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To enjoy this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, check us out on Patreon. Patreon.com/ForensicTales Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. 21-year-old college student Chris Jenkins mysteriously vanished on Halloween night 2002 after spending the night out with friends. Four months later, his body was found in the Mississippi River.
But things aren't always as they initially appear. What happened to Chris Jenkins after spending a fun night out at the bar with some friends? And can forensic science help us find some answers? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 227, The Mysterious Death of Chris Jenkins. ♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
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Thank you to Lauren S., Dewey, Seb, and Alice B. Now, let's get to this week's episode. In 2002, 21-year-old Chris Jenkins was a popular college student and business major at the University of Minnesota. Not only was he book smart, but he was also athletic, serving as the captain of the school's lacrosse team.
Before starting at the University of Minnesota, Chris grew up in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, with his parents, Steve and Jan, and his sister, Sarah, a town only about 20 miles away from the university. So even though Chris was away at college, he was still just about a 30-minute drive away from his parents' house. In the fall of 2002, Chris was about to enter his senior year at the university, which meant that he was just a couple months away from college graduation.
He lived with a couple of roommates in an off-campus house and had a steady girlfriend. Anyone who knew Chris described him as a popular and social guy. He was the kind of kid who just made friends easily. Halloween night 2002 started like any other night for Chris. If anything, this was supposed to be the best Halloween yet for him since it was the first one since he turned 21, so that meant he was old enough to legally drink.
So by all accounts, Chris was very much looking forward to having a good time that night with some friends. Like most people, Chris dressed up for the Halloween holiday, wearing a Native American costume with a red feather on the side of his headband and a brown top and brown bottoms.
After a 6 o'clock p.m. keg party at his house, Chris, his girlfriend Ashley Rice, and three friends went to a local bar, the Lone Tree Bar and Grill, a popular spot for college students in the heart of Minneapolis. Chris's girlfriend Ashley also worked at the Lone Tree Bar and Grill, but didn't work that night. So this was a place that they had been to plenty of times in the past.
Now, the group of friends arrived at the bar at 528 Hennepin Avenue between 1030 and 11 o'clock p.m. They parked their car just south of the bar. One of Chris's friends was a designated driver who agreed to take the five of them to the bar that night. But what started as an ordinary night was anything but ordinary. That's because he mysteriously was kicked out of the bar sometime around midnight, leaving behind his phone, wallet, and jacket.
After that, Chris was never seen alive again, and the mystery surrounding his sudden disappearance still lingers today. While Chris, his girlfriend, and their friends were at the bar, Chris gave his wallet, keys, and cell phone to his girlfriend Ashley to hold on to. His Native American costume had no pockets, so she was going to hold on to them for the rest of the night. This also meant that he didn't have anything with him when he disappeared.
Sometime around midnight, Chris was reportedly kicked out of the bar. But the reason why remains a mystery. To this day, it's unclear what happened or why he was asked to leave. Some people say it's because he was pretty drunk and maybe one of the bar's bouncers decided that enough was enough and it was time for him to go home.
It certainly wouldn't be the first time that a young 21-year-old college student has been kicked out of the bar for drinking a little bit too much and having a little bit too much fun. Other people have said it's because he spilled a drink on himself. And one of the security guards thought that he had actually peed on himself because he was so drunk. But again, it's unclear if that's what happened to Chris or not.
All we know for sure is that Chris was last seen at the Lone Tree sometime around midnight. And after he left, one of the bouncers saw him make a left turn on Hennepin Avenue, and that was it. Besides his wallet and cell phone, Chris also didn't have his jacket because he left it at the bar. So the only thing he was wearing that night was his Halloween costume, which is a little concerning because it was only about 20 degrees outside.
We also know that Chris didn't drive to the bar himself that night, so he didn't have his car with him. One of his friends drove him and his girlfriend Ashley there. So after Chris left the bar, he would have been on foot. So now you've got an allegedly intoxicated young man without his cell phone, wallet, keys, or jacket somewhere on foot in the middle of the night.
Now, at first, Chris's girlfriend and friends thought that he had gone home. He probably just walked there and went straight to sleep as soon as he got home. But when his girlfriend went to his house to check on him the next morning and return his stuff, he wasn't there. So he never made it home. Ashley eventually decided to call Chris's parents to let them know what was happening and tell them that she didn't know where he was. This was a little over 12 hours after anyone had seen him.
