Billie-Jo wasn’t blessed with the easiest of starts in life. Born in 1983, her father was soon jailed, and her mother was a heavy drinker that couldn’t cope with raising Billie-Jo on her own.
Billie-Jo was put up for adoption, but was this the start that led to the end of her life?
The early years
Billie-Jo was born on 29 March 1983 in East London. When she turned nine, she was put in a foster home and taken in by Sion and Lottie Jenkins (no relation), the parents of one of her classmates at her school in West Ham, East London, and soon took their surname.
When Lois, a teacher, was offered the role of deputy headteacher at an all-boys school in Hastings on the East Sussex coast, Billie-Jo pleaded to go with them. She moved south with the family and attended Helenswood School.
Her new beginning was great for a child of her age; she had her own bedroom and even a telephone line so she could maintain contact with her biological family.
The murder
Seven years passed without much of an issue until Billie-Jo’s body was found in the family’s back garden. She was 13 at the time. She had been battered to death whilst painting the patio doors of the family home, alone. The weapon of choice for the murderer was an 18-inch tent peg.
An autopsy discovered that there had been no evidence of sexual abuse, but a fragment of a black bin liner was found stuffed in one of her nostrils. The killer had hit Billie-Jo over the head nine times, and her body showed signs of defensive wounds on her forearms, and week-old bruises on her wrists and forearms.
The suspects
An unnamed man was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Billie-Jo Jenkins soon after the body was discovered, but he was released and detained under the mental health act.
On 24 February 1997, Billie-Jo’s foster father, Sion Jenkins, was arrested. He was charged with her murder on 14 March, just over a month after the killing.
Originally, Sion had told police that he found Billie-Jo in a pool of her blood after returning to the family home following a shopping trip with two of his daughters. However, he became a suspect for the case when a police investigation uncovered his behaviour turned erratic around the time of the killing. Police also found 158 microscopic spots of blood on his clothing.
At the very start of July 1998, Sion was found guilty of the murder of Billie-Jo Jenkins and was sentenced to life in prison.
Jenkins had no previous convictions.
Interestingly, the prosecution in the trial believed that there was a three-minute window in which Sion committed the murder. Sion and his two daughters returned to the house after a music lesson, and Sion left the girls in the car, went back into the house before driving off to the shops.
When the trio arrived back home 15 minutes later, Billie-Jo’s body was discovered. Sion, who vehemently denied killing his foster daughter, claims that after he made the discovery, there was a strange man in his hallway. He said he wasn’t thinking straight and believed it could be a policeman, but in hindsight, he now thinks this man was the killer. The man even spoke to Sion, and he’s been quoted as saying that the man said: “The girl is going to be alright”.
The Appeal
Investigative journalists Bob Woffinden took an interest in this case, and he felt as though Sion’s conviction was a miscarriage of justice. On 15 September 1999, Channel 4’s Trial and Error programme reported that a mentally disturbed man was seen in the area on the day of Billie-Jo’s murder.
This man became known as Mr. B. during the original trial. According to The Guardian newspaper, Brian Kent, a local hotelkeeper, told authorities that Mr. B. knocked on his door at 3pm on the day of Billie-Jo’s murder, and a confusing conversation ensued, leading Kent to believe that MR B had mental difficulties.
But even with this evidence, an appeal on Sion’s conviction was turned down in 1999. In May 2003, however, a second appeal was heard, and a retrial was ordered by the Court of Appeal.
During this trial, Sion’s wife Lois took to the witness box and testified that Sion was abusive to her, her daughters and to Billie-Jo. Sion denied this, refusing to accept that he had ever been abusive to anyone. Lois also mentioned that memories from that fateful day in February 1997 confused her.
The retrial lasted six months, and a verdict could not be agreed upon. A second retrial was called and in February 2006, Sion was cleared of the murder, nine years after it had occurred.
Jenkins has since maintained his innocence, and his story has never wavered.
Lois had moved to Tasmania in 2002, and neither she nor her daughters are in contact with Sion.
The case
Since Sion’s release from Her Majesty’s prison, not much has happened, and the case has gone cold. Billie-Jo’s family has never had closure, and the killer may still be out there. Billie-Jo, eternally 13 years old, will never have justice for her murder.