| Murder of Carol Jenkins | |
|---|---|
 Jenkins,c. 1965 | |
| Location | 39°42′6″N86°41′7″W / 39.70167°N 86.68528°W /39.70167; -86.68528 East Morgan Street,Martinsville, Indiana, U.S. |
| Date | September 16, 1968 (1968-09-16); 57 years ago c. 9:03 p.m. (UTC-4) |
| Deaths | Carol Marie Jenkins (21) |
| Perpetrators | Kenneth Clay Richmond (36) Unidentified second perpetrator |
| Motive | |
| Charges | Murder (Richmond) |
| Verdict | Declaredincompetent to stand trial due tocognitive decline (Richmond) |
Carol Jenkins was a 21-year-oldAfrican-American woman who was stabbed once through theright atrium of her heart in aracist murder which occurred as she attempted to sell encyclopedias door to door inMartinsville, Indiana on September 16, 1968. Her murder occurred in an almost exclusively white city with a documented history ofracial segregation. The perpetrators of her murder were two white men—one of whom has never been identified. The murder itself was widely reported in local and national media and has been described as one of Indiana's most notoriouscold cases of thecivil rights era.[1]
Jenkins's murder remained unsolved for over thirty years until the daughter of one of the perpetrators provided a tip to investigators naming her father, Kenneth Clay Richmond, as one of the perpetrators of the murder. Richmond–aKu Klux Klan affiliate–was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in May 2002;[2] however, aMorgan CountySuperior Court judge later declared himincompetent to stand trial due to his declining health. Richmond himself died ofbladder cancer two weeks after this ruling.[3]
Carol Jenkins is sometimes referred to as theGirl in the Yellow Scarf due to an item of clothing she wore at the time of her murder which Richmond's daughter–who witnessed the murder as a seven-year-old child–distinctively recalled in hermemory;[4] this item of clothing Jenkins wore at the time of her murder had been information which investigators had withheld from the public.[5][6]
Carol Marie Jenkins was born inFranklin, Indiana, on April 21, 1947, the only child born to Carl Egbert and Elizabeth Ann (née Gooden) Jenkins. Her father was a general laborer, and her mother a bookkeeper.[7]
Jenkins's parents divorced when she was an infant; her mother retained custody of her, with her father subsequently relocating toColumbus.[8] Shortly thereafter, Elizabeth Jenkins began dating a machine repairman named Paul Willard Davis, who accepted and raised Jenkins as his own child. The couple relocated toRushville, where they married in September 1949.[9][10] He and Elizabeth would have five more children—Paulette, Patricia Ann, Larry, Robert, and Laura Mae—prior to divorcing amicably in 1967.[11] All six siblings were raised impartially, and all maintained contact with both parents following their divorce. Her family was religious, and regularly attended services at Rushville's Wesley United Methodist Church.[12]
In the 1950s and 1960s, Rushville was a relatively small and predominantly white rural town with a population of approximately 7,000 inhabitants. Jenkins and her siblings were among the few black students atRushville High School, although they seldom experienced any discrimination and had both black and white friends. By her teens, Jenkins aspired to move toChicago and become either a fashion model or, due to her love of children, a teacher.[1] She grew to be5 ft 3 in (160 cm) tall and approximately 110pounds and has been described as a slightly introverted yet friendly, intelligent and polite young woman.[13][14]
Shortly after graduating from Rushville High School in 1965, Jenkins obtained employment upon an assembly line at the plant of thePhilco Division of theFord Motor Company inConnersville, Indiana;[15] here, she became acquainted with a welder one year her senior named John Wesley Scales Jr. Shortly thereafter, the two began dating. By early 1968, Jenkins and Scales had becomeengaged; on March 4, both applied for amarriage license.[16][17]
Jenkins remained in the same employment until the summer of 1968, when a 64-dayunion strike saw approximately 3,500 union members refuse to work,[18] thus temporarily causing the plant's closure.[19] Due to this ongoing strike, plus the fact Jenkins had by 1968 moved into her own rented home, she and four other female employees including her close friend Paula Norene Bradley resolved to find temporary alternate employment.[20][21]
That September, Jenkins obtained employment with aCollier's Encyclopedia sales crew as a door-to-door saleswoman.[22] She had been in this employment for a matter of days and had just completed an intense three-day sales training course when, at approximately 4:30 p.m. on Monday, September 16, she and three others traveledVincennes, Indiana. Each had several encyclopedias in their possession. Accompanying Jenkins were her sales manager, Daniel Julian (30) and colleagues John Burton (20) and her friend Paula Bradley (19).[23] Both males were white, with Bradley of both black andCaucasian ancestry and markedly light-skinned.[n 1]
Due to travel logistics, en route to Vincennes, the sales crew's plans changed, with their sales destination changing toMartinsville, Indiana—a knownsundown town, yet considerably closer to Rushville than Vincennes.[25][n 2] As Jenkins was traveling with three co-workers, she may have believed she would be safe, although she is known to have remarked to Bradley shortly before embarking on her sales route: "Well, I'm glad I wore pants today because I might have to run."[27][5] She was dressed in a white cotton turtleneck sweater, a pair of olive-green wool pants, and a brown jacket.[28]
