I just read the story about Melissa Jenkins, a popular teacher in Vermont, who went to help her neighbors, only to be brutally murdered as soon as she got out of her car.
I am sick to my stomach. Not only because of the stupid, horrific crime, but because I believe the victim suspected something was wrong.
The story in the Burlington Free Press begins:
ST. JOHNSBURY When Melissa Jenkins answered the phone Sunday night, the couple who used to plow her driveway said they were stranded half a mile from her home. Their car had broken down on the remote country road, they said, and they needed her help.
Before driving out to meet them, Jenkins called longtime friend and coworker Randy Rathburn and said she “wanted someone to know what was going on,” police would recount later. She told Rathburn about the “weird call” she received from the couple whose first names she could not remember. She still had their business card and asked Rathburn to write down the pertinent information: the name Prue, a phone number, an address in Waterford.
The fact that Jenkins called her friend tells me that she had a bad feeling about the call for help. My guess is that she was afraid, but chided herself for her fear, convincing herself that she had no reason to worry.
Jenkins should have listened to her intuition. As Gavin de Becker eloquently explains in The Gift of Fear, our intuition has been honed over millennia to keep us safe. The best thing we can do to protect ourselves from predators is heed that inner knowing.
But we don’t. We are not taught to listen to our intuition. In fact, our rational world seems to regard intuition as mumbo jumbo, so we talk ourselves out of our fears.
This is one of the most important points that I make in my new book: Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 signs you’re dating a sociopath. The book is based on last year’s survey of Lovefraud readers. The results showed that 71% of Lovefraud readers had a bad feeling about the sociopath or the relationship early in the involvement. But most of them did not listen to their gut. Instead, they doubted themselves, or felt like they had to give the individual the benefit of the doubt.
My guess is that Melissa Jenkins had those same exact thoughts. If she didn’t, why would she have called her friend to let him know where she was going?
This murder is a tragedy that I suspect could have been avoided.
Read Melissa Jenkins answers a call for help, and then a sudden attack, on BurlingtonFreePress.com.
Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader.
survivor3
Such a heartbreaking and senseless tragedy. I, too, am just sickened by this. All she was doing was trying to help. It’s just horrible.
Ox Drover
Donna, I think you are right about her having a “gut feeling” that something wasn’t right….but the PITY PLOY was what sucked her in. How many of US were sucked in by a pity ploy? I would say many if not all of us at one time or another in the relation-shits.
The “social” training we get to be “helpful” and to “have compassion” toward others starts from the cradle as we are taught that we have to “be nice” to others and “helpful.”
NO! We do not have to “be nice” to others if we “smell a rat” we need to RUN!!!!!
The GIFT of fear, the GIFT of intuition is very important but we over ride it with our “manners.”
survivor3
He was the one that tried so hard to convince me I needed to be more compassionate and understanding, which was a big part of the game he played up until the bitter end. Now I spend my time getting back to the point where I can just recognize that a jackass is a jackass and call it a day. That doesn’t make me a bad person.
This poor woman’s compassion, all common sense flew out the window, other than the fact that she did call a friend, in order to satisfy the need inside of herself to help someone else in need. What I am baffled by is why this is being considered second-degree murder. What about this case even remotely resembles second-degree? I just wish her friend would have urged her not to go alone. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. So incredibly sad.
Ox Drover
Survivor, I am not sure that in most places “killing someone” is still a crime….there are always excuses…their mommy didn’t breast feed them so they needed to kill someone….sheesh! makes me want to puke!
Louise
This is so sad. I was going to put the link here to this story the minute I read it, but didn’t. So senseless. This beautiful teacher is gone and for what? Those are two really sick people. Yep, gut feelings and instincts. She knew he made her feel uncomfortable yet she went to help. But the wife called, he didn’t. So that may have been the wrench right there. If HE would have called, I bet she would still be alive as she probably would have told him she was busy.
If this doesn’t make me once and for all trust my first gut instincts, I don’t know what will. Those feelings are always right!
Redwald
This goes to show that truth is stranger than fiction.
To start with, if a woman was lured to her death by someone who claimed an acquaintance with her and told her their name and address, my first guess would be that it had to be someone impersonating that acquaintance. Who would have expected a pair of killers like this to identify themselves to their prospective victim in advance, when it could and did lead immediately to their capture? We’re lucky that so many criminals are downright STUPID, otherwise we’d be burdened with even more crime than we already have.
Second, if I had to guess the motive for this murder, knowing it was a married couple who perpetrated it against a victim they already knew, and they killed her the moment she arrived on the scene, I would have said it was a grudge killing. No, it turns out it’s a sex murder.
Third, it shows that psychopaths sometimes mate with one another and become joint predators on other humans. Still, it’s hardly the first time that’s happened. The infamous Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo come immediately to mind. Leopold and Loeb must be counted too, since they had a homosexual relationship.
Donna Prue is a classic instance of a mother in denial. It’s understandable that she wouldn’t want to believe her son committed a murder as depraved as this. She would obviously grasp at the possibility that someone else impersonated her son when telephoning the victim. But now that Allen Prue has actually confessed to the killing, his mother needs to wise up.
I imagine that poor Melissa Jenkins may already have had bad vibes about this couple, or one of them, when she encountered them previously. It’s a tragedy she didn’t make an excuse not to go out there.
Louise
But they didn’t have sex with her, did they?
survivor3
Apparently, they found condom wrappers near her body, but have not yet determined whether sex was involved. This is so disgusting. Sometimes I hate this world we live in.
Ox Drover
Red,
It is quite COMMON in reality that two disordered people mate up—and the thing that is a problem is that when one of them becomes the “loser” in the battle to see who is the “top dog” then that person presents as a VICTIM with a big PITY PLAY.
So, how do you tell a REAL VICTIM from a PSEUDO VICTIM?
Many psychopaths I have encountered have been pseudo victims. It takes knowing them for a little while to see that they are not really “victims” but mooches who are using the pity ploy to seek another victim.
This couple used the ever-popular PITY PLOY to get the woman to come to them. How many of us have fallen for the pity ploy? (my hand waving wildly here!)
I no longer “fall for” the pity ploy unless I know more about the situation…When I pass by and see the “injured” man lying in the ditch by the side of the road, I sort of tend to think like it might be Wil e coyote trying to lure me in. Maybe I should be more like the “good Samaritin” but too many times for me the guy in the ditch has been the coyote! LOL I still get hooked by it once in a while anyway. I guess once a sucker always a sucker to some extent. LOL
Louise
From what I read, she was strangled immediately so if they did have sex with her, it must have been her corpse. Sick, sick, sick. I agree with you survivor3…I hate this world, I really do…