On Halloween night in 2002, 21-year University of Minnesota student Chris Jenkins went to the Lone Tree Bar and Grill with his girlfriend, Ashley Rice, and three other friends. Sometime after midnight, Chris was separated from his friends and ejected from the bar. The most commonly shared story is that a drink was accidentally spilled on his pants and the security supervisor assumed that Chris was so intoxicated that he urinated himself. After Chris was removed, the bouncer at the door was given instructions not to let him back inside. Unfortunately for Chris, since his Native American Halloween costume had no pockets, he had asked Ashley to keep his wallet, keys and cell phone in her purse for him and his coat was left inside the bar on a cold 20-degree night. Since one of his friends drove him there, Chris had no ride home and could not contact them inside the bar. He was last seen heading north, but did not return to his residence and was eventually reported missing.
On February 27, 2003, Chris’ body was discovered floating in the Mississippi River beneath the Third Avenue Bridge. He was still dressed in his Halloween costume and had gotten wedged in the branches of a large tree located next to the Upper St. Anthony Falls Dam. The medical examiner found no signs of foul play on Chris’ body, so the official cause of death would be listed as “undetermined”. While the police believed Chris died from an accidental drowning, his family launched their own independent investigation and discovered a number of odd discrepancies…
-when Chuck Loesch, a private investigator hired by the Jenkins family, questioned staff at the Lone Tree Bar and Grill, they maintained that Chris left the bar on his own and the owner eventually issued a gag order instructing employees not to speak to anyone without an attorney
-an off-duty police officer named Mike Casey was present in the bar on Halloween night, working security for the adjacent Hennepin Center for the Arts, and was introduced to Chris by Ashley. Ashley worked at the bar and was acquainted with Casey since she borrowed his uniform shirt as part of her “sexy police officer” costume. It’s rumoured that Casey instructed the security supervisor to remove Chris from the bar, was flirtatious with Ashley throughout the night, and gave her a ride home after the bar closed. The Minneapolis P.D. never formally questioned Casey and stated: “He’s a married man with children. We don’t want to break up a family”
-Chuck Loesch contacted the Federal Reserve Bank, which had two outside cameras pointing at the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. Crossing the bridge would have been Chris’ quickest route home, but when the bank checked the surveillance footage from the early morning hours of November 1, they saw no sign of Chris
-the Jenkins family hired some K-9 units and two separate bloodhounds tracked Chris’ scent from the Lone Tree Bar to Times Square Pizza & Subs across the street to an underground parking garage next door. The scent ended in front of parking stalls 89 and 90. One of the bar’s bouncers was reportedly parked in one of those spots on Halloween night and a bloodhound produced a mild hit for Chris’ scent on this person’s vehicle. Droplets of blood residue, a piece of red string, and red feather fragments which possibly belonged to the headband of Chris’ costume were also found in the garage
-Loesch spoke with multiple witnesses who recalled seeing a group of approximately ten people attacking an unidentified person in front of Times Square Pizza & Pubs in the early morning hours after Halloween night, though it’s unclear if this was Chris
-Chris’ blood-alcohol was only 0.12 percent, so he was not overly intoxicated, and traces of GHB were found in Chris’ system. However, since GHB is a substance which is produced by the body naturally, this did not necessarily mean Chris was drugged
-forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden had issue with Chris’ body being found with his arms crossed in front of him. Drowning victims who accidentally fall into water are generally found face down with their arms out towards their sides and their clothing dishevelled, but Chris’ shirt was tucked into his drawstring pants and his oversized slip-on moccasins were still on his feet. This lead to speculation that Chris was already dead when he was placed in the river
-Chris was found with a clump of hair clutches in his left hand, though this was not noticed until years after the fact since the hair was filed away in an envelope labelled “Foreign Matter in Left Hand”. DNA testing would eventually reveal that the hair did belong to Chris
-Chris’ family found it unusual that there was no bruising on his body, as he was a lacrosse goalie who often got bruises on his legs and forearms and had played in two games and gone to practice during the days before he vanished. Since these bruises were not present, his parents believed he may have been alive for a couple days after he went missing, allowing enough time for his bruises to heal
-hydrologists who studied the Mississippi River were skeptical that Chris’ body could have been in the water for four months without being seen, as the river did not freeze over until January 2003 and the area beneath the 3rd Avenue Bridge was searched in the weeks following his disappearance. A daytime thawing occurred on February 27, the day Chris was found, so he possibly floated from another location before his body got wedged in the tree branches
In 2006, the Jenkins family met with newly appointed Minneapolis police chief Tim Dolan, who decided to reopen the investigation based on the new evidence they presented. Chris’ death was eventually reclassified as a homicide and Chief Dolan held a press conference to issue a formal apology to the Jenkins family. (Years later, during an appearance on the TV show "Breaking Homicide", Dolan would state that his current stance on Chris' death is 50 percent chance of homicide, 30 percent chance of accidental death, and 20 percent chance of suicide). Around this same period, an informant told authorities he had witnessed an acquaintance throw Chris off the Hennepin Avenue Bridge into the Mississippi River, but there was skepticism about this story since Chris had no broken bones or injuries and it would have been impossible to toss him over the bridge’s high safety railing without his body hitting a steel support beam and vertical metal cables on the way down.
In July 2007, the Hennepin County District Attorney’s Office announced that they had been approached about filing charges against a suspect for Chris’ murder, but declined to do so. Based on the info they provided, some believe the suspect in question is Jaramy Alford, who is serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of a man named Douglas Miller and was rumoured to be a regular patron of the Lone Tree Bar in 2002. Chris’ case has also been connected to the infamous “Smiley Face Murder Theory”, as his took death during a time period when many young college-aged men in the Midwest United States were discovered dead in bodies of waters after a night of drinking. But unlike many of the other cited cases, no smiley face graffiti has ever been discovered in relation to Chris’ death.
I cover this case on this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” podcast:
http://trailwentcold.com/2018/10/24/the-trail-went-cold-episode-95-chris-jenkins/
Sources:
http://www.startribune.com/strange-case-of-son-s-death-propels-mom-on-tireless-quest/82751737/
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2006/11/20/jenkins
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38601514/ns/solve_my_mystery/t/investigators-notes/#.W8jIv2hKhO-
https://footprintsattheriversedge.blogspot.com/2013/11/chris-jenkins-homicide-someone-knows.html
https://footprintsattheriversedge.blogspot.com/2006/11/103102-christopher-jenkins-21.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J83mJpF_7w (episode of the TV series, "Breaking Homicide")
Some of the information listed here was also provided in this book written by Chris Jenkins' mother.
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