This is a narrative fifty years in the making. I’ve wanted to share my thoughts on the death of Missouri State Highway Patrolman Jesse Roger Jenkins for many years, but the subject was just too painful to write about. It has now been five decades since Jesse was gunned down in a shootout in the Montgomery City, MO courthouse. When he died on October 14, 1969 Jesse was only 29 years old.  I was only 11.

Articles from a variety of journalists have appeared throughout the years giving an account of the details of the tragedy that day in my small hometown of Montgomery City.  The most thorough write-up is in an article by the Missouri State Highway Patrol itself.

Though the highway patrol article mentioned I was taking care of Jesse’s two children that evening in 1969, the account does not give a detailed perspective from my point of view as the young babysitter who was really still a child myself.  It’s important to me to share that perspective after all these years.

Jesse and a burglary suspect both died in an exchange of gunfire in the Montgomery County Courthouse late in the afternoon on October 14^th, 1969. Details of the shooting are described in the highway patrol article. In summary, there were two suspects who had just made their first appearance in magistrate court for a burglary of a radio and television shop in town.  While in the sheriff’s office one suspect, who wasn’t handcuffed at the moment, grabbed the sheriff’s gun when the sheriff turned to take a phone call and began shooting.  Trooper Jenkins returned fire. Both died at the courthouse. Jesse’s quick action saved the lives of all the other law enforcement officials in the room that day. That makes him a hero. Jesse had only been on the patrol for less than two years.  Again, the details of who the suspects were and what exactly happened are not why I decided to write this account.  I want to talk about the man who became a hero that day to so many, especially to me.

 In the 50 years since that tragic day I have continued to grieve the loss of such an incredible young man who was a friend of our family and a fellow officer of my father who served with Jesse as a highway patrolman in that small town of less than 3,000 people. My father, the late Sterling L. Green, helped train Jesse on the job once Jesse completed his training at the highway patrol academy.  My dad also adopted Jesse as part of our family as he waited for his wife Jan and his two boys, Jeff and Bruce, to arrive at their home in Montgomery City.

We spent hours playing music together in our small living room.  My dad and two older brothers all played guitar.  My dad had a reel to reel tape recorder and captured us on tape singing and playing. 

I particularly remember hearing Jesse singing gospel songs. I have since learned Jesse grew up singing in his church choir as a young man. My brother Sterling specifically remembers how Jesse liked to sing the Buck Owens song, “The Race Is On.” He also remembers him helping our dad coach 3^rd base in the summer when my brothers were playing baseball.  He has a funny recollection of Jesse leaving his sunglasses on at an evening game after the sun went down and wondered why it was getting so dark. 

Jesse also attended one of my brother’s basketball games in Troy, MO when the court was still on a stage before the school got its new gym.  He also recalls getting advice from Jesse on how to shoot a basketball with both hands so that he could be flexible when it came to scoring, depending on how the defense was playing him or trying to block his shot.  I’d like to think Jesse was smiling in heaven when he saw how his basketball advice helped my two older brothers as they and the rest of the varsity team at Montgomery County R-II High School went on to win the Class M State Championship just a few years later in 1972. Those were fun times for all of us.

I remember a special law enforcement family cookout by a lake near Mineola Hill outside of Montgomery City.  I remember it because they cooked frog legs, something I had never eaten before.  My brothers and I spent time in the lake with Jesse having a moss flinging battle.  I can still hear his laugh when he got in a good throw at my brothers.  It’s a silly memory, but always makes me smile…and what a smile Jesse had.

Jesse’s wife Jan had been studying nursing in southern Missouri when Jesse was stationed in Montgomery City. When she and young sons Jeff and Bruce finally joined Jesse my parents often invited them over to play cards or games like “Jart” in the back yard. I recall one such night playing “Jart” just before Jesse died.  I found his sunglasses hanging on our clothes line a couple of days later and took them to my mom, the late Mary (Green) Stratman.  I remember she was very sad and it was then that she pulled out the patrol shirt Jesse had been wearing the day he was shot.  She showed me the hole in the shirt where the bullet had gone through to his chest and pointed out how there had only been a small fifty-cent-piece-sized blood stain around the bullet hole.  She was going to try and wash the blood out of the shirt. At only 11 years old that image has remained with me.  I had never seen anything like this before and the sadness on my mother’s face was something I will never erase from my mind.

