Guilty verdict elicits emotions Jenkins case causes 2 families much pain

A police lieutenant said justice was served.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- If there was any agreement in the murder trial of David Jenkins, it was that everybody lost when he killed his wife.
"I agree with the verdict. [But] it's still a major loss," Neil Heller, a Warren firefighter and friend of the couple's, said after the Friday afternoon verdict.
Found guilty of murder, Jenkins, 43, faces 15 years to life in prison for strangling Deana Jenkins, 39, in their Clearwater Street home May 20, 2004. He will be sentenced later.
The eight-woman, four-man Trumbull County Common Pleas Court jury deliberated for 15 hours over three days this week before returning the verdict against Jenkins, a former Warren G. Harding High School girls basketball coach.
Motive for murder
The prosecution maintained that the motive for the murder was marital strife: Deana Jenkins, who worked at the Trumbull County Child Support Enforcement Agency, had decided to move up her divorce from her husband to May 2004 instead of May 2005.
"It was very sad to me to see this happen," said Edward Callion of Warren, another friend of the couple's.
"Thank God it's over," commented Karen Osborne of Warren, one of Deana Jenkins' best friends.
"It was hard on both families. [But] justice was served," commented Warren police Lt. Gary Vingle.
Jenkins, a tall man wearing a brown suit, showed no emotion when the verdict was read, but there was a gasp from spectators.
Both Jenkins and his lawyer, J. Gerald Ingram, declined to comment at first. However, Jenkins reportedly voiced his innocence later.
Judge Peter Kontos revoked Jenkins' $100,000 bond and he was led away by deputy sheriffs to the Trumbull County Jail.
Atty. Chris Becker, the assistant county prosecutor on the case, gave credit to Warren police, especially Vingle, for sorting out the circumstantial evidence that led to the conviction. He pointed out that it was a difficult crime scene because 30 people were already there when police arrived.
Nearly deadlocked
At 1:45 p.m. Friday, jurors had told the judge that they couldn't reach a verdict, but Judge Kontos sent them back to continue deliberations.
Jurors finally announced at 3:50 p.m. that they had reached a verdict.
There were so many spectators outside Judge Kontos' second-floor courtroom that he moved the verdict reading to the much larger third-floor courtroom of Judge Andrew Logan.
When the jurors filed into the courtroom after reaching their verdict, none of them looked at the defendant.
After the judge read the verdict, jurors were allowed to leave the courthouse before anyone else could leave the courtroom.
yovich@vindy.com