So Chris's parents and sisters drove down to the university to start looking for him, but they weren't allowed to report him missing because it had only been about 12 hours. According to the Minneapolis police, the family couldn't report Chris as missing because it hadn't been 72 hours yet. Since he was 21 years old, he was legally considered an adult. And if he wanted to disappear for a couple of hours, well, he was allowed to do that.
Even though Chris had nothing with him besides a Halloween costume, the police initially refused to file a missing person report, a mistake that may have had huge consequences. Without any help from the police, Chris's family launched a search of their own. They even hired a private investigator, Chuck Loosh, to help look for him. One of the first places they focused their efforts on was, of course, the bar, Lone Tree Bar and Grill.
They spoke with most of the employees working that night, and pretty much all of them denied ever kicking Chris out of the bar in the first place. But as they spoke with some of the employees, they learned about a guy named Mike Casey, an off-duty police officer who was at the bar that night and was friends with Chris's girlfriend, Ashley. That night, he worked as a security guard for the adjacent Hennepin Center for the Arts.
Ashley had even borrowed part of his cop uniform for her sexy police officer costume. Now, according to witnesses at Lone Tree, Mike Casey seemed to flirt with Ashley throughout the night, even though she was there with her boyfriend, Chris. Ashley even introduced Chris to Mike as her boyfriend that night. But Mike Casey didn't seem to get the hint.
This information seemed to suggest that maybe Mike Casey, this Mike Casey guy, had something to do with Chris being kicked out of the bar that night. To Chris's family, it kind of made sense. Mike Casey was an off-duty police officer working as a security guard that night,
He was allegedly flirting with Ashley and maybe he was able to convince the other bouncers that were there that night to kick Chris out of the bar so that basically he could have Ashley all to himself that night. Witnesses also said that Mike Casey gave Ashley a ride home after the bar closed and after Chris was last seen.
But according to the Minneapolis PD, Casey was never formally questioned about Chris's disappearance. And he wasn't considered a suspect because he was, quote, married with children and they didn't want to break up a family, end quote. And there was never any evidence that Casey asked any of the bouncers that night to kick Chris out of the bar. So the family basically had no choice but to move on from this possible theory.
On top of speaking with the bar employees, the private investigator also contacted the Federal Reserve Bank, which had two outside cameras pointing at Hennepin Avenue Bridge. Crossing that bridge would have been Chris's quickest route home that night. But when the bank checked the surveillance footage from the early morning hours of November 1st, they didn't see any sign of Chris.
According to the PI who reviewed the tapes, it would have been, quote, impossible for a person to spring across the bridge and not be seen, end quote. The Minneapolis police eventually got involved and joined the search for Chris when he didn't show up the following day. They finally realized this wasn't just a case of a young college student running off for a couple of hours. Something might actually be wrong here.
So two canine units, specifically trained bloodhounds, were brought in to track Chris's scent after he left the bar. Fortunately, both of the dogs tracked his scent from the Lone Tree Bar to Times Square Pizza and Subs across the street to an underground parking garage next door. But the scent stopped in front of parking spots 89 and 90.
Now, this discovery was a little strange because there was no evidence that Chris was ever in that particular parking garage. His friend, who drove him to the bar that night, never stopped in the garage. So why would Chris's scent be between these two specific parking spots? It was also strange that the scent stopped there, suggesting Chris got into a car parked in either one of these spots.
The police also found droplets of blood residue, a piece of red string, and red feather fragments, which possibly belonged to the headband of Chris's costume, were also found in the garage. However, what exactly the police did with this evidence remains unknown.
Multiple witnesses who spoke with Chris's family's private investigator recalled seeing a group of approximately 10 people attacking an unidentified person in front of the Times Square Pizza and Subs in the early morning hours of Halloween night. But it's unclear whether that was Chris or not. The most accepted theory now is that this was some type of gang initiation fight and probably didn't have anything to do with Chris's situation.
It's just strange this happened right around the same time that he would have been leaving the bar. The new year came and went, but Chris was still missing. It wasn't until February 27, 2003, that a major discovery was made. A couple of people walking across the 3rd Avenue Bridge reported seeing a male floating in the Mississippi River snagged on some tree branches.