My father Sterling, or Leon as many called him, was a pretty stoic character.  He spent nearly four decades as a highway patrolman in Missouri.  Later in life I learned that he had worked nearly 400 fatality accidents in his career while working the road.  That statistic did not even include the other injury accidents he had worked along Interstate 70 and other highways.  He didn’t talk about his work with his five kids. It took until I was a parent myself that I fully appreciated the horrible things he must have seen.  That being said, it was only in July of this year (2019) that my brother shared with me a handwritten narrative he had found that my dad had written about the day of Jesse’s death. A page seems to be missing.  I don’t know if he wrote this for himself or to give to the highway patrol at the time, but it’s the first time I actually learned how my father felt about that horrible day.

I believe my dad never got over Jesse’s death. Maybe he felt guilty that he wasn’t there when the shooting took place.  He had just gotten home from his shift which ended at 4 p.m.  Jesse’s shift had just begun. I clearly remember my dad was putting his uniform away when the phone call came in to our home from Sheriff Clarence Landrum saying Jesse had been shot and was dead.

My father raced back to the courthouse. I must have been in my room nearby and heard the commotion.  I recall my mother being on the phone talking with who I believe was the sheriff’s wife Annie.  I remember feeling like the room was swirling around.  I had never witnessed my mother so frantic.  I tugged on her arm trying to get her attention, but she was waving me off.  I persisted and finally got her attention when I said that Jesse’s wife Jan was on her way to our house because she was going to pick me up to babysit while she went bowling. Again, I was only 11 years old and my mother told me distinctly not to say one word when Jan came.  I was to get in the car and go along with Jan to babysit and act like everything was normal.

Jan arrived with one of our family’s mutual friends, Linda Dempsey.  I got into the back seat and vividly recall how happy they were, laughing and talking all the way to Jan’s home. The bowling alley was only a few blocks away. It’s strange how one’s mind recalls various details from the past.  What I remember was nine year old Jeff pulling a piece of hail out of their freezer that had fallen during a storm just a few days before.  It looked to be the size of a baseball. 

Jan and Jesse’s youngest son Bruce was around four years old and was a special needs child. When he woke up from a nap I recall putting him in a wagon in the house and pulling him around in a circle from the kitchen through the living room and around again, over and over. It helped to calm him. At some point I received a phone call.  It was Jan.  She told me not to turn on the television or radio because she didn’t want Jeff to hear any news.  From the urgency in her voice I knew that she had found out about Jesse’s death.  I guaranteed her I would do as she asked.  But then people began to come over who had obviously already heard the news.  I know that Jeff didn’t understand what was really going on as people began saying, “I’m so sorry.”

I don’t recall how I got home.  I have no recollection of the next day other than the small entry I had made into my diary that said,  “Today our friend Jesse Jenkins was killed.”  The funeral was scheduled to take place in Desloge in southern Missouri, but there was a visitation at the Schlanker’s Funeral Home in Montgomery City.  It was only the second funeral home I had ever been to.  A former sheriff’s adopted daughter had committed suicide as a teenager and my mom took me to the visitation in New Florence, MO a few years before. That room was filled with roses. I couldn’t stand the smell of roses for years after that.  At Jesse’s visitation I recall there was a uniformed highway patrolman, maybe even two, standing guard at his casket.  It made me feel nervous to approach Jesse’s coffin with them standing there.  Jesse was also dressed in his blue and black uniform.  He only seemed to be asleep to me.  It all seemed like a dream.

