00:00:03
[theme music] Palm Beach County is probably
one of the most richest counties in the state of Florida.
00:00:46
It's a suburb of Miami
that, again, is really known for being very affluent. It sits on the East Coast
of Florida by the water.
00:00:55
A lot of millionaires,
billionaires. President Trump has
Mar-a-Lago as his home here in this same county.
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So, not a County that
sees a ton of violence. BUTCH DELGADO: So a lot of
neighborhoods in Florida
00:01:11
are, you know, if
they're not gated, they're private neighborhoods
that have like a neighborhood
00:01:16
watch organization
involved in it, or they'll have extra
police patrols going in it
00:01:21
just as a courtesy
to the neighborhood. So, a little after
2:00 in the morning, a 911 call came in to
the West Palm Beach
00:01:36
Sheriff's Office
that a female had been shot inside a residence. He's able to tell the 911
dispatcher that she's still
00:01:45
alive at that moment, which
is critical because we first responders coming. There's a lot of
help on the way.
00:01:51
Police officers,
ambulances come in. The 911 call was made by the
victim's brother, Quay Greer,
00:02:00
who went on to describe that a
home invasion/robbery had taken place, with a masked
gunman who had
00:02:08
shot his sister during
the course of the robbery. Once police responded to
the scene of the shooting,
00:02:16
they found 33-year-old
Makeva Jenkins had been shot in the head while in her bed.
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[ominous music] Patrol officers obviously
were the first ones there. They've started, you know, a
general search for suspects.
00:02:37
So the crime scene tape
at this point has gone up, and now detectives are arriving
and going through the motions
00:02:43
of their investigation. So the victim in this case,
Makeva, had been transported
00:02:49
to a local hospital. By the time they got
her to the hospital, all this was wrapped up.
00:02:59
The whole head was wrapped. And she just laying
there, just sleeping. It's unfortunate, but even as
hard as the medical services try
00:03:08
and you try to get the
help, Makeva did not survive her injury very long. So now detectives have
to take resources and put
00:03:17
at the hospital
for Makeva's body and the forensic evidence
that will come from her.
00:03:24
And then you have the scene
where the shooting took place, this nice house
that now you have
00:03:30
to lock down a neighborhood. And my heart fell. I thought I would die. I thought I would be the
first to die before her.
00:03:42
[ominous music] So Makeva really had come
from a background of, you know, poverty.
00:03:56
And then is one of
those people that refuses to accept
that plight in life and is always looking
for how to move up.
00:04:08
Everything was really moving
in the right direction for her. She was an entrepreneur
that had opened a couple
00:04:16
of different businesses. Makeva had a consulting
business at the time that she was murdered, called
the Prime Enterprise Group,
00:04:26
that worked to help other
entrepreneurs really build their business plan,
their business model,
00:04:32
and get headed in the
right direction themselves. I'm Makeva Jenkins. I am a business strategist and
coach with the Prime Enterprise
00:04:39
Group. What I do is help entrepreneurs
build successful businesses. I have helped
countless entrepreneurs
00:04:47
build their business from
the ground up since 2013. She built a business where
she was able to buy her
00:04:53
a house in a
neighborhood that was pretty affluent neighborhood. And when you look
at, you know, there's
00:04:58
houses that are worth tens
of millions of dollars. She was able to afford
it, two-storey house--
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three bedrooms, two
car garage, a den. She was real
popular, so everybody really knew who she was.
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She was a positive person. She never let stuff bother her. And she didn't
talk about things,
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you know, like, to the
family if she had problems. She just dealt with it herself.
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[ominous music] She was a real
believer in god. And she always put in her
faith, you know, in the Lord.
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So she would always
go to church. And once Euri's mom
brought Euri to the church
00:05:48
for, like, a family
day, she just kind of got an interest for this guy. Oh, when she met Euri
for the first time,
00:05:57
she was very
impressed right away. Being raised up in the church
was something that she really,
00:06:03
really liked about him. And that he was raised right
because of the practices of the Bible.
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You probably feel
pretty good when you're child meets someone
else at church that you're going to
have some like values
00:06:17
and share some
same beliefs with. Yeah, she was a
very caring person. And when one didn't
have, she gave.
