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.
