Daughter testifies on dad's actions

Desirea Jenkins said her father was scratched, sweaty and shaky that day.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- When Desirea Jenkins saw her father at 7 the evening her mother died, he had an appearance different from when she had seen him at 5:30 p.m.
He was sweating profusely and had a scratch on his nose that had not been there before, she said of David Jenkins.
"His shirt just looked like somebody poured water on it or he'd been playing basketball," the 18-year-old said on the witness stand Friday in her father's murder trial. He is accused of killing his wife, Deana Jenkins, Desirea's mother.
Also, when asked by Trumbull County Assistant Prosecutor Chris Becker whether she noticed anything else about her father that had changed, she mentioned the scratch. She also noticed that he was "very nervous, shaky."
Ms. Jenkins said her father told her earlier in the day he was going to take her that evening to Eastwood Mall in Niles to shop for items for the basketball team. At the time, Jenkins was head coach of the Harding High School girls team, and his daughter was a player on the team.
But when he arrived back at his parents' house to pick her up at 7, he asked her if she wanted to shop for new clothes. They went to Burlington Coat Factory in Niles, bought some clothes and returned to David Jenkins' parents' house on Hoyt Street around 8.
There they were told that many people were looking for Deana Jenkins because of a troubling phone call she had made around 6:30 p.m. saying she needed help at the house.
Before David Jenkins dropped his daughter off at his parents' house on Hoyt Street at 5:30, he told her he was going from there to the Rebecca Williams Community Center, where he worked at the time, Ms. Jenkins testified.
But testimony earlier in the trial indicated that Deana Jenkins' friend Bernadette McElroy had seen David Jenkins at his house around 5:45 p.m. She testified that she talked to Deana there around 5:55 and that David was there with her at the time.
The prosecution is expected to complete its case about the middle of next week. The trial will resume at 1 p.m. Monday. Jenkins is charged with murder and faces 15 years to life in prison, if convicted. He is a former associate pastor at the New Jerusalem Fellowship Church here.
Testimony from Jenkins family friend Karen Osborne centered on a trip to the Jenkins house around 8 p.m., when David Jenkins told everyone to spread out and look for Deana outside of the home.
Were suspicious
She was talking with another friend, Toni Heller, after everyone had left. "I told her [Heller] I was not leaving the house. Something was not right," Osborne said. At that moment, she saw David Jenkins drive back to the house, so she and Heller followed him.
The two women heard two noises coming from the house -- one in the front of the house, the other in the back. The women then saw Jenkins come out of the house and mentioned the noises. "David said, 'That was just me,'" Osborne said.
The women were suspicious of Jenkins, so they walked to the back of the house, where Heller discovered Deana Jenkins' purse in the garbage can and questioned David Jenkins about it. He wanted the purse, Osborne said, but the women kept it away from him.
Courtroom disruptions
On Friday, the day after Judge Peter Kontos asked observers in the courtroom to stop making remarks or otherwise disrupting the proceedings, a deputy sheriff warned the spectators of the same thing before the trial started for the day. No disruptions occurred.
On Thursday, defense attorney J. Gerald Ingram paused during his cross-examination of McElroy to ask spectators standing several feet behind him to refrain from talking during the trial.
The judge later said anyone disrupting the proceedings would be kicked out or "might get to taste the food at the county jail."
"My understanding is, it is not family members on either side," Judge Kontos said.
Observers have complained about cramped conditions in the courtroom throughout the week, especially when as many as 55 potential jurors were in the courtroom for jury selection.
Judge Kontos said the proceedings could possibly move to a larger courtroom during closing arguments, for instance, if that becomes necessary. But for now his courtroom is as good as a larger one because the acoustics are worse in the large courtroom upstairs, he said.