HAMILTON COUNTY, Ohio – A former corrections officer who also worked as a jail deputy has been sentenced to two decades in prison for the gruesome stabbing death of his wife.
Wilford Jenkins III, 49, previously worked as a corrections officer at the Lebanon Correctional Facility in Ohio and as jail deputy at the Butler County Jail. For reasons still unclear, he stabbed Huletta Jenkins, 47, to death at the couple’s home in October 2021, Law&Crime reported.
The defendant was Initially charged with murder in Hamilton County. However, he recently pleaded guilty to one count each of involuntary manslaughter, felonious assault, and tampering with evidence. As part of the plea deal he received a 20-year sentence without the possibility of early release, according to WCPO.
Police in Forest Park, Ohio, a small suburb of Cincinnati, arrived at the Jenkins’ home regarding reports of a possible suicidal individual during the late afternoon on Oct. 25, 2021, according to The Enquirer.
Upon arrival they discovered both the defendant and his wife covered in blood and suffering from multiple stab wounds. Huletta Jenkins was pronounced dead at the scene. Wilford Jenkins remained alive and was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, WXIX reported.
“There were loud screams and crying,” a contractor working nearby told the news outlet at the time of the crime. “The only thing I heard him say was, ‘There’s a lot of blood in there.’”
Wilford Jenkins was charged in his wife’s death four days later.
Lt. Adam Pape of the Forest Park Police Department said investigators believe Wilford Jenkins killed his wife, then tried and failed to kill himself. The department has never commented on a motive.
The coroner’s report revealed the woman suffered multiple stab wounds, but the fatal injury was having her throat slashed. The medical examiner’s report also suggested that Wilford Jenkins had been trying to decapitate his wife due to bone fragments that were missing from part of her spinal cord, WCPO reported
“I am so sorry and I wish I could take it all back,” the defendant said during sentencing. “I wish I could have her back in everybody’s lives.”
The victim’s family rejected his apology.
“The only remorse you have is that you got caught,” Huletta Jenkin’s mother Roxanna Smith said during her victim impact statement. “Why didn’t you just leave and let her live?”
The couple have two adult children in their 20s.