00:06:26
All her life, she
wanted her a family. She wanted a husband,
she wanted to be married,
00:06:34
have children, and a big house. The night I found out
that Makeva was murdered, a cousin of mine came
knocking on the door.
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They say, Ques,
get your clothes. Something had happened. I had no idea it would
have been Makeva.
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Because who would want
to shoot her in the head? [somber music] [siren wailing] So at the scene at the time
that officers first arrived,
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Makeva's husband, Euri
Jenkins, was there. Who was hosting a couple
people at the house.
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You had Dametri, his friend; and
you had Quay, Makeva's brother. MIKE STOUT: And then you had her
children, her small children,
00:07:37
also at the residence. So once the scene
calms down, detectives then try to ascertain what
happened with the people there.
00:07:47
And they interviewed
the individuals who were in the house. On that day, it was just
like, you know, regular friends
00:07:54
coming over to
hang out with Euri. Everybody's just sitting
around talking trash.
00:07:59
And Dametri was there too. Dametri and Euri, they were
really good friends together.
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They was musical members
in the church together. And for as long as
I knew Euri, I was
00:08:11
just as long as I knew Dametri. So him, Dametri, and
Joevan was there. We ended up playing basketball.
00:08:19
And then going on
to that afternoon, they had ended up leaving. BUTCH DELGADO: Makeva had
gone to bed at around 9:00 PM.
00:08:28
And that around 2:00
AM, Euri, her husband, had been insistent on giving
her brother Quay a haircut.
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And put Quay in the barber's
chair inside the garage to start cutting his hair. MIKE STOUT: So while
they were in the garage,
00:08:42
about halfway
through the haircut, suddenly a masked
gunman appeared. So the shooter comes in
yelling, where's the money?
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Where's the money? QUAY GREER: He was just shouting
like, oh, don't play with me.
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I'm not here to play
no games with you guys, or don't be moving like that. And ordered them
onto the ground.
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He snatched the
barber cape off me and throw me on the floor. The gunman was
carrying a revolver,
00:09:08
which later described as a
Smith and Wesson 0.38 Special. You know, he's here to take
something, something valuable.
00:09:18
MIKE STOUT: Once the gunman
has control of the three men in the garage,
he now directs
00:09:23
that they're all going
to upstairs where our victim, Makeva, is asleep. So, Makeva is a mother
of three young children.
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QUAY GREER: Dametri ends up
asking the gunman can he take the children out of the house.
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Well, can he get the kids
from out of the room. Dametri Dale is
ordered by the gunman
00:09:44
to grab the young
children and take them downstairs, which he does. Well, Dametri going,
yeah, I'm like, OK, yeah,
00:09:52
we should be a little
bit better now, but it should be
a little bit safer now since Dametri
has gone outside
00:09:57
and possibly gotten help. After the shooter then
has Euri and Quay lay down on the floor upstairs, he
then enters the bedroom
00:10:10
and they hear a shot. [gunshot] And then see him flee
out and down the stairs and out into the night.
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[ominous music] BUTCH DELGADO: One thing
that detectives will do is they'll do a
neighborhood search.
00:10:30
They interview the neighbors
to see what they've heard, what they've seen. They look at
neighborhood cameras.
00:10:35
A lot of people have these
ring doorbell cameras now. And you have to dig through
all of this evidence and kind
00:10:40
of watch hours of
video, you know, within a few block radius to
see if you can put together
00:10:45
a car that didn't belong,
or a car that comes one way and doesn't come
back out another way.
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There's so many things
that you can find. It takes time, and it
takes a lot of man hours
00:10:57
to go through
evidence like that. So once the search warrants
been signed, entering the house
00:11:06
right with the
detectives is going to be a member of
the Crime Scene Unit or a CSI investigator that
is going to be meticulously
00:11:17
photographing every step
that the investigators are going to take. In this case, they did find
different blood patterns.
00:11:24
They found significant
amount of blood, which would be very common where
someone's been shot in the head.
00:11:30
That does produce a graphically
large amount of blood loss. More importantly, I would
say, is what they don't find.
