Greg Jenkins speaking to reporters today near the Penang Turf Club area where his mother’s body was found six years ago. GEORGE TOWN: The son of Australian grandmother Anna Jenkins has lodged a fresh police report seeking an investigation into her disappearance and death as a possible kidnapping, murder and wrongful detention.Greg Jenkins said he returned to Penang after receiving the High Court’s full grounds of judgement for upholding an open verdict in the case.“It was never investigated as a kidnapping and murder, which it should have been,” he told reporters at Batu Gantong today.Anna, 65, disappeared while holidaying in Penang with her husband in December 2017. Some of her remains were found almost three years later at a secluded site near the Penang Turf Club.Greg said the case remained open, but police had continued to treat it as a missing person case, which he claimed resulted in important witnesses and leads being overlooked.He pointed to Anna’s final reported telephone call to her husband at about 5.22pm on Dec 13, 2017.
She allegedly told him that two people she described as Ukrainians had detained her and wanted her passport.Greg said police did not investigate whether these two people existed or whether they had any role in his mother’s disappearance. He said he did not know their identities and needed police to pursue the matter.His lawyer, David Peter, said the High Court found that possible kidnapping and wrongful detention had not been investigated, meaning no evidence on those issues was presented to the coroner or the High Court.In her grounds, High Court Justice Rofiah Mohamad said police had focused solely on finding Anna rather than investigating possible crime angles. She said there had been “no investigation whatsoever” into the two alleged Ukrainians.Rofiah ruled out natural death, suicide and accident, leaving homicide and an open verdict as the two possible findings.
However, she upheld the open verdict as there was insufficient evidence to prove that another person had caused Anna’s death.Greg has appealed against the decision.FMT has reached out to Penang police for comment. Greg and Jennifer Jenkins at the site where the remains and belongings of their mother Anna were found near the Penang Turf Club in 2020.GEORGE TOWN: Police failed to properly investigate whether others were involved in the disappearance and death of Australian national Anna Jenkins, according to the full grounds of judgment released recently.High Court judge Rofiah Mohamad said police treated the case only as a missing person's investigation and did not investigate possible crimes such as kidnapping or wrongful detention.Anna Jenkins.Parit Buntar-born Jenkins, 65, disappeared while visiting Penang with her husband in December 2017. Her remains were found almost three years later at a secluded area near the Penang Turf Club at Scotland Road.Rofiah said the discovery of Jenkins’s remains at an unusual location, together with a defect found on one of her bones, should have provided a “fresh lead” for police to investigate possible foul play.However, she said, no such investigation was carried out before the inquest ended.“It is, therefore, unsurprising that no such evidence could be adduced at the inquest,” she said.Rofiah also highlighted Jenkins's final phone call to her husband, during which she reportedly said two unidentified Ukrainians had detained her and asked for her passport.She said police conducted “no investigation whatsoever” into whether the two people existed or whether they had any role in Jenkins’s disappearance or death.She also questioned the original classification of the case, saying police had apparently not recorded a full statement from Jenkins's husband before beginning investigations, despite it being compulsory to do so.The judge said the inquest into Jenkins’s death was premature because the investigation had not properly examined possible criminal involvement.She said the open verdict itself was “in reality, also premature”.Coroner Norsalha Hamzah had returned an open verdict in May 2023, meaning there was insufficient evidence to determine how Jenkins died or whether anyone was criminally responsible.Rofiah upheld the verdict, saying the court could not record a homicide finding based only on suspicion.“However strong the grounds for a suspicion may be, it remains not a proven fact,” she said, adding that evidence was needed to show who was involved and how that involvement caused Jenkins’s death.Rofiah ruled out natural death, …
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