In Martinsville, the three junior members of the sales crew took separate sales routes, with Jenkins assigned a route on the eastern side of the city, Bradley the western side, and Burton the north. All three were given instructions to meet their colleagues at a delegated rendezvous point close to the city's central square at an agreed later time.[27]
Initially, Jenkins encountered little or no bigotry or harassment as she canvassed her assigned route, and several residents of homes she initially called upon later informed police they had found Jenkins to be a pleasant and intelligent young woman,[29] with one resident—noting she was not appropriately dressed for the evening's forecast rainfall—giving her a bright yellow paisley scarf.[24][30] However, somewhere in the vicinity of Columbus Drive, two young white men in a black 1965 or 1966 modelMercury Comet began to follow Jenkins, hurling racial slurs and other derogatory comments.[31] Evidently, this experience greatly unnerved Jenkins as at approximately 7:40 p.m., she approached the home of a young, recently married white couple named Donald Lee and Norma Jean (née Campbell) Neal,[32] seeking help and asking them: "Please let me in. I've got somebody following me." The Neals allowed Jenkins into their home as the Comet initially remained parked outside their home before driving away. Jenkins informed the Neals this vehicle had been following her for several minutes, with the occupants shouting racial abuse.[33] Donald Neal exited his home, where he also observed a light-colored sedan with its parking lights on; he made a mental note of the license plate number before this vehicle also drove away.[11]
The Neals telephoned the police, and an officer named Clarence Richards was dispatched to their home. According to Richards, Jenkins was unable to provide an accurate description of the young men who had harassed her or their vehicle, although she believed that one of the men had been fairly short.[34] She also refused his offer to drive her to the localSunoco service station on Morgan Street, where she was to meet her colleagues.[35] Having been provided with a description of the vehicle by Donald Neal, Richards briefly patrolled the vicinity of the Neal residence in an unsuccessful effort to locate the vehicle.[36]
After Richards left the Neal residence, the couple offered to let Jenkins stay at their home until she was scheduled to meet her three colleagues at 9 p.m. Jenkins thanked them but turned down the offer, saying: "No, I've bothered you people long enough, I'll just go on back." Norma then briefly drove Jenkins around the neighborhood in an unsuccessful effort to locate one of her colleagues before driving back to her home.[11][37]
At approximately 8:30 p.m., Jenkins—again accompanied by Norma Neal—left the Neal household; the two walked several blocks together. Norma accompanied Jenkins to the corner of East Columbus Street and Home Avenue, from where Jenkins continued walking to her scheduled rendezvous point alone as Norma Neal returned home at the beginning of a heavy rainfall.[n 3] Jenkins was last seen alive minutes later walking alone in the vicinity of Home Avenue and Washington Street.[27]
Approximately thirty minutes after leaving the Neal residence, as Jenkins walked alone along East Morgan Street, two men pulled their car to the side of the road and exited the vehicle.[38] Jenkins's arms were held behind her back by one assailant, while the other stabbed her once in the chest with a screwdriver, penetrating her chest to a depth of 4.4 centimeters and fracturing hersternum and piercing theright atrium of her heart.[39][n 4] The two then fled the scene.[28][33] An eyewitness named Hayward Bellah—who witnessed the aftermath of Jenkins's stabbing—later informed investigators that, minutes after 9 p.m., having heard commotion across the street from his apartment, he had looked out his window and observed Jenkins staggering approximately twenty feet before falling onto the rain-soaked sidewalk close to the corner of North Graham Street as a car sped from the scene.[40] Bellah ran from his apartment to find Jenkins unresponsive on the sidewalk; he was unable to detect apulse, although he was able to note her "gasping for air". Bellah then ran to a nearby restaurant to call for help. Jenkins was promptly taken to the Morgan County Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 9:25 p.m.[12]
By 10:15 p.m. both Paula Bradley and John Burton had arrived at the crew's agreed rendezvous point on Morgan Street; both were told by their sales manager at this time that Jenkins had been murdered.[41]
An examination of the crime scene yielded littlephysical evidence. The murder weapon was never located,[42] although Jenkins's sales route folder was discovered approximately twenty feet from her body, indicating she had either dropped the folder at the site of her initial assault, or the item had been torn from her possession at this location. Her glasses were discovered three feet from her folder, and her notebook was discovered in the entrance to an auto-repair shop approximately 170 feet from her body, indicating Jenkins may have been chased for up to 150 feet before her assailants exited their vehicle and fatally stabbed her.[20]