00:11:39
[ominous music] You know, presumably,
with a home invasion, usually there's a
financial want in that.
00:11:54
So generally, things are
taken, whether that's money, you know, appliances,
electronics.
00:12:01
Nothing apparently is
missing from the residence. There either a domestic
issue or it's a drug-related
00:12:07
home invasion. However, there's never a
search for money at that time. As much as you
don't want to, you
00:12:14
almost have to start thinking-- is there more to this
story that's happening? So when the shooter had first
burst in waving a gun around,
00:12:22
yelling, where's the
money, where's the money, everybody down on the ground. But then after that initial
introduction, if you will,
00:12:29
money doesn't seem to
come back up again. Now it becomes a directed
movement towards the bedroom
00:12:36
where our victim is sleeping. The actions of the shooter
seem to be focused on going
00:12:46
upstairs into Makeva's room. [ominous music] At this point,
investigators in a case
00:12:56
will start often sending
out other search warrants as well on everything from
phones to internet searches,
00:13:04
trying to better develop motive. And part of that early on, what
they developed in this homicide
00:13:14
investigation was that the very
night that Mrs. Jenkins had been murdered, she had sort of
bragged about her journey
00:13:24
on social media. Makeva was well on her way
to becoming a millionaire. [explosion]
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And so when she
was murdered, there were some who thought perhaps it
was someone on the internet who
00:13:47
had done this
because of jealousy, or because they wanted
to take what Makeva had.
00:13:52
And she would show off her
success online and say, look how well I'm doing, look
at all the money I'm making,
00:13:58
look at the jewelry I can buy. When I say she achieved
the American dream and she went on and was on her
way to be a millionaire herself,
00:14:08
that was exactly who Makeva was. So we have to figure
out a way and make sure that nothing from her post
is leading up to the killer.
00:14:19
So, as detailed
as it is, you have to put a team of detectives,
a team of officers on those
00:14:25
to look into the
history of the people that are following the page. Look at who's posting,
kind of do some background
00:14:30
on some of the people
that are posting just to make sure that we don't miss
something in that post, right.
00:14:39
It was a post that she
innocently puts up. That's because of her hard
work and she's proud of it.
00:14:43
We want to make sure that
the person that's posting isn't convicted,
you know, robbery.
00:14:49
Or, is there a person that's
linked to somebody else that is a serial, you know, convict.
00:14:57
He's somebody who just
got released from prison. It's a very sad story
that anybody would
00:15:05
value money over human life. Those are the things
that you have to vet out. And it's a very tedious,
tedious process.
00:15:12
[ominous music] So some of the
challenges in this case, forensically, was the
shooter has a mask on.
00:15:28
He's masked up, so seeing facial
features is very difficult. He has gloves on, so he's
not leaving DNA evidence.
00:15:35
He's not cutting himself
and leaving blood behind. So there's none of that. And the gun that he used
doesn't leave a projectile
00:15:46
after the bullet is shot because
he was using a revolver, which does not project the casing.
00:15:52
That's a difficult
case for detectives. And so you've got to really
start digging into interviews
00:15:58
and really peeling back
the onion a little bit to try to find
that one thing that
00:16:04
will lead you in
the right direction as to who the shooter is. DAVID ARONBERG: It was
an unbelievable situation
00:16:11
because you had someone
coming into the house at 2:00 in the morning wearing
a mask, with a gun,
00:16:18
and yet didn't steal anything. They march up the stairs. And you had one of
the individuals,
00:16:26
Dametri, who asked if
he could take the child, who was upstairs, downstairs. And the home invader says, yes.
00:16:36
And so then you have
Dametri downstairs, all alone with a
child, seemingly just waiting for the
incident to resolve itself--
00:16:47
not calling police,
not trying to run away, not trying to do anything to
help the people in the house.
00:16:56
At this point, me
and Euri are upstairs. He ends up grabbing me, putting
a gun to my head and saying,
00:17:01
oh, you think this is a game. I'm not here to play with you. You're going to show
me where the money at.
