Carol Jenkins
Age 21
A young Black woman with a new job selling encyclopedias
Martinsville, Indiana
September 16, 1968
Carol Jenkins was a 21-year-old aspiring fashion model living in Indiana. In September 1968, she started a new job selling encyclopedias door-to-door in Martinsville, Indiana.
On September 16, Jenkins approached a house and told the woman who answered the door that she was being followed and harassed by a pair of white men in a car. The woman called the police and invited Jenkins inside, but Jenkins, worried she had already inconvenienced the family enough, continued walking. A half-hour later, Jenkins was found stabbed in the heart with a screwdriver along one of Martinsville’s major thoroughfares. The murder was widely reported by local and national media.
Initial Investigation
Police failed to arrest any suspects in their initial investigation. More than 30 years later, frustrated by the lack of progress, Jenkins’ stepfather hired a private investigator to pursue the case. Shortly thereafter, Indiana State Police’s Cold Case Team decided to revisit it as well.
In 2002 a break in the case arrived, in the form of an anonymous letter to the Martinsville police, naming Jenkins’ murderer as Kenneth Richmond and adding that Richmond’s daughter, only seven years old at the time, had witnessed the crime. Police tracked down Richmond’s daughter, Shirley McQueen, who confirmed the story. She said her father and a man whose identity she didn’t know had been passing through Martinsville when they spotted Jenkins walking down the street. They pulled over and attacked the young woman. Richmond stabbed her with a screwdriver while the other man held her from behind. McQueen witnessed the murder from the back seat of the family car and said her dad offered her seven dollars to keep it a secret. Years later, McQueen confided in a former sister-in-law, who then wrote the anonymous letter.
That spring, police arrested Richmond, who had a history of committing violent crimes and an affiliation with the KKK, according to the New York Times. At the time, Richmond was 70 years old and living in a nursing home in Indianapolis. He pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges, and died of cancer before standing trial.
Till Act Status
Authorities consider Richmond the prime suspect in the murder but his accomplice has not been identified. The FBI reopened Jenkins’ case in 2019. It remains open.
About the Project
This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.
The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.
A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.
With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.
At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.
To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.
Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.
“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”
Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.
We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.
(Credits to come)