Carol Marie Jenkins was laid to rest on the afternoon of September 19, 1968. She was laid to rest within East Hill Cemetery inRush County, Indiana, following a service held in accordance with herMethodist faith at the Moster Mortuary attended by scores of mourners both black and white. Numerouseulogies were recited at the service,[21] and six of her former high school classmates served aspallbearers.[13]
Despite the known racist reputation of Martinsville and Jenkins's documented experiences of racial harassment and intimidation in the ninety minutes leading to her death, investigators rapidly discounted the theory her murder had been racially motivated—instead alluding to the theory her murder was most likely a random killing.[43][26][44][n 5] Police inquiries into Jenkins's background revealed she had no known enemies, and the fact she knew nobody in Martinsville—plus the fact her sales crew had opted to travel to the city as opposed to Vincennes in a last-minute decision—made any personalmotive for her death unlikely.[46] Furthermore, she had not been robbed orraped, thus enabling investigators to conclusively discountrobbery as a motive for her death, although they could not discount the theory she may have died as the result of an attemptedsexual assault.[44]
An initial analysis of the crime scene and the circumstances surrounding Jenkins's death would lead Morgan County Deputy Sheriff Paul Mason to publicly state on September 17 that investigators believed Jenkins had been stabbed once by an individual who had most likely emerged "from behind [the] large evergreen bush" lining the section of East Morgan Street where she had been attacked before proceeding to stab her,[47] and that the attack had occurred within eight minutes of Jenkins and Norma Neal parting company. Furthermore, alaceration upon Jenkins's chin may have been inflicted as she attempted to ward off her assailant.[13]
Although investigators had littlephysical evidence to work with, numerous Martinsville residents did volunteer leads of inquiry—all of which were pursued by the Martinsville Police Department.[48][n 6] On September 19, investigators announced that the two individuals in the Mercury Comet who had followed and taunted Jenkins had turned themselves in.[49] These individuals, Stanley Shireman and John Burns, were repeatedly interviewed by local and state investigators. Both young men admitted to following and taunting Jenkins, whom they claimed had been "acting strangely", but remained adamant they had done nothing else.[27] They were cleared of involvement when theiralibis at the actual time of the murder were verified.[47] Several other suspects were also arrested and interrogated; all were released after passingpolygraph tests.[50]
The license plate number Donald Neal had made a mental note of was also discounted as being accurate as the number was traced to a Martinsville farmer, although investigators did state the prefix Neal recorded—55-C—may have been accurate as this would indicate a vehicle driven by a Martinsville resident.[47]
Despite the contemporary police investigation and a combined public reward of $6,000 offered by theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) andP. F. Collier and Son for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Jenkins's killer,[47][24] her murder remained unsolved and within six weeks of her death, the investigation had largely becomecold,[51] with many locals resenting the resultant media attention upon their city and portrayals of their being aredneck community.[52] Nonetheless, the case was subject to periodic review.[53]
In early November, the NAACP formally requested thatUnited States Attorney GeneralRamsey Clark personally intervene in the investigation as they viewed Jenkins's murder as a violation of hercivil rights, and that the local authorities had been ineffective and/or indifferent in their investigation.[54] Weeks later, theUnited States Department of Justice announced their refusal to personally intervene in the investigation. This announcement was welcomed by local journalists, with theMartinsville Daily Reporter proclaiming: "The NAACP had better go chase something else, for from our observation, even those who are ill-disposed towardNegroes want that murderer caught, whether he lives here or not."[47]
In June 2000, Jenkins's mother received an anonymous phone call from an individual who claimed to know the identity of Jenkins's murderer. This individual also claimed more than one individual had been involved in her daughter's death—also divulging that Jenkins had been murdered with a screwdriver. She refused to elaborate further, stating: "I'm sorry. I have a family. I fear for my life." This anonymous lead was reported to theFBI, who in turn notified local authorities.[55][19] The following month, Martinsville Police Chief Frans Hollanders issued a public appeal for the author of this phone call to contact the Martinsville Police Department to disclose any information pertaining to the case she had, adding police were willing to maintain the caller's confidentiality.[56]
Once I find out, then that will bring the family and me closure. We just want to know who done it and why ... I pray every night that something comes, maybe some newDNA test. Because, if they don't get some new concrete evidence, the guy is still going to be walking around free, in Martinsville or wherever he is.