00:17:08
You know, just stuff like that. And once he did that, he
threw me to the side of Euri,
00:17:14
on Euri's side, and told both
of us to get down on the ground. So, at this point, I'm really
like, OK, Euri, man, we
00:17:23
gotta stop this dude somehow. Either you get him or I get him,
but we both gotta get this man.
00:17:30
He just started telling
me, oh, I'm scared. I don't want to do that. I mean, I probably
could take a bullet,
00:17:37
but you probably could
take a bullet more than me. Quay is saying, we
need to do something.
00:17:42
And Euri's like, no, no, no,
let's not doing anything. We don't want to get hurt.
00:17:47
And then they heard
gunshots from the room where Makeva was sleeping. He came in there and shot.
00:17:59
How did he know
what room to go to? Dang, gun go off,
and just paused. Like, I can't believe
what I just heard.
00:18:10
And then the home invader
took off, ran down the stairs, and took the keys to the
Dodge Charger from Dametri.
00:18:21
That was his car. Sprints out the house
into the car and drove off. It was all very bizarre.
00:18:29
And right after that, me and
Euri ran into Makeva's room and, you know, was just
a really bad scene, man.
00:18:38
It was a cloud of
gunpowder above her and it was a hole under her
ear about the size of a nickel.
00:18:51
And we had no idea at
that point that, you know, it was really bad and probably
gets worse from there.
00:19:01
So, what's the
motive to go and shoot someone who was loved by all? Makeva didn't have
any known enemies.
00:19:08
And so everyone was just
wondering what just went on, what happened? Especially when you
had some weird things
00:19:14
happen, like Euri not wanting
to confront the killer. They're both forced
on the ground,
00:19:19
telling Quay to
stay down, where you had Dametri downstairs
with the children just
00:19:24
hanging out by himself. It seemed kind of suspicious. [ominous music] The autopsy did
show that Makeva
00:19:37
had died from a
single bullet wound to the head that had
entered, I believe, somewhere around the right eye.
00:19:44
And then it had traveled
through her brain. The probably more surprising
thing that the autopsy revealed
00:19:56
was that Makeva was
pregnant with what would have been a fourth child
to the Jenkins' household.
00:20:02
Discovery of her pregnancy
was surprising because when her husband, Euri Jenkins,
was interviewed by detectives,
00:20:11
he, in fact, was aware
that she was pregnant. But had, at no
point, up until then
00:20:17
mentioned that to detectives
as far as they were concerned. And that's not something you
would hear and not immediately
00:20:24
be taken aback by the fact
that really, in all reality, you're working a double
homicide at this point.
00:20:33
[ominous music] As I'm getting my thoughts
back and remembering everything that I heard and seen, I started
thinking and remembering,
00:20:50
you know, what was going
on and what was happening. And one of the things
that I remembered
00:20:57
was that, hey, the
same voice that I heard earlier that morning
with Dametri and Joevan
00:21:05
when they were there. I kind of heard that same
exact voice when the gunman walked into the house.
00:21:14
So you have Marquavious Greer,
Quay, the victim's brother. He is pointing out that the
shooter's voice sounded familiar
00:21:27
as a friend of Dametri,
Joevan Joseph, who had been over earlier in the day. Quay is telling law
enforcement that this
00:21:37
isn't sitting right with him. That's a pretty big clue when,
in the middle of all that chaos,
00:21:43
he's able to recognize
the voice as somebody that he's heard before. And, you know, the
detective, he looked into that.
00:21:52
And, you know, I'm just,
at this point, trying to give him any type
of help or advice
00:21:57
that he needs to
solve this case. [ominous music] The family has shared with
investigators, when it came
00:22:11
to Euri and Makeva,
that the relationship was certainly at a rocky point. She was also aware
of his infidelities
00:22:22
during the course
of their marriage. Makeva gave Euri
chance after chance. He hit her pretty
hard, you know.
00:22:29
It got physical. The fights had got bad. I came over one day and Makeva
was, you know, in the closet
00:22:37
crying. At this point, Euri,
he had left the house. She was just like, oh, I don't
know what I'm going to do.
00:22:48
What should I do, Quay? And I told her, like, hey,
whatever you decide to do, I'm with you.
