GEORGE TOWN – It is nearly five years since Australian grandmother Annapuranee Jenkins disappeared without a trace from a bustling road in Penang, only for her remains to be found much later at a construction site beside the Penang Turf Club.
The utter distress and pain of not knowing what happened to his mother weighed heavily on Greg Jenkins as he laid a bouquet of flowers at the site where her partial skeletal remains were discovered in June 2020 during the height of the movement control order.
Greg, 43, shed tears as he recalled the circumstances of how his mother went missing, the futile search that followed, and how her remains were spotted by first construction workers, leading to him unearthing them.
He spoke of his remorse for what could have happened to Annapuranee. His family remains convinced, until proven otherwise, that she was murdered and her body dumped in what was once a forest.
Coroner Norsalha Hamzah went on a site visit to examine the last known locations where Annapuranee, 65, was seen before she vanished on December 13, 2017.
Accompanied by deputy public prosecutors, Jenkins family lawyer S. Raveentharan, and the media, including a crew from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the group visited Jen Hotel in George Town, the dental clinic Annapuranee was given treatment at in Pulau Tikus, and the compound of the Sri Ramakrishna Ashram at Scotland Road, where Annapuranee is said to have alighted from a Uber vehicle.
Norsalha later went to the site where Annapuranee’s remains were found.
Meanwhile, Frank Pangallo, the SA-Best member of the South Australian Legislative Council, who is here to observe the proceedings, urged the authorities to focus on determining what may have caused Annapuranee to lose her life.
The lawmaker has expressed concern about alleged attempts during the inquest hearings to smear her name with unverifiable accounts of narcotics involvement.
“I think the most significant allegation linked Anna to a kind of drug crime back in Australia and that she was an interested party with police.”
“The family lawyer who contacted South Australian police was able to get a statement that totally discredited that line of evidence, and she was totally cleared of any wrongdoing and has no criminal record in any jurisdiction in Australia,” he said.
Annapuranee, who was born in Parit Buntar, had met Royal Australian Air Force officer Francis Jenkins in Penang before they married and settled in Adelaide, Australia in the 1970s. The RAAF had then operated out of the sprawling base in Butterworth.
The couple have two children and two grandchildren.
In 2017, Annapuranee was back in Penang on a routine visit where she was scheduled to visit her mother, who later passed away in 2018, at the Little Sisters of the Poor home for the aged and infirm.
On the way there, Annapuranee is said to have gestured to the Uber ride-sharing driver to be let off near the Sri Ramakrishna Ashram and she was last seen walking along Scotland Road, as captured by CCTV footage.
Today, the site, located in the Batu Gantong area, has been cleared to make way for a luxurious residential project and retirement village.
In light of the unexplained death, an inquest in the coroner court was commissioned by the authorities to determine what happened to her.
The proceedings began in March and started again last Monday (July 18). The inquest is set to resume for 14 days starting on October 19. – The Vibes, July 22, 2022
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