Exit at St. Charles. Rochester man realized his end was near when police had him corralled in his car. He shot himself dead. Image Steve Lunde
Winona cop picked up Jenkins’ trail back 30 miles
ST. CHARLES, Minn. – The man who shot himself to death Friday night in a traffic stop on Interstate 90 had been sought for several days for the murder of his sister in Eau Claire. Scott Adam Jenkins, 59, had been linked to the death early in the investigation. His car showed up in a series of traffic-tracking cameras as being in Eau Claire about the time that his sister, Michelle Jenkins, was shot to death at her home. A widened search of traffic monitoring videos spotted the vehicle making trips back and forth between Eau Claire and Rochester, where the bother Scott Jenkins lived — all via the Mississippi River bridge on the Wisconsin-Minnesota border at Winona. Why Scott Jenkins was making the 200-mile round trips was not clear. Nor have Eau Claire police released information on what they know as a motive for the murder. What is known is that a Winona police officer observed Jenkins’ 2014 white Nissan Altima on Friday night on the Highway 43 route through Winona from the interstate bridge to Winona Street, onto Sarnia Street, then onto Mankato Avenue, and then eight miles up to I-90 at Wilson, and west 18 miles almost to St. Charles. The officer followed Jenkins, all the while communicating with the Winona police dispatcher. The dispatcher confirmed that Eau Claire police believed that Jenkins had a handgun and should be considered armed and dangerous. Just short of St. Charles, the Winona officer stopped the Jenkins vehicle. A back-up officer arrived. Jenkins, alone in his car, was given verbal commands on a loudspeaker to exit the vehicle. He didn’t. When officers approached the vehicle, they found Jenkins slumped dead in the driver’s seat with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A handgun was with the body.
Jenkins profile
Since 1986 Jenkins had lived in Rochester, on 13-1/2 Street Southeast. Earlier he lived in Ashburn, Virginia, 30 miles northwest of Washington D.C., and in Wisconsin in Menomonie and Eau Claire. His court records are not especially notable. In Minnesota he was convicted of failure to report an accident in Dakota County in 2021 and of drunken driving in Olmsted County in 2021. During his years in Virginia he had tickets for speeding and minor driving infractions.
Flock policing tool
To track Jenkins, police relied on the surveillance technology company Flock Safety. The Atlanta-based company specializes in tracking criminals through license plate identification. Flock was founded in 2017 and has built a vehicle-tracking system now in 4,000 U.S cities. The company contracts its services with local police agencies. It was Flock cameras that established a timeline that put Jenkins’ vehicle at his sister’s home in Eau Claire the day she was killed. Flock cameras in Buffalo and Eau Claire counties in Wisconsin also identified the Jenkins car in transit. With its own cameras the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension established that the Jenkins vehicle was traveling back and forth between Winona and Rochester. These camers included a set at the Winona interstate bridge. Armed with the surveillance information, a search warrant was issued from Eau Claire for Jenkins’ home in Rochester. He was not home but police said that additional evidence was collected.