00:22:55
Like, if you gotta
go, then he gotta go. So the one piece of evidence
that was obtained that night,
00:23:04
that is a step in the right
direction of finding who it was, was Quay was able to tell us
that shortly after the suspect
00:23:15
left the house, that he saw a
white Charger leaving the scene. So one of the big
breaks in the case
00:23:18
is when detectives
are able to locate the white Charger within a
few blocks of Makeva's house.
00:23:25
It's abandoned. [ominous music] Law enforcement started
getting some really good
00:23:37
video out of the
neighborhood that showed a white Dodge Charger. The time that it was
arriving and then leaving
00:23:46
worked with the time that
the shooter had entered the residence and the
time that the shooter
00:23:51
would have fled the residence. And many of the more
affluent neighborhoods, very common now for people to
have home security systems.
00:23:59
Law enforcement was able to
link together these videos and really show a continuous
flight of this vehicle.
00:24:07
They were able to track the
movement of this car out of the neighborhood,
down a couple
00:24:12
of streets, until they were able
to find it abandoned nearby. When they get to the car and
they realize the car potentially
00:24:23
is the car that's
involved in the homicide, inside the car is a receipt. That receipt is to a local
restaurant that is time stamped
00:24:31
the day of the homicide. So when you go
look at that store and pull the video
from that store,
00:24:38
then there's a telling piece
of video that happens there where we actually see Dametri
on video with some other man
00:24:47
that we didn't
identify at the time. [ominous music] So one thing that happened
shortly after the murder,
00:24:57
and prior to even burying
Makeva and having her funeral, a news reporter had
interviewed Euri.
00:25:06
And it comes off
a little peculiar. His emotions seem to not really
be in what we would expect
00:25:16
to see from someone that,
not only has lost their wife, but they themselves
theoretically were
00:25:21
a victim of a home invasion,
witnessed, or at least heard a shooting that
resulted in the death
00:25:28
of a very close loved one. It's important to
watch those, right? You pick up on cues, you
pick up on body language,
00:25:34
you pick up on certain
things that kind of helps in the investigation. So one thing that he did that,
you know, you would find as odd
00:25:43
is he went to a
strip club shortly after the murder of his
wife, the mother of his kids.
00:25:50
You know, that just
doesn't add up. [ominous music] A press conference has held.
00:26:07
And the police departments
present at this press conference pleading to the community
about getting some
00:26:12
to help solve Makeva's murder. And he had, I think,
a $5,000 reward for it. This is a small
town where everybody
00:26:29
practically knows everybody. Part of Makeva's family
is at that press conference
00:26:36
with law enforcement. Her mother, her grandmother,
her brother Quay is there. Missing from that
press conference
00:26:43
is Euri Jenkins, her husband. Euri, that's what really
shocked me the most about it.
00:26:53
I was like, come on, man,
that's kind of like weak. We find out that Euri probably
wasn't the God-loving person
00:27:04
that she thought she
met that New Year's day celebration at church. He had already
cheated on her once.
00:27:11
Euri ended up having another
child out of his marriage. And, you know, that just
broke Makeva down to the point
00:27:21
that she didn't want any
dealings with the child. You know, he ended up
basically cheating on her.
00:27:28
[ominous music] It's not unusual
for law enforcement to attend the funeral
of a murder victim
00:27:43
from a couple of
different avenues. Homicide detectives by now are
meeting with family every day,
00:27:51
and you're part of
their grieving process. But you're always
still a police officer.
00:27:57
So when you're in
these environments, you know, they are
picking up on different--
00:28:03
whether those be verbal
or physical clues-- what people are saying as
they're sitting in front of you,
00:28:12
how different people are acting. Euri was sitting
there at that funeral like he's be glad when
it's all over with.
00:28:22
Didn't shed one tear. So now investigators begin
to paint Euri into a corner. We start asking about you his,
you know, infidelities come up,
00:28:39
which he begins to talk
about with the detectives in this case. You know, his finances
would have come up.
00:28:45
And, you know, how are
you sitting financially? How is the income of
the house broken up?
