It’s been more than 35 years since a woman was last seen in northeast Kansas.
Nori Oyakawa Jenkins was reported missing on July 20, 1986. The Department of Justice says she walked away from a state mental health hospital.
KILLING HER CHILDREN
Jenkins was diagnosed with mental illness, and admitted to killing her two children: Linda, who was 3 and Doris, who was 23 months old. Reports show Jenkins, then 30, strangled her daughters to death in their Topeka home in Jan. 1964. By March of that year, Jenkins was found not guilty by reason of insanity on the murder charges of her two daughters. She was committed to Topeka State Hospital, as the Council Grove Republican reported on March 24, 1964.
A POSSIBLE BODY MATCH
In October 2002, a woman’s skull was found by a Boy Scout while conducting a roadside cleanup in Wisconsin. Because of the features, it was believed that the skull was Jenkins. “The skull had no teeth or dentures, and for that reason her diet would have been limited,” an article with the Stillwater Gazette reports. “Investigators speculated that her jaw had been newly broken, probably around the time she died, although that would not have been the fatal blow.
Investigators had to track down Jenkin’s family in Japan, according to the Stillwater Gazette, and through DNA comparison, they found that the woman’s skull was not a match to Jenkins.
Jenkins remains missing. Jenkins was previously homeless and living under bridges.
If alive, she’d be in her 80’s.
NORI OYAKAWA JENKINS
Missing from: Topeka, Kan.
Missing since: July 20, 1986
Age when reported missing: 51
Height: 5’2’’
Weight: 115 pounds
Hair: Grey
Eyes: Brown
If you have information that could help the case, contact the Topeka Police Department at (785) 368-9551 or the Kansas Bureau of Investigation at (785) 296-4017.
If you have a person you’d like for us to share a story about, please contact Anchor Annette Lawless at annettelawless@hotmail.com.