GUILTY NE - Four killed in Omaha crime spree, Nikko Jenkins charged, Aug 2013

Levi Levering was the respected face of his family a century ago, when he earned an impressive reputation as an Omaha tribal leader and advocate.

His influence extended from Macy, Neb., to Washington, D.C., where he successfully lobbied Congress in 1920 to protect tribal members' rights to their land.

Now the face of the family is Levi's great-great-grandson: Nikko Jenkins.

Jenkins stands accused of a 10-day killing spree in Omaha last August that left four people dead.

And five other relatives — two of Nikko Jenkins' sisters, his mother, a cousin and an uncle — have also been charged in connection with the killings.

A World-Herald examination of the Levering history shows that 38 descendants of Levi Levering have been convicted of 633 crimes in Omaha since 1979.
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Nikko Jenkins' family tracked his mental deterioration by his face.

“At one point in time he loved his face,” said his mother, Lori Jenkins.

But during Nikko Jenkins' decade in prison, the tattoos on his face grew as his connection with reality diminished, she said.

Then gashes appeared.

He would tell his mother that he had cut his face because “the demon wanted him to sacrifice himself,” she said, though prison officials told her it had been just an accident.
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colette said:

Jenkins pled guilty to 4 murders and then the judge found him guilty.

The judge asked on each count -- Jenkins plead guilty after pausing several times. During the hearing, the judge asked if Jenkins was freely knowingly and voluntarily entering the guilty pleas.

Jenkins responded, "They are voluntary, but they're not free."

The judge told Jenkins he couldn't accept the guilty pleas unless he knows the pleas are free and voluntary. Jenkins changed his mind, and told the judge the pleas were made freely and voluntarily.

The County Attorney Kleine had to tell the court the facts of all 4 murders....

Jenkins interrupted Kleine repeatedly, asking where specific bullet wounds were on each victim's body. As Kleine described the Spring Lake murder victim autopsies, Jenkins interrupted."

"What was that? It went through the eye?" Jenkins asked of the gunshot wound to Juan Uribe-Pena. He laughed.


Read more: http://www.ketv.com/news/jenkins-due-in-court-for-plea-hearing/25511252#ixzz2z7FyBlWO

In a media interview he still tried to blame the system for not getting him help...and said he didn't kill anyone.

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At several points while Kleine laid out the evidence, Jenkins whispered under his breath: "Liar, liar."

Jenkins was silent as Kleine described how Andrea Kruger died. Kruger's husband and mother looked on at the man who plead guilty to killing her.

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Criminal defense attorneys and state lawmakers are raising questions about Nebraska's state psychiatric hospital in Lincoln after it recently declined a judge's order to house a convicted killer found too mentally ill to participate in his sentencing.

"The Lincoln Regional Center is not above the law," attorney Maren Chaloupka, of Scottsbluff, said. "It is expected to provide treatment for persons in state custody with serious mental illnesses"...

Jenkins was found mentally fit enough to stand trial and was even allowed to represent himself. But after he pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in April, Douglas County District Judge Peter Bataillon found him not competent to participate in the sentencing phase of his case, in which prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Bataillon ordered Jenkins to the Lincoln Regional Center last month in an effort to have him restored to competency. But the hospital refused, saying it didn't have adequate security or a bed for Jenkins.

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The Omaha man convicted of first-degree murder in four 2013 shootings that occurred shortly after he was released from prison has filed another lawsuit accusing the state of failing to adequately treat his mental illness.

Nikko Jenkins is seeking $1.7 million in damages because he says his mental health deteriorated during extended time in solitary confinement...

A legislative committee is investigating the way Jenkins' case was handled by the prisons and court system. At a hearing Tuesday, state Sen. Ernie Chambers revealed that Jenkins had sent him a letter with a razor blade taped to it that Jenkins said someone had provided him so he could continue cutting himself. Corrections officials are investigating how Jenkins obtained the razor blade.

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A special legislative committee concludes solitary confinement and a lack of mental health care might well have pushed Nikko Jenkins to murder four people in Omaha.

Nikko Jenkins, convicted of killing four in Omaha after being released from prison, spent most of his time behind bars locked in solitary confinement...

Jenkins was released from prison after serving his term in late July. Within a month, he began to fulfill the promise he made in confinement; that he would kill once freed. The committee concludes the state should have sought civil confinement for Jenkins, an option available when an inmate is considered mentally ill and a danger to himself and others.

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A Douglas County jury heard opening statements in the murder trial of Erica Jenkins Wednesday. She’s the sister of convicted killer Nikko Jenkins, and is charged with first-degree murder, on trial for the 2013 murder of Curtis Bradford...

The state said Erica Jenkins complained that Nikko Jenkins “stole her first kill.”

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Prison director says officials are mystified as Nikko Jenkins finds another way to hurt himself

Convicted killer Nikko Jenkins used a prison guard’s badge to slice his penis.

Then, two days after that Jan. 26 mutilation, Jenkins attempted a more severe form of self-harm: He slid his waist chain up his torso, hooked it to a fence in the prison yard and lowered his body “in an attempt to hang himself from the fence,” a prison report says.

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The latest acts of self-harm come as Jenkins awaits a hearing to determine whether he is competent to face a death-penalty hearing over his August 2013 killings of Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz, Juan Uribe-Pena, Curtis Bradford and Andrea Kruger.

Nebraska Corrections Director Scott Frakes said prison officials have been mystified as to how Jenkins keeps getting weapons of self-destruction. Jenkins, 29, says he is housed in solitary confinement in a barren cell, with only two blankets, at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln.

Prison reports indicate that Jenkins has used the following to slice his penis: a broken floor tile, a piece of a radio, his eyeglasses, a screw from a shower.

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Prosecutors have argued that Jenkins’ motivation for mutilation is manipulation. They argue that he is feigning insanity in an attempt to prove himself crazy to legal observers.

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Nikko Jenkins' cousin sentenced to 20 years in prison for role in deaths of 3 people

She was one of the keys to Nikko Jenkins’ first killings, posing as a prostitute and luring two men to a robbery that turned grisly.

She then became the key to convicting Jenkins and several members of his family.

Judge Peter Bataillon had to reconcile the conflicting portraits as he sentenced Christine Bordeaux on Monday.

Contrasting her role in the killings with her testimony against the killers, Bataillon sentenced Bordeaux, 41, to 20 years in prison — a sentence that is cut in half under state law. Bordeaux faced up to 35 years in prison for taking part in the robberies that led to the deaths of three of four Omahans that Jenkins killed in a 10-day span.

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Lincoln Regional Center doctors have declared spree killer Nikko Jenkins competent to face a death penalty proceeding.

Now, Douglas County District Judge Peter Bataillon likely will set the case for a competency hearing this summer, when he will weigh opinions from the Regional Center and from a psychiatrist hired by the defense.

It has been six months since Bataillon ordered Regional Center psychiatrists to evaluate Jenkins.

Since then, Jenkins has continually cut himself — once doing so with a badge a prison guard had left on a chair just outside Jenkins’ cell.

He also has filed fruitless appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court — citing various constitutional rights, federal and state laws.

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A judge has ruled that the no contest pleas of an Omaha man later convicted of killing four people in the summer of 2013 will stand.

The ruling Friday comes two weeks after the judge found Nikko Jenkins mentally competent enough to go through the sentencing phase. Jenkins faces the death penalty when that sentencing hearing is held on Nov. 14.

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Nearly four years after a summer killing rampage, a three judge panel sentenced Nikko Jenkins to death four times for four murders. Additionally, he received up to 500 years in prison for his remaining counts.

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