Darla Carroll Jenkins was sentenced to 22 years in prison last week for shooting and killing her husband in Jefferson County last year.
Jenkins, 57, told investigators she and her 66-year-old husband, Jesse Jenkins, had a murder-suicide pact.
When Golden police forced their way into the Jenkins home on Sunshine Parkway in Golden in March 2009, they found he had been shot in the head on the couch. Meanwhile, Darla Jenkins appeared unharmed and ran to a back bedroom. Police found two pistols in the bedroom.
Investigators found no evidence of a suicide pact, and though Darla Jenkins initially claimed she had taken a bottle of pills to kill herself, evidence to support that claim was not put forth, according to prosecutors.
She agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder last month. The case marked the first murder in the city of Golden in 13 years, according to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office.
“This was a difficult case,” District Attorney Scott Storey said in a statement. “Darla and Jesse Jenkins appeared to be a happy couple to their friends and the people who knew them. There was never a clear motive as to why she would kill him.”