The unidentified male was floating on his back with his arms crossed in front of him and on the east side of the river near the spillway of the St. Anthony Falls Hydraulic Laboratory at 30 Southeast 3rd Street. Most notably, the young man was wearing a Native American Halloween costume. So without a doubt, it was Chris Jenkins.
After being missing for nearly four months, the search was over, and it wasn't the outcome that anyone hoped for. After Chris's body was pulled from the river, his body was taken to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy. And this is where the details of his death get even stranger. The police initially believed Chris either committed suicide or died accidentally after falling into the river.
But everyone who knew Chris felt a lot differently. Before this happened, he was a star athlete and a two-time lacrosse team captain. He was set to graduate with almost perfect grades from the university's prestigious Carlson School of Management. He also had job interviews already lined up. He was happy, easygoing, and by all accounts, he had a lot of plans for the future.
He wasn't depressed and had never showed any signs of being suicidal. So what motive did he have to take his own life? But on top of the family concerns came the forensic evidence that didn't seem to support suicide or accidental drowning either. Chris's blood alcohol content was only 0.12%. So he wasn't extremely intoxicated like some of the rumors from that night suggested.
There were also traces of GHB in his system, a drug that acts as a nervous system depressant. But since GHB is a substance naturally produced by the body, this didn't necessarily mean he was drugged at the time of his death. Next, they looked for any signs of foul play, but the medical examiner didn't find any.
Chris didn't have any unusual injuries or bruises on his body, and there didn't appear to be any obvious signs of a struggle. No gunshot wounds, no marks of strangulation, no broken bones, nothing. This really made Chris's family wonder what could have happened to him. If he had accidentally fallen into the river, wouldn't you expect to see at least some signs of injury? A few cuts or bruises here and there?
But there wasn't a single mark on his body. It was almost like he was just placed in the water. Now, this is something really worth mentioning here. Not only was it strange not to find any major injuries on Chris's body if he had accidentally fallen into the river, but let's not forget, he was a lacrosse player, so he always had bruises on his body.
This led the family to suspect that he didn't immediately end up in the river on Halloween night. They think he was still alive somewhere for at least several days, allowing the lacrosse bruises to heal before he ended up in the water. They also questioned the location of where Chris's body was found. They thought his body would have floated farther downstream if he had accidentally drowned or intentionally jumped in the water.
But instead, it seemed to be stuck in one place, like, again, he had been put there. The Minneapolis medical examiner who performed Chris's autopsy listed his death as undetermined. He couldn't figure out exactly how he ended up in the river, and nothing really made sense. But the police already had made up their minds that this was either one of two things, a suicide or an accidental drowning.
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Chris's parents weren't satisfied with the undetermined ruling, so they consulted with many different forensic experts, including experts in water rescue and recovery and forensic pathologists. The water rescue and recovery expert they spoke to was a globally known hydrolysis who, after looking at the case, thought Chris's body entered the water about one mile from where he was found.
This would have meant he had gone into the river around the Hennepin Avenue Bridge, which was completely out of his way if he had been walking home that night. There was no reason for him to be out there if that's where he was headed, so he would have had to go out of his way to get there. World-renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Bodden also reviewed the case on behalf of the Jenkins family.
Throughout his career, Dr. Bodden has consulted on several famous cases, including the O.J. Simpson murder trial and the death of Jeffrey Epstein, plus many more. According to him, the evidence didn't support the police's assumption that this was either a suicide or an accident. Based on Dr. Bodden's experience, most drowning victims are found face down with their arms out toward their sides.
Their clothing is usually disheveled and one or both of their shoes is usually missing. This is because most people's natural reaction when drowning is paddling their feet and wiggling their arms to swim. But Chris's body didn't show any signs of that happening.
Instead, he was found on his back, arms crossed in front of him, his shirt tucked into his drawstring pants, and he was still wearing both of his slip-on shoes. He also still had on his necklace, a ring on his left index finger, and a ring on his right ring finger. So based on all of this, Dr. Michael Bodden didn't think that this was either an accident or suicide. It had to be something else.
Murder. In 2004, the Jenkins met with Tim Dolan, the new city police chief. They hoped Dolan would become a fresh set of eyes for the case. And at first, they were right. Tim Dolan allegedly promised Chris's parents that he would find out what happened to their son. But less than two months later, he reportedly sent the family a letter saying that they were closing the case. And that's how things remained until 2006.