Later the same year, Jenkins's stepfather hired a private investigator named William McAllister to both pursue this anonymous tip and other leads of inquiry.[28] Shortly thereafter, McAllister informed Jenkins's stepfather that a prime suspect in his stepdaughter's murder—a construction worker unable to account for his whereabouts on the night of Jenkins's murder and previously reported to have been killed in anIllinois shooting—was still alive and residing inFlorida.[55]
In the early 2000s, theIndiana State Police announced the formation of a statewide investigative unit dedicated to solving cold cases. On September 29, two cold case named assigned two veteran investigators named Maurice Allcron and Alan McElroy to re-investigate the murder;[57] these individuals would ultimately interview over 150 witnesses and suspect over the course of twenty months.[53] Although Paul Davis was initially skeptical of the cold case unit's sincerity in their pledge to solve his stepdaughter's murder, he gradually became convinced of their resolve, and authorized William McAllister to share his case files with the detectives in the fall of 2000. This investigative unit gradually ensured the cooperation of the suspect residing in Florida, who assisted in the renewed investigation in the interest of clearing his name.[55]
In November 2001, the Martinsville Police Department received an anonymous handwritten letter naming the killer as Kenneth Clay Richmond,[58] adding that Richmond's daughter, Shirley (then seven years old), had witnessed the murder and had confessed to the author in approximately 1985 of having witnessed the murder "of a black woman" as a child.[59] Upon being contacted by investigators the following month, Shirley Richmond McQueen confirmed the authenticity of the letter's contents, adding another man whose identity she did not know had also participated in the murder, although she insisted she had not initially known Jenkins had died as a result of the attack.[60] McQueen also added she had been estranged from her father for twenty-four years, that her family did not live in Martinsville in 1968, and that they had simply been passing through the city on the date of the crime.[1][n 7]
Although fearful for her own safety and the safety of her family, Connie McQueen had gradually felt compelled to anonymously notify Jenkins's relatives and authorities after learning of the reopening of the investigation into Jenkins's murder.[61] Jenkins's murder, whileracially motivated, had ultimately been acrime of opportunity.[25]
To both police and, later, an investigative reporter, one of the initial verbal statements McQueen made upon being asked to recount the evening of Jenkins's murder was: "If the girl had a yellow scarf and was killed with a screwdriver, my Dad could be the killer."[62]
Shirley McQueen confirmed that on the evening of the murder, her father and another man had been drinking on "a rainy night" and were simply driving through Martinsville en route to the family home as she sat in the back seat of the car. Her father had been driving the vehicle, while the other man, whom she described as a tall individual, had been in the passenger seat.[53]
McQueen recalled her father had been the first to observe Jenkins; he and his passenger had yelled several derogatory comments—almost certainly including racial slurs—at her as they specifically drove by Jenkins on several occasions before her father pulled over to the sidewalk alongside Jenkins at a location close to what McQueen believed was a gas station. McQueen then observed her father grab a screwdriver as he and his passenger exited the vehicle. Jenkins had attempted to run as both men briefly chased her. Her father had then stabbed Jenkins once in the chest with the screwdriver as his accomplice held her hands behind her back. The two had then almost immediately returned to their vehicle and sped away from the scene.[4][28]
According to McQueen, when her father and the unknown assailant had returned to the car, both were laughing, with her father remarking, "She got what she deserved."[63] As they drove away, McQueen looked through the rear window of her father's car and saw Jenkins staggering along the sidewalk, then collapse alongside a bush.[64] McQueen also recalled Jenkins had been wearing black framed glasses, had worn a bright yellow scarf, and had been carrying "a suitcase or box" at the time her father and his accomplice had first observed her.[53]
McQueen later stated that, as they drove back home, her father had dropped his passenger off at an unknown address and she had then climbed into the passenger seat. Once home, he had given her seven dollars—one dollar for each year of her life—to keep her quiet about what she had witnessed, adding the attack was "our little secret".[58]
