What happened to Jean Jenkins? New details emerge in gruesome 2016 Fort Valley killing

The small Middle Georgia community of Fort Valley was gearing up for a local homecoming football game in the fall of 2016 when 60-year-old Jean Jenkins went missing.

At one time, Jenkins, a Washington County native, had majored in business administration at FVSU and later served in an administrative position for the university’s cafeteria. She also had been a respiratory technician, director of a childcare center and worked abroad, had married, had three children and divorced.

When Jenkins vanished nearly four years ago, she had been living from place to place within Fort Valley.

Her body was discovered about a week after she was reported missing, and, at the end of August of this year, a man whom police described as a “casual friend” was charged in her death.

Details have since emerged about what may have happened to Jenkins in the last days of her life and about the man jailed in Peach County in connection with her killing. The Telegraph reviewed public records and spoke with people familiar with the case, including a woman who was among the last to have seen Jenkins alive.

Body discovery

Walking through high grass that covers the driveway of a dilapidated home at 222 Davidson Drive, Fort Valley Public Safety Director Lawrence Spurgeon stopped near a wooded area about 150 feet off the roadway where Jenkins’ body was found.

One of her daughters reported Jenkins missing Oct. 25, 2016 after she had not spoken to her for days.

“She didn’t [typically] go that long without speaking to her,” Spurgeon said.

A week later, Jenkins’ body was found by Fort Valley police officers responding to an anonymous tip.

The placement of her body had been staged, indicating she likely had been killed elsewhere and that someone had wanted her body to be found, Spurgeon said.

Jenkins had been beaten to death.

A GBI autopsy found she died from blunt force trauma to the head, with her death ruled a homicide, said Peach County Coroner Kerry Rooks.

“That stood out: the head trauma,” said Rooks, who pronounced her dead at 3:10 p.m. Nov. 1. “You could tell even at the scene when we were moving the body, you could tell she had some head trauma.”

DNA evidence was used to identify her.

Jenkins was still wearing the blue jeans and a green shirt she had on when last seen alive in the 800 block of East Church St. on Oct. 18, 2016, according to Rooks.

Crime scene

In October 2018 and October 2019, GBI crime scene investigators were dispatched to a home at 803 East Church St. to look for blood evidence, said Todd Crosby, special agent in charge of the GBI’s Region 13 Office in Perry.

“The first time was a visual examination,” Crosby said. “This time (2019), we utilized blood reagent chemicals to spray in the house.”

GBI crime scene investigators also went over a pickup truck in October 2018 that Fort Valley police had towed to an impound facility, Crosby said.

Crosby declined to share the results of those examinations.

“She really didn’t live anywhere,” Spurgeon said of Jenkins. “She had multiple places that she stayed ... The place on East Church Street is one of the places she stayed from time-to-time.”

The East Church Street home is currently under renovation.

A Warner Robins man who had owned the home in 2016 died in February 2019, according to property records and his obituary. A woman who had lived next door in 2016 died in March, according to a family member, who declined comment.

On Aug. 30 of this year, nearly four years after Jenkins’ disappearance and slaying, Leroy Neal Sr., a 62-year-old Fort Valley native, was charged with voluntary manslaughter in Jenkins’ death.

Neal allegedly struck Jenkins in the head with a blunt object multiple times, killing her, while he was “under the influence causing him to have diminished capacity,” according to an arrest warrant.

A police report indicated he was suspected of using “drugs/narcotics.”

The warrant indicated that Jenkins was likely killed Oct. 18 at the 803 East Church St. residence.

“I believe he (Neal) took part in beating her and his actions caused her death,” said Spurgeon, who declined to elaborate on the circumstances of Jenkins’ death.

Spurgeon also declined to say what specifically led to Neal’s arrest

“Just had some things kind of fall in place,” Spurgeon said. “I can’t really discuss too much about the evidence because the case still is ongoing and they’re probably going to be some more arrests made eventually.

“What we were concerned about is making sure that we weren’t too hasty in arresting anybody. We wanted to make sure we had all our ducks in a row — i’s dotted, t’s crossed ... We wanted to make sure we present a case to the prosecutor that’s a prosecutable case and that’s very difficult some times.”

A police report indicated up to four suspects, with their names redacted.

Last seen alive

One of Jenkins’ daughters told police officers in 2016 that she dropped her mom off at a Hiley Street residence on the afternoon of Oct. 18, the last time she saw her mother alive, the report said.

Retired school teacher Rossetti Yates said she’d hired Jenkins to help clean her house before the FVSU homecoming game on Oct. 22.

Jenkins did dishes, mopped floors and cleaned for Yates on the day she was dropped off, Yates said.

Yates said she last saw Jenkins walking down Hiley Street toward East Church Street.

“It bothered me when she went missing,” Yates said. “It scared me because nobody had ever told me what happened.”

The 803 East Church St. residence is a couple of houses down from the intersection of Hiley and East Church streets.

When reporting her mom missing Oct. 25, 2016, Cochran told police that she was told Jenkins personal belongings were at the 803 East Church St. home and that she asked a man who lived there she knew only as “Eddie” if he’d seen her mom, according to a police report. Cochran told police the man said he saw her mom “last Tuesday.”

Leroy Neal Sr.

Beulah Scott, Neal’s first cousin, said he’s never lived at the home she once shared with her mother, who’s since passed on. But Scott said she’s found him occasionally “bunked out” out on her front porch.

Authorities searched her home and a small shed on the property in 2019, Scott said, because Neal had listed her address as his own.

Neal, who was last released from prison in August 2016, has served multiple prison stints for burglary convictions in both Peach and Houston counties, according to Georgia Department of Corrections’ online records.

“This has shocked me,” Scott said of Neal’s arrest in connection to Jenkins’ slaying. “They may say he stole this or that, but I don’t see him doing this thing right here. I can’t see it.”

She described Neal as having “a good heart.”

“He’d help you if he could,” Scott said.

Neal also suffers from a heart condition, having called Scott from a hospital where he was taken while he’s been in custody, Scott said.

Neal’s attorney, Stanley W. Schoolcraft III, declined comment.

This story was originally published October 8, 2020 at 5:50 AM.