00:28:51
Who pays for what? That's all going to come
up in these interviews. And what detectives are coming
away with through these repeated
00:28:59
interviews with Euri is, again,
just not the grieving nature that you would expect out
of a husband who's just
00:29:07
lost his wife and the
mother to his children. When phone records are
requested from the carriers,
00:29:15
law enforcement gets back
a lot of information that then has to be sorted through.
00:29:22
When it came to
Dametri's phone, they start seeing this number that
had been called repetitively
00:29:29
on the day of the homicide. Come to find out, he had
multiple calls to Joevan the day
00:29:35
and the night of the murder. MIKE STOUT: So in the fifth
interview of Dametri Dale
00:29:41
is when the detective
really puts all, or a lot, of the cards on the table. He starts to show
Dametri, we're building
00:29:51
a case of murder against you. And you have probably just
one final opportunity here
00:30:01
to tell us who was really
responsible for pulling the trigger that
night, or else you
00:30:06
may be the one riding down the
tracks with all of the baggage of this homicide. One thing that took place
during this investigation
00:30:15
was Dametri was having a lot
of conversations with Euri. And I think Dametri
realized it was unraveling.
00:30:23
He decided to record his
and Euri's phone calls. Those phone calls are telling
because Euri is basically
00:30:30
telling them, hey,
everybody just needs to keep their
stories straight and nothing's going to happen.
00:30:36
Well, Dametri saw that the
walls were closing in on them with the video, with the
discovery of the Dodge Charger,
00:30:42
with the explanation that Euri
gave not making any sense. And so now the focus
was on Dametri Dale,
00:30:51
and he decided to come clean. He wanted to be the first one
to start telling the truth,
00:31:00
because he knew that the first
one in is the first one to win. So what Dametri Dale then
tells detectives is that his
00:31:10
good friend from years and
years, his church-going buddy, Euri Jenkins, has
come to him with
00:31:17
a plot to murder Makeva Jenkins
and needs his help with it. When it comes to
defendants, the first one
00:31:25
to cop a plea usually
gets the best plea, especially when there's
someone more culpable than you,
00:31:30
above you. And that person was
Makeva's husband. Dametri Dale not only
told investigators
00:31:37
that it was Euri who
set this whole thing up, but also had audio
recordings, phone
00:31:45
recordings of Euri
on the phone where Euri was very incriminating. Of course, Dametri wasn't
fully candid right away.
00:31:56
He didn't give up the name
of the shooter right away. Eventually, they got all
the information out of him.
00:32:02
And that led him
to Joevan Joseph. [ominous music] They came to know that the
second man at the restaurant
00:32:18
that had been captured on
the closed circuit television was Joevan Joseph. Joevan Joseph is a friend or
associate of Dametri Dales, who
00:32:33
is, I believe, 16 years old
at the time of the offense, with no real remarkable criminal
history up until the point
00:32:43
that he is tapped to be
the gunman in this murder. My first time meeting
Joevan was on the day
00:32:52
that he came and got a haircut,
on the same day of June 29. He ended up going inside
the house with Euri.
00:33:00
And Dametri was there, too. So him, Dametri, and
Joevan was there. It seemed as if that when I went
over to talk, it just got quiet
00:33:10
and they weren't
really talking as much. Yeah, I didn't know what
was going on at that point.
00:33:14
I never would have thought
half of the stuff I think now about what happened. MIKE STOUT: So after Dametri
began telling the truth
00:33:27
and cooperating with detectives
and really connecting the dots of the investigation, the
story he told was that he was
00:33:34
a middleman between Euri
Jenkins and Joevan Joseph, and that Joevan had been
promised $20,000 if he carried
00:33:44
out the murder of Makeva. He didn't even know her. He killed her. Didn't even know Makeva.
00:33:54
Senseless. It was a senseless act. And $10,000
dollars for Dametri from Euri at the completion
of this homicide.
00:34:09
DAVID ARONBERG: This
all took place quickly. They met at a sporting event. Joevan and Euri was
introduced by Dametri.
00:34:16
And this whole thing was
planned pretty quickly. And that's why they kept
making all these mistakes.
