We feel mum’s presence, say Jenkins children at site visit

 

Jen and Greg embracing each other at a construction site where Anna Jenkins’ bones were found.

GEORGE TOWN: Anna Jenkins’ children tried to hold back tears and comforted each other as they joined a visit by the coroner to the site where their mother’s bones were found three years ago.

They were brought to a feature pond below a rock-faced cliff where Anna’s handbag, clothing and bones were discovered by a landscape worker working at a construction site for a bungalow.

It was especially distressing for her daughter Jen, who visited the site for the first time. She and her brother Greg embraced each other as they laid some flowers in the feature pond located at the new development, off the affluent Jesselton area.

“We feel mum is still here,” they said in a written statement. “Whenever we are at the Kensington Gardens (site), we feel her presence. It floods the emotions of birthdays missed, Christmases without her cooking, anniversaries she never gets and family special occasions without her. It’s overwhelming.”

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The coroner’s court in session at the site where Jenkins’ bones were found.

Coroner Norsalha Hamzah and inquest officers noted that it would have been a long 6km walk from where Anna, 65, was last seen alive in Scotland Road.

After touring the site, the inquest resumed in court, where a government chemist showed a match between a soil sample taken from Jenkins’ shoe found at the site and another sample taken from a site 200m away. The site located 200m away was shown as an area outside the bungalow development area.

Chemist Hadi Rahim, 33, said the match was based on the density of the two soil samples. Three other soil samples tested returned with no conclusive matches.

Another government chemist, Nor Aidora Saedon, 49, testified about a piece of evidence believed to be a bone but which the Jenkins children had described as “ground red gravel”. Aidora said the evidence was indeed sand.

She explained that usually, evidence brought in for DNA analysis would first be examined by the hospital but in this case, it was handed directly to her.

Coroner Norsalha Hamzah (second from right) with inquest officers at the Kensington Gardens site. Others present include court officers and family counsel S Raveentharan.

“At the hospital, all debris or dirt will be cleared before the evidence is handed over to the chemist for further checks. However, in this case, a policeman handed me this particular bone, a small portion of the backbone, and the rest of the debris was left in the envelope.

“I washed the bone, dried it and crushed it into powder form for DNA analysis,” she said, adding that the powder was as good as gone once used for testing.

With questioning of witnesses completed, Norsalha set Feb 21 for submissions.

She said she would give a date for the final verdict then.

Khairul Anuar Abdul Halim, Farah Aimy Zainul Anwar and Shahrezal Shukri assisted the coroner, while S Raveentharan and Adilla Zaharuddin appeared on behalf of the family. Officials from the Australian High Commission were also present. - FMT