killers known
- 47:30as the Dealers of Death, who had murdered between thirty to forty people,
- 47:35and his right hand man was a guy nicknamed Zami Lei with a Z.
- 47:38A female informant supposedly told police that Alfred had bragged about murdering Chris Jenkins,
- 47:44and Alford apparently did divulge some information which suggested that he had inside knowledge about
- 47:49what happened on the breaking homicide episode. Another anonymous informant, who was apparently
- 47:53a former member of local law enforcement, claimed that Alfred and his crew were
- 47:58regular patrons at the l Loane Tree Bar and may have been there on the
- 48:01same night as Chris's disappearance and gotten into a scuffle with him when contacted to
- 48:07inquire about his potential involvement in Chris's case. Alfred simply responded, quote,
- 48:12I really don't want to talk about any crime I have been charged with or
- 48:15convicted of. End quote. Thus far, there is no conclusive evidence to
- 48:20implicate Alfred, and the death of Chris Jenkins continues to remain unsolved. So
- 48:24I guess you could say the path went Chile. Is it possible that Alfred
- 48:30is one of the individuals that was getting in a fight that Chris tried to
- 48:32break up. It is possible, yes, I mean, they've never been
- 48:36able to conclusively determine if he was in the bar that night, but I
- 48:40do think that's a possibility. And I also think it's possible that Alfred was
- 48:45the suspect that they were planning to charge with murder in two thousand and seven
- 48:47before they decided against it. But because they haven't revealed that information publicly,
- 48:52it's all just speculation. Okay, So I don't mind saying this straight away.
- 48:58I'm really not sure what to make of this case. On the surface,
- 49:00if you didn't delve too deeply into this story, it would be easy
- 49:04to assume that Chris's death was nothing more than a tragic accident and that he
- 49:07somehow fell into the river while attempting to walk. Hope. The condition of
- 49:12his body seems to go against him having fallen from a bridge, But one
- 49:15theory I've seen pushed forward is that perhaps Chris walked down to the edge of
- 49:19the river somewhere in order to relieve himself, but accidentally fell in. Of
- 49:23course, even if there was no foul play, you could still argue that
- 49:27the bouncers from the Lone Tree Bar and Grill, which is no longer in
- 49:30business in case you were wondering, were guilty of negligence because they tossed Chris
- 49:35outside on a cold winter night without even allowing him to retrieve his coat,
- 49:38whilet cell phone and keys. It doesn't sound like Chris actually did anything to
- 49:44justify being ejected, so you can understand his family's frustration. I just mentioned
- 49:50this case's appearance on the TV series Breaking Homicide in case you've never watched it.
- 49:54It was co hosted by police detective Derek Lavassor, who has since gone
- 49:58on to co host the pod cast Crime Weekly, and forensic psychologist Chris Muhandi.
- 50:04What's interesting is that while a Vassor firmly believed that Chris was the victim
- 50:07of foul play, Mohandi still leaned towards his death being an accident. Former
- 50:13Minneapolis police Chief Tim Dolan was also interviewed on the episode, and he actually
- 50:16stated that while he did have the case reclassified as a homicide, he now
- 50:22felt that the percentage of likelihood for Chris's death being a homicide was fifty percent,
- 50:25accident around thirty percent, and suicide twenty percent or less. However,
- 50:30it cannot be underestimated just how uncommon it is for law enforcement to do a
- 50:36complete one eighty like Dolan did. Like I stated in the intro, I
- 50:39have seen countless cases like this on shows like Unsolved Mysteries, where a victim's
- 50:45death is officially ruled to be a suicide or an accident, but their family
- 50:47is convinced it was foul play. They'll subsequently do things like hire their own
- 50:52independent investigator who will review all the evidence and concur with their assessment that it
- 50:57was murder. But in spite of this, ever changes. But here a
- 51:01big city police chief had the death reclassified as a homicide, ordered the investigation
- 51:07to be reopened, and made a formal public apology to the Jenkins family that
- 51:10type of situation is pretty rare and demonstrates to me that the evidence pointing towards
- 51:15foul play must have been fairly convincing. Even if Dolan is now confirmed that
- 51:21he can't say with one hundred percent certainty that it was murder. I never
- 51:24believed for a second that Chris's death was a suicide. And while one can't
- 51:29completely discount the possibility of an accident, you would have to come up with
- 51:32explanations to account for a number of odd things which don't make much sense.
- 51:37At the very least, you have to feel that someone else was directly involved
- 51:42with what happened to Chris. Yeah. Absolutely, the way his body was
- 51:45located, in the clump of hair in his hand, and the fact that
- 51:50he's sitting there with his arms crossing, his hands clenched, it just doesn't
- 51:53seem like an accident. It seems like if it was an accident, he
- 51:57would have tried to brace his fall, he would have tried to swim.