00:34:20
So, obviously, at that
point, law enforcement now feels certain they're
on the right track
00:34:27
and can now start to build this
case around the actual motive of this murder, as
opposed to the home
00:34:35
invasion robbery motive. [ominous music] There comes a
point where you do have to have some tough
conversations with people,
00:34:52
like the husband of
somebody who's dead. Some things start to
unfold for the investigators
00:35:00
in this case. One of those being Makeva does
have a life insurance policy for a half million dollars,
for $500,000, which Euri,
00:35:13
at some point, attempts to
access through the insurance company, only to then
learn that he was not
00:35:21
the beneficiary of her policy. None of it was in his name. And when the detective
was interviewing him
00:35:32
about the insurance policy, and
after he realized none of it was in his name, his
whole demeanor changed.
00:35:42
And you can tell by the way he
spoke to the insurance company, when he called up
right afterwards
00:35:48
trying to get the money. MIKE STOUT: At which point
he makes the statement, I guess she didn't get
that changed in time.
00:35:58
I think that probably was a
very turning moment for law enforcement in, now,
another motive is suddenly
00:36:06
coming into play very clearly. When He was told that he was not
the beneficiary of Makeva's life
00:36:12
insurance policy,
he said, oh, I guess she didn't change it in time. In time for what?
00:36:20
So that was pretty incriminating
and showed that there was something in the works.
00:36:25
Also, the fact that he
was trying to get money right away, right
after she was murdered,
00:36:32
I guess people grieve
in different ways, but it seemed like he was
more about the money than
00:36:37
about trying to make
sure that the person responsible for his
wife's murder was caught.
00:36:43
Joevan Joseph, who was the
gunman, he was charged first. You want to get the person
who's a violent criminal who
00:36:49
committed the murder in
custody, and they did. So once the walls
started closing in
00:36:55
on Joevan and Dametri,
they both wanted to get out in front of it. They wanted to save
themselves, so they
00:37:02
both agreed to cooperate. And they began talking. And they kept pointing
the finger at Euri
00:37:07
as the one who was
pulling the strings, as the one who is doing
this because he paid them.
00:37:11
But Sometimes it's law
enforcement and prosecutors, you have to make a
deal with the devil
00:37:16
to get to the most
culpable person. And so deals were made
with Dametri and Joevan
00:37:21
so they can get
to the person who planned this, who paid for it. And that was Euri Jenkins.
00:37:30
You know, the motivations in
a case like this are hard for, I think, a normal person
to wrap your mind around.
00:37:38
You know, Euri Jenkins obviously
wanted to be free of his wife. She was really in the
process of divorcing him.
00:37:47
The motive was financial. It was a jilted spouse
who no longer want to be married to
his wife, who is
00:37:56
trying to get insurance
proceeds that he thought he was entitled to. They gathered up
all the evidence,
00:38:04
and everything was
pointing right at him. So while Joevan Joseph is the
one that pulled the trigger,
00:38:14
it was not an idea or a
scheme that he hatched that led down that
road to the unfortunate
00:38:21
demise of Makeva Jenkins. And I think taking age
into it and his cooperation once he was arrested,
was eventually charged
00:38:31
with second degree murder. It was Euri Jenkins that decided
that he wanted his wife dead.
00:38:41
He was willing to
take further steps by offering a substantial
amount of money to a young man
00:38:48
to bring a gun to his residence,
fake a robbery/home invasion, and then murder his wife
while she slept in her bed.
00:38:59
Dametri Dale was
eventually charged with manslaughter due to his
cooperation in this crime.
00:39:11
And then Euri Jenkins, the
husband and the mastermind behind this scheme
to kill Makeva,
00:39:19
was charged with
first degree murder. REPORTER 1: Euri, did
you kill your wife? No, I didn't.
00:39:32
REPORTER 1: You said
you were innocent. I am innocent. REPORTER 1: Then what happened?
00:39:36
God will vindicate me. REPORTER 2: What do you have
to say about this, Euri? This is [bleep].
00:39:40
God will vindicate me. REPORTER 2: You say
you're innocent. Innocent?
Yes, I am.
00:39:49
It was a senseless act. And that's what me
and my family have to deal with every single day.
00:39:58
I think about it. So much pain. [somber music] It was just a messy murder. So the trial definitely was
not without its struggles.
