Grandfather gets life in baby-shaking death

By Cassie Tomlin

Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009 | 2:03 p.m.

The man who admitted to shaking his baby granddaughter to death almost two years ago was sentenced today to life in prison.

Ray Earl Jenks, 50, of Boulder City, pleaded guilty last November to second-degree murder, bypassing a trial. He will be eligible for parole in 10 years.

District Judge Donald Mosley called the July 2007 death of seven-month-old Alyssa Jenks “mind-boggling” and gave Jenks the maximum penalty.

The baby girl was found unresponsive in her crib in Ray Jenks’ Boulder City home July 3, 2007, and died at Sunrise Hospital two days later.

Amanda Teer, the child’s mother, and Kenneth Jenks, Ray Jenks' son and the baby's father, returned from Henderson that day to find Alyssa unresponsive in her crib and rushed her to Boulder City Hospital, police said.

An autopsy ruled her death the result of adult-induced non-accidental head trauma, and Boulder City detectives, after a yearlong investigation, found those injuries were sustained while Ray Jenks was caring for her.

Jenks admitted to being high on methamphetamine, becoming angry with the child’s crying and shaking her violently that day, Deputy District Attorney Vicki Monroe said.

Jenks said nothing at the sentencing.

Teer was in Tonopah, Nev., where she lives with her two sons, during the sentencing.

Sheila Teer, Amanda Teer’s mother, told Mosley before the judge pronounced his sentence that after Alyssa’s death, Amanda Teer’s young sons were taken from her custody, traumatizing the two autistic boys.

“They were like little walking zombies,” she said, of the children, now 5 and 3 years old.

“Amanda wants you to know that she would consider a life sentence wonderful, because she’s afraid of what he would do when he came across the next child,” she told the judge.

After the sentencing, Sheila Teer said the death of the baby destroyed part of her family, and she cried with her daughter Tiffany Teer, Alyssa’s aunt.

They said they would attend Ray Jenks’ parole hearing in 10 years.

“He doesn’t deserve to see the light of day and ever see children again,” Tiffany Teer said.

Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or [email protected].