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