On Jul 17, 1995 a 10 year old boy walks into the tiny Canon City Police Department 50 miles south of Colorado Springs. He has quite a story to tell to the police officer. He is from Colorado Springs and he and his dad were packing for a camping trip when bad men came to their house. His dad dropped him off there and is now in the process of luring them away. The kid has a packed suitcase and his golden labrador Kirby. His name is William Jennes Jr and his dad works at NORAD as a top secret intelligence officer.
Police officer Tracey McCoy listens to Will’s story and calls his mom, but she does not answer. So he has Colorado Springs police do a welfare check to see if the kid’s store is true. Colorado Springs police are already at the kid’s house which is on fire. His mom, Elspeth “Elsie” Jennes, is dead. She was shot point blank range in the left eye then in the stomach. There are .45 ACP casings all around.
When police question the neighbors, they discover that the family van was seen driving away as the house immediately exploded into fire. So whoever was driving their van probably set the fire.
Police transport Will from Canon City to Colorado Springs where a cop specially trained in interviewing children interviews him. The one thing he says that gets their attention is that his dad gave him a 3×5 index card two days ago with his grandparents’ phone numbers on it in case of emergency. That means premeditation. It was planned.
Lt Kenda verifies that Will’s dad is indeed a NORAD top secret intelligence officer. In fact, his security clearance is above top secret so he has access to compartmentalized information that no one else has privy to. He could indeed be running from foreign spies.
Colorado Springs is home to five military bases including NORAD which is 7 miles east of Colorado Springs. It’s in Cheyenne Mountain and you get in there only by invitation. So Kenda puts out a BOLO (Be on the Lookout for) on William Jennes Sr. Meanwhile Will and Kirby are sent home with family friends, Linda and Corky Newcombe.
One hundred miles away, Salida Police Department has William Jennes Sr who walked into the police station and told them the exact same story. But he has more to add. He claims over the past two weeks, someone has been calling their house demanding he turn over “the documents”. When he asked what documents they got angry and threatened his family. He says he and Will were loading the van for a father-son campout when he heard his wife Elsie inside arguing with a man. So he went inside and she told him to run and “take the boy”. What mom would call her son “the boy”? Already his story is very suspicious.
Lt Kenda doesn’t believe him. So after some pressure, Jennes confesses to killing his wife Elsie. He took early retirement from NORAD and was given a $70,000 bonus for early retirement. He thought he’d start a little investment business. He lost the $70,000 retirement, all of their savings, and asked for a loan from his parents to cover their expenses. He lost that too. So they are broke. Elsie sells Mary Kay and makes very little money. So they were constantly fighting because he’d torpedoed their entire future on gambling with stocks. He finally got angry and shot her in the eye point blank range then when she was on the floor shot her a second time in the stomach. Very personal. Very filled with rage. Then he threw the gun in the Arkansas River somewhere between Colorado Springs and Canon City.
Jennes writes out a 2 page confession and is arrested. He is sentenced to 48 years in prison in a plea bargain so his son doesn’t have to testify against him.
In one moment of rage, Jennes, who was a real narcissist, destroyed his son’s entire life. He took away his home, his parents, his school, and his trust.
Bibliography
Homicide Hunter, Season 2 Episode 4: The Spy Who Killed Me, air date: Oct 29, 2012.
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