By 2006, Chris's case had been reopened. This was now over three years since he went missing. In 2006, a witness, who was someone already in jail facing felony charges for another crime, came forward and claimed that he was there when Chris was thrown off a bridge.
This was huge because this was the very first time that anyone had come forward claiming to be a witness and had seen him be murdered. And the first person to suggest that this was something other than a suicide or an accident. So according to this witness, an acquaintance of his approached Chris that night and tried to rob him.
But as we know, Chris didn't have anything on him, not his wallet, cell phone, or anything. So as this guy supposedly robbed him, he got angry that Chris didn't have anything of value on him. That's when this witness said the guy threw him off the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. But this self-proclaimed witness story has some major holes in it.
The biggest is the bridge he claimed this guy threw Chris off of, the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. Well, this particular bridge would have been a very difficult bridge to throw someone off of. There are essentially steel beams and suspension cables all around the bridge that would have made it practically impossible to throw someone overboard.
The guy would have had to lift Chris up and throw him five to feet, four to five feet over the support beam, avoiding the vertical cables all in the process. It's also a very popular bridge that gets a lot of car traffic all day and night. So it seems really unlikely that someone would have been able to throw him off the bridge with basically no one else seeing it happen.
cameras with a view of the bridge also didn't capture anything suspicious that night including chris or this mystery person walking across the bridge and throwing him off the jenkins and their pi don't even think chris was even thrown off of a bridge that's because given the fall and the river's current they don't think chris's shoes would have stayed on his feet
and he would have suffered at least some type of injuries. But as we already know, that's not what happened. Something else that happened in 2006 that caused Chris's case to be reopened was the discovery of a clump of hair in his hand. At the time his body was pulled from the water, the police collected a rather large clump of unknown hair from the palm of his hand. But when the hair was tested, it was determined to belong to Chris himself.
But why would he have a clump of his own hair in the palm of his hands? We don't know. By the end of 2006, the Minneapolis police officially reclassified Chris's death as a homicide instead of undetermined. At first, this was really, really good news for the family. This was something that they had been fighting for for over three years. They never believed the suicide or accident theory.
Police Chief Dolan even offered the Jenkins family a public apology for how his department had treated the case over the years. In part, he said, quote,
And for that, for the Minneapolis Police Department, I want to apologize to the Jenkins family. End quote. But just because the case was officially reclassified as a homicide didn't mean anything really changed. The following year, in 2007, the Hennepin County District Attorney announced that they had been approached by the MD Police Department about filing charges against a suspect for Chris's murder.
Investigators revealed that they were talking to a man they described as, quote, an eyewitness slash suspect. According to an article by NPR News, this so-called suspect was a man already in jail on unrelated charges. He apparently had knowledge about Chris's crime scene, including its location, but investigators were unclear about his role in the death.
They also said that this person, quote, had given very specific details of the exact spot where Christopher Jenkins was thrown off of a bridge, end quote. However, not long after those statements, the DA's office decided not to file any charges and no more information about any arrests was released. The reason why the authorities haven't disclosed much information about this person isn't exactly clear.
they might be trying to preserve the investigation if this person is guilty and is connected to Chris's case. Or it's possible it was just another dead end, and this potential suspect actually didn't have anything to do with it. In 2009, the family released a book about Chris's case called Footprints of Justice, Our Family's Struggle for Justice, inside the Chris Jenkins murder investigation.
As suggested in the book's title, the Jenkins fully believe their son was murdered. The book talks about their struggle to keep the police engaged in the investigation and the lack of progress made over the years. Fast forward to 2018, when the TV show Breaking Homicide aired an episode that featured the case. The show talked about a lot of details that no one had really known about, including a story about the night Chris disappeared.
There were two men who nearly got into a fight because one of them was attempting to hit on the other guy's girlfriend. This all happened at the same bar where Chris and his friends were at. And Chris supposedly tried to break up the fight. So maybe one of these guys got angry that Chris intervened and got revenge on him after he was kicked out of the bar.
The show also had an interview with an anonymous informant that said two months before Chris went missing, he went to the Lone Tree Bar and ordered himself a drink. But after only taking a couple sips of his drink, he got really lightheaded and dizzy. He also noticed that the drink tasted funny.
