A jury Friday found 35-year-old Euri Jenkins, accused of hiring a hitman to kill his pregnant wife in a scheme to collect on an insurance policy, guilty of first-degree murder.
Jurors deliberated for less than an hour Friday – and about three hours in total since their deliberations began Thursday – before returning their verdict in the June 29, 2017, death of Makeva Jenkins at the family’s home near Lantana.
Circuit Court Judge Kirk Volker immediately sentenced Jenkins to life in prison.
“We are grateful for the jury’s service and believe they got it right,” Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said Friday afternoon. “Makeva Jenkins deserved justice, and we think the jury’s verdict accomplished that.”
Before Jenkins’ sentencing, Gloria Harold, Makeva Jenkins’ grandmother, addressed the court. She referred to Makeva, who she helped to raise, as her daughter. Harold tearfully spoke of how one of Makeva’s daughters was celebrating her sixth birthday Friday. She spoke of how Makeva would not be present to see another daughter graduate from high school in a few weeks.
“This has been a long struggle for me, and what has happened to my daughter has affected my life and the life of my family,” she told Volker. As for Euri Jenkins, she said, “I have nothing bad to say about him. All I wanted was justice for my child. Nobody wins in the case.”
Euri Jenkins, who is charged with first-degree murder in connection to the June 29, 2017, fatal shooting of his wife, Makeva Jenkins attends jury selection for his trial at the Palm Beach County Courthouse in West Palm Beach, Jan. 22, 2020.
Seated outside the courtroom a short time later, Harold wore a T-shirt and held a sign, both with Makeva’s photo and the words “Justice for Makeva” written on them.
“I just feel like we got we wanted. That’s justice for her,” Harold told reporters. “I just hope he can find peace for the things that he has done.”
Other relatives said they were also thankful for the verdict.
“He did a very heinous crime. He did a very selfish crime,” said Marquavious Greer, Makeva’s brother who testified at the trial to witnessing the moments leading up to his sister’s murder, adding, “No one even would have ever thought that he would do something like this.”
Defense attorney Gregg Lerman said he plans to file a motion for acquittal, saying that the state allowed improper testimony from two witnesses, Dametri Dale and Joevan Joseph, who testified that they conspired with Euri Jenkins to kill Makeva Jenkins.
Lerman filed a similar motion with the circuit court Wednesday, which Volker denied. Jenkins did not testify in his own defense.
Dale told jurors he introduced a hitman to Jenkins after Jenkins asked him to find someone to kill his wife. Joseph, the confessed gunman, told jurors he shot and killed Makeva Jenkins after Euri paid him $10,000, with the intent of paying another $10,000 once the job was finished.
Lerman said both defendants were untruthful about material facts in their testimony.
“I think we’re shocked by the outcome,” he said after the verdict. “It was clear that these two witnesses, these cooperating defendants, were the ones that committed this crime, caused it to happen and took the stand and perjured themselves.
“It is unquestionable that one or both of them lied any number of times about material issues, and individuals shouldn’t be convicted in this country based on knowingly perjured testimony that the government puts up,” Lerman said.
If the appeal is successful, the appellate court would have the option either of setting the verdict aside and freeing Jenkins from the charge, or ordering a new trial.
Aronberg said he could not comment on the defense team’s accusation because of the pending appeal, but praised the work of Chief Assistant State Attorney Adrienne Ellis and Assistant State Attorneys Alexcia Cox and Richard Clausi, and said the jury’s decision was supported by the evidence.
A masked gunman killed Makeva Jenkins, an entrepreneur and a mother of three, early on the morning of June 29, 2017, in the home she shared with her husband and their children on Plumbago Place near Santaluces High School.
Prosecutors said Euri Jenkins, in the midst of a failing marriage, wanted his wife dead so that he could collect a $500,000 life insurance policy, which he believed had him named as the beneficiary. He later learned that Makeva had named another relative, her grandmother, to receive her payout if she died.
“Euri Jenkins is the reason Makeva Jenkins is dead,” Cox told jurors in her closing remarks Thursday.
Joseph told jurors he shot Makeva Jenkins in the head, acting on her husband’s orders. He pleaded guilty in 2019 to second-degree murder in exchange for cooperating with the state’s case against Euri Jenkins. He faces a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 when he is sentenced, scheduled for June 21.
Dale pleaded guilty to manslaughter in November and also agreed to testify against Jenkins. He received 15 years of probation, the first two of which were to be served under supervised release.
In April, Dale was arrested for violating his probation and returned to the Palm Beach County Jail. He is scheduled to have a court hearing Tuesday and could face 10 to 30 years in prison if he is found guilty of the probation violation.
At Jenkins’ trial, prosecutors told jurors the three men staged a home-invasion robbery that actually was a ruse to kill Makeva. Euri Jenkins was cutting hair in the garage of the family’s home early that morning when a gunman approached and demanded money. The gunman also asked for Makeva Jenkins’ mother, who did not live at the home and was an infrequent visitor, prosecutors said.
Cox told the jury that Joseph did not take any items from Jenkins’ home.
“He was there to take one thing only, and that was to snatch the life of Makeva Jenkins,” Cox said. “To snatch it from her family. To snatch it from her husband. He was there to complete the job that the defendant asked him to do.”
In his closing remarks, Lerman focused on Dale’s and Joseph’s credibility, telling jurors that conflicting statements made both men during the investigation and the trial were sufficient grounds to establish reasonable doubt.
“This case is about lies and liars, plain and simple,” Lerman said. “It’s about people who are unable and unwilling to tell the truth.”
He focused, among other topics, on statements from the two men regarding how much was paid, who was paid and how the gun used to kill Makeva Jenkins was acquired.
At the trial, Joseph said he deliberately gave detectives false information, initially telling them that he was paid $1,500 up front instead of $10,000, in an effort to disrupt the investigation.
He also told investigators he saw Dale receive a stack of cash from Jenkins, contradicting Dale’s testimony that he never received any form of payment. Lerman pointed out text messages that Dale and Joseph exchanged days after the purported payments, in which both men discussed how they were struggling financially and needed money.
“What happened to this alleged $10,000 in cash that you just got?” Lerman asked.
Lerman also noted discrepancies in the men’s statements on how the gun used to kill Makeva was acquired.
Dale testified that Joseph told him he got the gun from Jenkins. However, Joseph said he bought the weapon from another person for $60, with Dale advising him to get a revolver so that the weapon would not leave shell casings behind.
“That’s not some little conflict of evidence,” Lerman said. “When you have substantial, material conflicts from that witness stand … it is a conflict that, along with everything else in this case, calls for a ‘not guilty’ verdict.”
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