I’m sure it was only a day or so later, but my parents attended Jesse’s funeral at the Parkview Freewill Baptist Church in the Desloge community. I learned much later that my dad, who was Jesse’s training officer, was one of the pallbearers along with other officers from Troop F.  I saw a picture in a highway patrol bulletin showing the long line of highway patrol cars in the funeral procession and remember thinking how much I wished I could have seen that in person. My brothers and sister and I didn’t get to go.  I have always thought that was a mistake on my parent’s part.  I think they were too caught up in their own grief to realize that their children needed closure and a chance to grieve as well.  I have since learned the church where the funeral took place was small and only a limited number of people could attend the service.  That’s probably another reason why my siblings and I were not allowed to go.

 It took until 2014 before I was able to visit Jesse’s grave.  On that day, October 14^th, 2014 I could finally say goodbye. 

Jesse’s wife Jan and her son Jeff and his wife Rose took me to the cemetery along with my second daughter Jessie that I named after Jesse. 

We also drove down a section of U.S. Highway 67 between  Bonne Terre and Desloge named after Jesse. The family is so proud of that.

During that visit with Jan in October of 2014 I had the chance to meet her son’s children and grandchildren.  Jeff had also named one of his children Jessie.  It did my heart good to finally spend time with the whole family. 

Jan shared some of the pictures of her and Jesse from their dating years and from early in their marriage. 

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Her son and grandsons look so much like their handsome grandpa that they never got to meet.

I shared some of my memories with Jan about that day in 1969 and agreed that it couldn’t have been a coincidence that my father died of a heart attack on the exact same day of October 14^th thirteen years after Jesse’s death.  When Jan and son Jeff came to Jefferson City for my father’s funeral, the first words we spoke to each other on our home’s stairwell were, “Can you believe he died on the same day as Jesse?” This time I had the chance to experience first hand how it feels to be surrounded by the kindred spirit of the Missouri State Highway Patrol when one of their own passes away. It was quite moving for my family as I’m sure it was for Jan and her son Jeff when Jesse passed away in 1969.

As I mentioned earlier, my dad never really got over losing his fellow officer and friend.  It may be just one of the reasons why the picture of my dad kissing his first grandson goodbye as he headed for work in his uniform a few years later is so meaningful.  I think he realized how fragile life is and that family is everything. 

Jan pulled out a box that held Jesse’s uniform. I wondered if it was the same one my mother had held up to me back in 1969 when she planned to clean off the blood stain.  I ran my hand over the shirt and thanked her for showing it to me.  She hoped to donate it to the MO State Highway Patrol. 

A couple of days before visiting the Jenkins family in 2014 I took my daughter Jessie to the MO State Highway Patrol Memorial by the state capitol building in Jefferson City where there are plaques for each law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty.  I wanted my daughter to see Jesse Jenkins’ plaque.  We were joined by longtime friends Melinda (Dolan) Sanders and Laura (Tinnin) Lewis.  Melinda’s late father, William Dolan, had been the Superintendent of the MO State Highway Patrol before he retired. Laura’s late father, Norman “Gene” Tinnin, served as a Captain on the highway patrol until he retired. 

The tragedy of losing Jesse Jenkins has had a profound effect on my life.  I studied to become a journalist at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and spent four decades working in radio and television news.  While teaching young journalists at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas and at the University of Florida in Gainesville I often shared the story about Jesse.  I have been told that law enforcement radio transmissions about the shooting in the courthouse in Montgomery City that October day in 1969 may have been intercepted by various media who broadcast the information before the first of kin had been notified.  It’s why Jan had called me that day I was babysitting to tell me not to turn on a television or radio.  If that’s truly what happened, it was not an ethical thing for the media to have done.  I shared that lesson with my students.  It was because of that action that my dad had to find Jan driving down the street before she could get to the bowling alley to tell her what happened, because everyone at the bowling alley had already heard the news.  My brothers remember that our dad then brought her to our home.

Lately there have been a lot of 50 year anniversary celebrations and specials on television about 1969….everything from landing on the moon to Woodstock.  But for me, 1969 will always be the year we lost a hero, Jesse Roger Jenkins. It was also the year I lost a bit of my childhood.  RIP Jesse Jenkins.  Gone too soon.