So he walked outside to get some fresh air. And that's when he started thinking that maybe someone had drugged him and laced his drink. So maybe something similar happened to Chris that night. But the biggest revelation from the TV show was the theory that convicted murderer Jeremy Alford might have had something to do with Chris's death.
The police found Douglas Miller dead inside his new Brighton trailer in November 2005. Not long after that, Jeremy Alford and his 18-year-old brother, Luis Alford, were both arrested for Miller's murder. The brothers were accused of stabbing him to death. At the trials, Jeremy, who was 23 at the time, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
But Jeremy testified at his younger brother's trial, saying that he basically acted alone and Luis had nothing to do with it. Jeremy claimed he was high on meth when he did it. But prosecutors argued that one person couldn't have inflicted so many injuries all at once and told the jury that Jeremy was lying to try and save his younger brother.
In the end, Louise Alford was also convicted of murder and sentenced to more than 30 years in prison. So when it comes to Chris Jenkins, a female informant allegedly came forward claiming that Alford bragged about killing Chris. She also supported what the police already knew. Jeremy Alford regularly went to that bar and may have even been there the night that this happened.
So you've got a criminal background. Jeremy Alford is a convicted murderer. You've got a potential witness, a woman who claimed he bragged about killing Chris. And you've got opportunity. Alford was known to hang out at the Lone Tree Bar and Grill and was even possibly there on that Halloween night, although this can't be confirmed. But regardless of all of these possible connections...
Jeremy Alford has never been arrested in connection to Chris's case, and his involvement in his death isn't known. He's still simply considered a possible person of interest, but that's it. Now let's talk about the other missing young men, because Chris Jenkins isn't the only one.
Six days after Chris disappeared, 22-year-old University of Wisconsin student Michael Knoll vanished after celebrating his birthday at a bar in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Three days after that, on November 9th, 20-year-old Josh Guman disappeared after leaving a small party at an apartment in Collegeville, Minnesota. The party was just a small get-together with about 10 to 12 students, all from the university.
Some of the people there were Josh's friends, while others didn't know him well or even at all. Most of the people at the party spent the night playing poker. But sometime between 11.45 and midnight, Josh got up from the poker table and walked out. At the time, some of his friends thought that he was just getting up to use the restroom or maybe go talk on the phone. But after Josh got up from that poker table, he was never seen again.
Chris, Michael, and Josh all vanished within a 100-mile radius of Minneapolis. All were white males about the same age, height, and weight. They all went missing at night after going either to a party or a bar, and they were all drinking and were last seen near water.
All of this led some people to suspect a serial killer was targeting young men along the Mississippi River. There were just too many coincidences that you just couldn't ignore. One of those serial killers was thought to be the Smiley Face Killer.
Retired New York City police detectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte have spent years tracking the suspicious deaths of young men across the country ever since they investigated the death of college student Patrick McNeil, who drowned in New York City in 1997.
Since then, they believe more than 40 college-age men across the country who died of suspected drownings might have actually been killed by a serial killer, the so-called smiley face killer. In almost every single one of these cases, the victim appeared to have died either by suicide or accidental drowning, just like Chris Jenkins.
And at many of these crime scenes, investigators found smiley faces graffitied next to the bodies. So that's what led detectives Gannon and Duarte to refer to this person as the smiley face killer. As soon as Gannon and Duarte heard about Chris's case, they almost immediately suspected he was yet another victim of this serial killer.
But many people are skeptical that this so-called smiley face killer even exists at all. Even according to the FBI, there's no definitive proof this serial killer is even real, let alone has any connection to Chris Jenkins.
In fact, most law enforcement agencies consider all of these cases closed and they don't think that there's a serial killer on the loose targeting young college-aged men. So the idea that Chris might have been killed by the smiley face killer is just one of many possible theories. Now, over 10 years after Chris walked out of that bar on Halloween night in 2002, he
we are still far from figuring out what happened to him compared to where we were back then. No charges have been filed since the case was officially reclassified and reopened in 2006. It's unclear how much time and resources the Minneapolis Police Department is pouring into the investigation or if it's considered a cold case. Without a doubt, Chris's disappearance and death just doesn't make much sense.
Starting from the very beginning, there are still a lot of conflicting reports about what exactly happened at the Lone Tree Bar and Grill between the time Chris and his friends got there and when he left sometime around midnight. Was he kicked out by some of the bar's bouncers like many people suggest? Or did he simply leave on his own?
