Lois Jenkins was a divorced mother of two boys and a girl.
Denver Police Department- Lois Jenkins, 28
She was a registered nurse and ran a large child daycare center in northeast Denver. She always had a big smile and and cheerful disposition. She loved people and especially children. She could make people laugh.
“Our house was the house where all the the parties happened,” recalled her daughter Lyzette Ashley, 40.
But Ashley said it was also a place where she, her younger brothers and mother were abused by her stepfather.
Jenkins’ sister Lori Reynolds, 54, recalls Lois showing up for family gatherings with bruises on her body.
She always had an excuse. She had tripped and fell or bumped into something.
“I didn’t know anything about domestic abuse,” Reynolds said. “I didn’t know the signs.”
Reynolds’ older brothers did know about the abuse and wanted to beat her husband up but Jenkins pleaded with them not to because she loved him.
Reynolds later learned that her sister had been beaten by her husband. Although they divorced they were still seeing each other, she said.
In April of 1981, Reynolds, who had been stationed in Japan for the Army, came home for a vacation. She was watching her sister’s children that night when she went out, some say to meet with her husband.
Reynolds was upset with her identification.
That night on April 12, Jenkins drove her mother’s car to a nightclub near the Park Hill Municipal Golf Course.
She never came home.
Reynolds recalled how difficult it was to sleep that night when it got late and her sister hadn’t returned home.
Her mother, who had six boys and three girls, seemed to know something was terribly wrong. Her daughter would have called.
The next morning the family filed a missing person’s report.
Three days later, Reynolds was still watching her sister’s children when a news bulletin about a body found in a car came on. She recognized her mother’s car.
Reynolds rushed her children out of the room. The phone rang – it was the coroner’s office, which had failed to contact the family before making a news announcement.
Just then, two people came to the door. They were asking questions about a Lori Reynolds.
When Lori said it was her, they told her that she couldn’t be. She then explained that her sister had taken her identification.
Police told them that Lois had been strangled with a belt. But fingerprints on the belt were smudged. They questioned several people but no arrest was made.
“It tore my mother apart. She was never the same after that.”
Her sister was sorely missed, Reynolds said. She helped raise her sister’s children.
Family members have kept in contact with police over the years.
A few months ago Ashley spoke with a cold case detective at the Denver Police Department and learned that police recently used grant money to have her mother’s clothing checked for DNA.
“I’d really like to have closure,” Reynolds said.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Metro Crime Stoppers at 303-913-7867. Denver Post staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206. For updates on this case and other unsolved crimes follow him on Twitter @KmitchellDP.