00:40:31
We had one mistrial because
the mother yelled something out during jury selection.
00:40:37
And I didn't know what jury
until I looked at the badge. I say, no, he
killed my daughter.
00:40:43
So they had me escorted out. They had to pick another
date and a whole other jury.
00:40:52
And you could have had a
second mistrial because you had Quay, Makeva's brother, who
tried to attack Euri before Quay
00:40:59
could take the stand. During the trial, I was very
upset, mad, livid about it because I really just wanted
to get my hands on Euri
00:41:09
before the prison got him. But the judge kept moving
on, and I'm glad that he did.
00:41:15
That was per agreement
of the parties too that they decided they
could keep moving on.
00:41:20
You had the other
two participants in this conspiracy
testifying against Euri, and that's pretty powerful.
00:41:26
Testifying under oath that
the reason why they did this was because they were
being paid by Euri.
00:41:32
And that made a lot of sense. When you're dealing with juries,
it is an easy explanation,
00:41:39
an easy thing for juries to
understand when you're talking about a domestic situation.
00:41:43
Plus, you heard
Euri's own words. Although Euri didn't
take the stand, you heard him on
the recorded phone
00:41:50
calls made by his
then-friend Dametri and the insurance company. But the jurors always
want to know the why.
00:41:59
They always want to
know why someone did it, to understand
themselves and hear the why was easy to understand.
00:42:05
Here was a guy who didn't
want to be married anymore, who wanted money, and he thought
he could solve all his problems
00:42:09
by murdering his
wife and collecting the insurance proceeds. It is an explanation that
anyone can understand.
00:42:17
That just shows you
his cold-heartedness. He had a wife that was
sleeping, carrying his child.
00:42:27
And at no point during
that home invasion did he try to stop that, you
know, Joevan from doing
00:42:33
the actual act of killing her. [gunshot] He let Joevan pull
the trigger and never
00:42:39
once tried to intervene. There's only one
explanation here. It was a hired
hit by the guy who
00:42:48
fell out of love with his wife. [ominous music] Dametri Dale was found
guilty of manslaughter
00:43:09
and was sentenced to time served
plus a lengthy probation period. I believe he had
done 45 days in jail.
00:43:17
So not a lengthy sentence
for him, but probably mostly because he
was the first one
00:43:23
to cooperate with law
enforcement and, you know, spill out this harrowing
tale of murder.
00:43:31
Joevan pled guilty to
second degree murder, and he's serving
a 15-year sentence in prison for his cooperation
in the murder of Makeva.
00:43:45
Euri Jenkins was convicted
of murder in the first degree and was sentenced
to life in prison
00:43:51
without the
possibility of parole. We was really hoping
for the death penalty due to the fact that Makeva
was pregnant with another child
00:44:04
and that she was
murdered in cold blood. Euri, I believe, continues to
this day to deny his involvement
00:44:13
in the murder of his wife. Euri will forever be
known as a murderer. No matter how much he
complains about it,
00:44:24
no matter how much he wants
to lie and say he was framed. He'll never be able to wash
that scarlet letter away.
00:44:31
This case with all
murders, incredibly sad, incredibly tragic. It's almost a
rags-to-riches story
00:44:38
of a young lady in her mid-30s. Really struck down at
the height of her success after pulling herself up by her
bootstraps, as we might say.
00:44:50
BUTCH DELGADO: She has
all of these dynamics that you think are the perfect
thing that's happening.
00:44:55
It was very successful. Wanted to start a
family, had nice house, income that's coming in.
00:45:02
And it's just a tragic story
that in a matter of a couple of days, somebody can
come up with a thing that
00:45:10
just totally destroys that. It was just
really heartbreaking because how could you, you
know, betray somebody who
00:45:21
had nothing but love for you. It was just a
messy, selfish murder. And that's something we're
going to have to live with.
00:45:32
And Makeva's children,
my grandchildren, is going to be without
a mother and a father.
00:45:39
And I figured they'd just let
him off easy because he eat, sleep-- and all that for free
of the taxpayer's money.
00:45:49
But God will take care
of that in his own way. [somber music] [theme music]