Richmond's daughter's account of eventscorroborated all known details of Jenkins's murder, including the color of an item of clothing that she had been wearing at the time of her murder which never had been revealed to the public: the color of her paisley scarf.[2]
Although McQueen had been estranged from her father for twenty-four years by the time of her December 2001 statement, she met her father to purposely question him regarding her recollections of the murder in January 2002. McQueen later informed police her father denied killing Jenkins when confronted with her accusations before elaborating: "Everything is in the past. You should let the past go ... I can't change my past—it's over!"[53]
On May 8, 2002, police arrested Kenneth Richmond in anIndianapolis nursing home.[65] His arrest was the first and only instance in which a suspect had been detained for Jenkins's murder. Approximately twelve of Jenkins's relatives were present at the Morgan Circuit Court to hear formal charges presented against Richmond on this date. A plea of innocent was entered on his behalf. He was remanded in custody at theMorgan County Sheriff's House and Jail without bond.[53]
News of Richmond having been arrested charged with Jenkins's murder–plus the knowledge he was not a resident of Martinsville–was welcomed by local residents, who had resented the tarnishing brought upon their city as being a place where racism thrived as a result of the crime, with one local remarking to statewide media: "[The murder] dropped a cloud over the whole town ... and that poor child was only trying to make a living."[66]
Richmond had been born inBarren County, Kentucky on February 21, 1932; he had been 36 years old at the time of Jenkins's murder, and was 70 years old at the time of his arrest. He was a career criminal with a history of both violence and bizarre behavior in addition to known affiliations with extremist groups such as theKu Klux Klan. Richmond had previously been charged with both murder and attempted murder in cases unrelated to the Jenkins slaying, but had been found not guilty in each case.[67]
At the time of the killing, Richmond had lived on a nearbyHendricks County farm and, according to his daughter, was simply passing through Martinsville on the night Jenkins was murdered when he and another individual in his car first observed her.[53]
Richmond was never brought to trial for Jenkins's murder. Although charged with first-degree murder in May 2002, he was declaredincompetent to stand trial due to the advancing decline of his health. Two weeks later, on August 31, 2002, he died ofbladder cancer at the age of 70, having reportedly confessed to Jenkins's murder on his deathbed.[11][2] His alleged accomplice was never identified.[4][68]
Within days of Jenkins's murder, several Martinsville locals—incensed at having discovered Donald and Norma Neal had provided assistance to Jenkins and were actively assisting police with their inquiries to locate the murderer(s)—began subjecting the newlyweds to harassment anddeath threats in addition to referring to the couple asnigger lovers.[69] The harassment to which the couple were subjected became so extreme that Donald Neal's father began sitting on the couple's porch at night armed with ashotgun as his son and daughter-in-law slept. The couple eventually relocated from the city.[33]
Donald Neal died ofbone marrow cancer in November 2020 at the age of 70. In the years prior to his death, he and his wife had campaigned for a permanent memorial to be erected in Martinsville in Jenkins's honor.[70]
Jenkins's stepfather, Paul Davis, died ofnatural causes on April 13, 2018 at the age of 90.[71]
In an effort to bring comfort to Jenkins's family and erase the common perception of Martinsville remaining a largely racist city, community leaders formally apologized to Jenkins family in 2017. That November, members of her family were joined by approximately 150 locals gathered inside Martinsville City Hall, where they observed prayer prior to Mayor Shannon Kohn dedicating a memorial stone in her honor with the garden at the entrance to the building. This dedication followed a service to honor Jenkins's life. An inscription on this stone reads: "Carol's life had enormous value and promise. The Rushville and Martisville communities have joined together to honor Carol and recognize her family's love."[72]
A community park in Rushville, Indiana was also rededicated in Jenkins's name (as Carol Jenkins-Davis Park) on November 1, 2017.[73]
