This was a breakthrough! Immediately, Greg packed his bags, applied for permit, and travelled to Malaysia during Covid lockdown.
If you have lived in Penang, you have probably seen this poster.
Meet Anna Jenkins, a Malaysian-born Australian who returned to visit her 101-year-old mother in December 2017 but, unfortunately, couldn’t make it because she died on the way to visit her mom.
The family reported it to the police, but they were disregarded. Now, a missing person or someone dying is not a rare case for the Malaysian police, but the family was left with no other options but to solve it themselves – the mystery of the death of their mother.
Before we get into more details, here’s what happened on that day.
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On December 13, Anna went to a 3 pm dentist appointment.
At 4:45 pm, the receptionist called her an Uber to visit her mom at a nursing home.
At 5:30 pm, Frank, her husband, got a call from his wife saying she is being followed by ‘two Ukrainians who are after her passport’. There were no details regarding that matter but…
Anna never arrived at her mother’s nursing home. Nor did she go back to her hotel. This means she was last seen at 4:45 pm at the dental clinic.
The next day, police are alerted as the missing person is filed. However, this was regarded as a family issue, not a police issue.
Greg Jenkins, Anna’s son, arrives in Penang to help search for his mother. He alerted police to 6 CCTVs near where she was last seen. The police did not check any of them.
After 7 days, on Christmas eve, the police told the family that the Uber driver had given a statement which they ‘consider to be a true fact’ without any corroborating evidence.
Malaysian police came up with theories of her disappearance, including:
- She had walked into the jungle and was ‘just hanging out there’ living off bananas and mangos
- She was running away from domestic violence at the hands of her husband and son and was in hiding after seeing the flyers looking for her
- The 65-year-old grandmother had suddenly taken up hiking in the jungle
- She had the right to disappear and the right not to be found
- She was confused by the effect of an anaesthetic from the dentist (she had not been anaesthetised)
- She was running out on her dentist bill (she’d used the same dentist for 16 years and hadn’t been billed)
- She was involved in the international drug trade
As ridiculous as it sounds, these theories were backed by things found in Anna’s room before she left, such as a shirt that printed the words ESCAPE, Anna’s diary writing she ‘could not afford to return to Australia.
Fast forward to January 2018, Greg set meetings with the police, but they did not attend any of them. Also, all CCTV footage and possible sightings of Anna were no longer available as they expire in 3-6 weeks.
Greg thought, the search has to go on. What you need to know is that Greg is an Australian Defence Force serviceman. With the help of his military veteran mate and tips from police who specialize in missing persons, he interviewed more than 1000 people and made over 10 thousand posters and flyers which he personally handed across Malaysia.
Now, Malaysia is not a country where you can easily strike up a conversation with strangers. During the hunt, Greg was chased by a Chinese gang and even crawled through sewers.
Random people came forward to claim with some kind of evidence. I mean, it’s 20 thousand Ringgit extra in your bank, who wouldn’t want that?
Despite all this, Greg did not stop searching high and low. One day he received this message.
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Following Anna Jenkin’s disappearance in Malaysia, her son, Greg, started the search on his own because the police had given up interest in this case.
After putting up posters and fliers, (June 25, 2020) for more than 900 days / 3years / over 30 months since the disappearance, Greg receives a whatsApp message from a construction worker stating that he’d seen his mother’s dentist’s appointment card among possessions and bones dumped at a building site.
To further confirm, Greg was shown with pictures of items from her bag, including her cross and asthma inhaler, and a coccyx bone.
This was a breakthrough! Immediately, Greg packed his bags, applied for permit, and travelled to Malaysia during Covid lockdown.
At this point, the worker had already handed these possessions to the police. In case you think further actions were taken, the lead police investigator coincidentally was on leave for 2 weeks. However, the police claimed that their investigation had not stopped.
When Greg went to the site with the police, he found his mother’s vertebrae and other possessions. Why hadn’t the police seen it? Because they had been searching in the area next to it.
Here are some critical questions:
- Where exactly is this spot where the bones and possessions were found?
- Why were they there?
- Did Anna really go to take a stroll in the forest and somehow just die?
According to sources, the bones were found at a development site by Berjaya Development called Kensington Gardens. Anyone living in Malaysia long enough would have seen, if not heard of the brand ‘Berjaya’. The multi-billion-ringgit corporation has ventures in gaming, lottery management, property, motor trading, and so on.Due to its extensive network connections and businesses both within and outside the country, we are talking about a company that is easily supported by higher authorities. The very high-valued land is ready to build luxury bungalows up to over 9634 square feet.
Back to the case, Anna’s remains were passed to the police for forensic investigation.
Two years later, the remains were returned to Greg…
…in a cardboard box filled with bags of bones. If you were the police, how would you suggest returning the remains?
Anyway, the story did not end here.
October 18, 2022 – The court has a hearing for the inquest of Anna Jenkins, who went missing and was found 3 years later by his son, Greg. If you have been following the previous parts of this story, it was full of police incompetence and Greg was mostly doing all the work.
Meanwhile in a local press conference, the Malaysian police said that they have done all the due responsibility that is supposed to be carried out, just like how they treat the other cases. The police had also given all the claims and statements to the Australians, who were satisfied with it.
This time in the court, Greg stormed out as he was furious with all this. After all the years making trips from and back to Australia on his own expenses, nothing much has been done. To make things worse, the 5-day inquest comes with slight changes – delaying the proceeding for other urgent matters.
The proceedings were delayed, again and again.
Finally, 8 months later (May 12, 2023), coroner Norsalha Hamzah said the lengthy inquest failed to establish a conclusive outcome to the case, leaving her to reach such a decision.
While the family hopes for an re-investigation, the inquest was closed over the death of Australian mother Anna Jenkins.
Back in Australia, the forensic lab has found that Anna had likely died after being struck on the head. Ellie Simpson reported that there were “apparent perimortem trauma to the cranium, left lower leg and one finger (unsided proximal phalanx)”. A crucial discovery that the Malaysian forensic did not find identified in the report. This leads to the family’s suspicion that the mother has been murdered and the Malaysia authorities are trying to make it go away.
As of the latest news (17 Aug 2023), The family is pursuing two grounds of civil action. The first is to overturn a previous open verdict rendered by the coroner’s court which sat in Penang.
In the second, they are also alleging criminal negligence against Malaysian police, a developer, and several other individuals with regard to the dubious circumstances over her death.
But whether this will be entertained by the Malaysian authorities, we shall see.
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