One theory put forward is that Chris may have gotten into an argument with his girlfriend, and that's why he left on his own. But for me, if that's the case, why did he leave everything behind? He didn't take his cell phone, wallet, or keys with him. He didn't even have his jacket when it was 20 degrees outside. So it seems likely that if he had left on his own because he got into a fight with his girlfriend...
he would have at least gotten his things before he left. Even if he had been drinking, it doesn't make sense why he would have forgotten everything and just decided to walk home. Plus, there's the question about the exact route Chris would have taken if he did in fact walk home. None of the surveillance cameras in the area captured Chris walking toward his off-campus house.
and the location of where his body was found in the river was in the entirely opposite direction. He basically had no business being in that area. It seems unlikely that he would have taken the quote-unquote long way home if it was 20 degrees outside and he wasn't wearing anything except for a thin Halloween costume. I would assume that he would want to get home as quickly as possible to get out of the cold,
even if he really forgot his stuff. I'm also troubled by the connection between that off-duty police officer and Chris's girlfriend, Ashley. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying I think she had anything to do with what happened, but it seems like an odd coincidence that several witnesses claimed they saw her and this off-duty police officer flirting all night, and he was the one who drove her home that night.
Then Chris suddenly goes missing. But again, that could be the reason why Chris stormed off and left the bar that night. Maybe he got angry about his girlfriend flirting with this guy and just wanted to get out of there. The forensic evidence is also something that is really strange about this case. It seems like no one can really explain how Chris ended up in the water without getting a single injury.
Going back to the theory that he was thrown off the bridge, how did that happen without hurting him? Or without knocking off either one of his shoes or even part of his Halloween costume? To me, the lack of bruising or broken bones seemed to suggest he was placed in the water rather than thrown off or even jumped off of the bridge. The Jenkins also suspect that Chris wasn't killed right away.
They think he might have been held somewhere else before he was eventually dumped in the river. Remember, he didn't even have his typical lacrosse bruises. Well, one potential theory talked about in the Breaking Homicide episode is that Chris might have been held on Nicollet Island for several weeks, maybe even months, before his body was dumped.
For reference, Nicollet Island is located in the middle of the Mississippi River underneath the Hennepin Avenue Bridge and a short distance northwest of the location where Chris's body was found. The police searched this island multiple times and even brought in scent dogs to try and track Chris's scent, but none of the searches led to anything.
But before we can move on from this theory about Nicolette Island, the episode mentions one more thing. Nicolette Island is known for having a series of underground utility tunnels, one of which is called Satan's Cave. People have been known to hang out in these tunnels, and it's not a far stretch to say that some people might have been hanging out there on Halloween night.
Well, these tunnels contain shafts filled with water that flow into the Mississippi River. So if Chris's body ended up in one of these shafts, it's possible it got stuck in there for several weeks or even months. And if that's the case, the shaft might have helped to preserve the body until it eventually floated downstream and ended up where it was discovered.
But, of course, the problem is still the fact that we don't know why he would have ended up on Nicolette Island or on one of these tunnels or water shafts. So this theory doesn't really answer much either. If Chris was actually murdered and this is a homicide, then who did it? And what would have been the motive?
Of course, we already talked about the smiley face killer theory, but who else could have done it and why? Was someone angry about the fact he was wearing a Native American Halloween costume that night? Did that offend someone and they decided to attack him? Was it a case of mistaken identity? Or did Chris anger someone at the bar that night and we just don't know about it? And was he ever really kicked out? Or were the police initially right?
Is this simply a case of suicide or accidental drowning? If Chris intended to end his life that night, it makes sense why he wouldn't take any of his stuff with him and he wouldn't care whether he had a jacket or not. And maybe that's why he decided to walk in a completely different direction than he normally would because he didn't plan to ever go back home.
Whatever happened to Chris that night is a tragedy, and someone out there knows something. Even if the Minneapolis Police Department dropped the ball back in 2002, there's still a chance we can find out what really happened to this young college kid. And maybe there is still forensic evidence out there that can help finally solve it.
Anyone with information about the death of Chris Jenkins is asked to call the Minneapolis Homicide Unit at 612-692-TIPS. That's 612-692-TIPS. To share your thoughts on the story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook. To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales.
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Remember, not all stories have happy endings.