- 52:00There just would have been so many other physical signs that he was fighting for
- 52:06his life. Here it looks like he was deceased. His arms were crossed
- 52:09and he was placed in the water, and then Rigamortus could have said it,
- 52:15and maybe he stays in that seated position or in that cross position even
- 52:19when his body floats down the river. It's maddening to me. If you
- 52:22guys remember about two pages back, I said, Oh my gosh, how
- 52:27profound is this that this is in two thousand and six, such a healing
- 52:30moment for the family to say, the police chief apologized, the police chief
- 52:35validated us, and then you have the same police chief say, I mean,
- 52:42I don't really know what happened. I'm fifty percent sure it's a homicide,
- 52:45thirty percent sure it's an accident, and twenty percent sure it's a suicide.
- 52:50Can you imagine being the family members sitting there who have been fighting since
- 52:53two thousand and two for justice for their son hearing that statement alone. I
- 53:00really feel for the family, like that would just be so heartbreaking, especially
- 53:05we're like, okay, well, he's a fifty percent that it's likely homicide.
- 53:08I'm sure the Dolan worked tirelessly to get that ruling reverse so that it
- 53:15was ruled to be a homicide and not just accidental. At the end of
- 53:19the day, I guess there's just not enough concrete evidence and I think that
- 53:22goes back to the police initially not investigating and not asking the right questions of
- 53:28the right people up front. And like when we're looking at a situation where
- 53:31we've got this feather, we've got the blood. We have these issues with
- 53:37Casey and his girlfriend Ashley, where maybe they had a relationship, maybe they
- 53:40didn't, but either way, Casey's trying to get Chris out of the way.
- 53:45And then we've got these bouncers who reject him in this irresponsible way.
- 53:50And then we have his lungs, which I only had about half the weight,
- 53:53which was really something that would have been more indicative of somebody who was
- 53:58strangled or suffol hated, So that doesn't seem to line up with drowning.
- 54:02And then, like Ashley pointed out with her brilliant theory of a bag could
- 54:07have been placed over his head while he's clutching, he's grabbing, grabs a
- 54:10tuft of hair. Would you really see that in an accident If you're drowning
- 54:14thrashing your arms, why would you grab your hair? And then the position
- 54:17that his body is found in it seems to lean personally to me more towards
- 54:22homicide. But you know, you can never conclusively say when we just don't
- 54:24have the answers, and we can't go back retroactively and ask the right questions
- 54:29of people, because at the time they didn't want to break up happy families
- 54:31and that was their justification, and they thought he was out sowing his wild
- 54:36oats. Yeah, I really hope that Dolan told the family about that whole
- 54:39fifty percent line and they didn't learn about it for the first time on national
- 54:44television when he said that, I mean to be fair, This is twelve
- 54:46years later, So perhaps after further investigation, Dolan did find evidence which showed
- 54:52that there was a less likelihood of homicide and that maybe it was an accident.
- 54:55But like we mentioned earlier, back in two thousand and seven, they
- 54:59came very close to arresting someone in charging them with Chris's murder. So it
- 55:04makes you wonder what has happened within the past decade that has made Dolit less
- 55:07certain that homicide took place. But you have to feel that there's a lot
- 55:12of information that they have just never shared with the public. So I think
- 55:15this would be a good time to bring an end to Part one. But
- 55:17join us next week as we present Part two of our series about the unexplained
- 55:22death of Chris Jenkins. Robin, do you want to tell us a little
- 55:27bit about the Trail Went Cold? Patreon? Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon
- 55:30has been around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features
- 55:35like early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank
- 55:39you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon. If you join
- 55:44our five dollars tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which
- 55:49I talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's original feed,
- 55:53so they're exclusive to Patreon, and if you join our highest tier tier
- 55:57three, the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is a
- 56:00audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, where you can download an
- 56:06audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
- 56:12YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I
- 56:15just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally,
- 56:21the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was the episode
- 56:24featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which
- 56:29I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor. Then be sure to join
- 56:32Tier three. So I want to let you know a little bit about the
- 56:36Jules and Ashy patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went
- 56:39Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an
- 56:44hour, so they're not very mini, but they're just too short to turn
- 56:46into a series and we're really enjoying doing those. So we hope you'll check
- 56:51out those patreons. We'll link them in the show notes. So I want
- 56:54to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share us
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- 57:00can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach us
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- 57:08up because cold trails and Chili pass call for warm clothing. Music by Paul
- 57:14Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy