Tired of their bickering and her husband's complaints that he wanted to die, an exasperated Cutler Bay woman asked him if he wanted his pistol. Yes, he replied -- so she fetched the weapon from another room and tossed it on the couch next to him, police said. Then he shot himself, fatally, in the head.
For her `reckless disregard for human life,' Valerie Jenkins will be charged Wednesday with manslaughter with a deadly weapon for the May 2009 death of her husband, Robert Jenkins, prosecutors say. The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office is expected to file formal charges against Valerie Jenkins, 56, on Wednesday in front of Circuit Judge Reemberto Diaz.
Robert Jenkins, 51, a longtime South Miami-Dade auto mechanic, was an avid fisherman who loved life and never talked of suicide, relatives say. `We all have to be accountable for our actions,' said Robin Jenkins, the dead man's sister-in-law. `Her actions resulted in Bob's death.' Robert and Valerie Jenkins were married for seven years and lived in a home in the 10000 block of Martinique Drive. They had no children.
Her attorney, James Best, did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.
Jenkins told Miami-Dade police homicide detectives that she and her husband fought frequently, and he often said `he wanted to die,' according to an arrest warrant. On May 4, 2009, the couple fought over his not taking his blood pressure medicine. Robert Jenkins was `probably depressed' and had been drinking beer, his wife told police.
Robert Jenkins again said `he wanted to die.'
Angry and frustrated, Jenkins asked her husband if he wanted his gun. After he said yes, she retrieved his .22-caliber pistol, in a zippered pouch, from a dresser drawer, she told police. She flipped it onto the sofa where Robert Jenkins sat. When she turned to enter the kitchen, `she heard a single gunshot, and when she turned back, she observed the victim slumped over on the sofa with a gunshot wound to the side of the head,' the warrant states. Jenkins frantically called 911, saying that while her husband had threatened to use the gun in the past, `he had never actually asked her for it while they were arguing.' The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office ruled the death a suicide. Robert Jenkins' blood alcohol level was .14, nearly twice the legal limit for driving.
In preparing its manslaughter case, Miami-Dade prosecutors Lody Jean and Kathleen Hoague relied on the successful case against Jeramy Ricky Rushing, who in February 1986 gave a cocked, loaded gun to a despondent woman outside a Dania Beach bar. A Broward County judge dismissed a manslaughter charge against Rushing, but the Fourth District Court of Appeal reinstated it, clearing the way for a trial. In 1992, jurors convicted Rushing and he was sentenced to two years of house arrest plus 300 hours of community service.
Prosecutors said Valerie Jenkins `engaged in a course of conduct that was gross and flagrant, showing reckless disregard for human life' by giving the loaded gun to her intoxicated husband."
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This prosecution will turn on intent. The "frantic" 911 call may vitiate against the prosecution. Intersting story, though.
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