Coverage of the story regularly made the top of the evening TV news in Hawaii, and was splashed across newspapers in bold, fronpage headlines, often accompanied by pictures of the suspects and the victims, and provocative sidebar articles. “Woman Seized in Yacht Theft,” headlined the October 30 edition of the Honolulu Advertiser in the first article on the case. “Is My Brother Dead? Mac Graham’s Sister Asks FBI,” read a headline in the November 4 Advertiser. “Palmyra Searchers Return but Won’t Talk About Findings,” announced the Star-Bulletin on the same day.
In San Diego, the case also made the front pages. “South Seas Dream Trip Tainted,” reported the San Diego Union on October 30. “Yacht Wife’s Premonition Recalled,” revealed the Tribune on November 1. People magazine, in a November edition, featured “A Couple Who Loved the Sea Vanish in It,” an illustrated multipage story that referred to Jennifer as a “scruffy social dropout” and Buck as a “tattooed drifter.”
In Hawaii, at least, the names and faces of Mac and Muff Graham, Jennifer Jenkins, and Buck Walker were etched in the public mind. When Jennifer finally went to trial in mid-1975, every single member of her eight-woman, four-man jury admitted to having read, viewed, or heard about the case from radio, television, and newspaper accounts.
ON JANUARY 7, 1975, one week before Jennifer and Buck were scheduled to be tried together for the theft of the Sea Wind, Judge King granted a motion by Jennifer’s defense attorney to sever their cases. They would be tried separately.
That day in court, both were present. Jennifer sat next to Buck, and they conversed intimately in the hushed tones of lovers who missed one another and were deeply worried about their future together.
At one point, Jennifer leaned over to her lawyer and said, “Buck has asked me to go first.”
“What do you mean?” her lawyer asked.
“He wants me to be tried first. I said fine. Tell the judge.”
It did not dawn on her that Buck might want her to be the try-out for his performance.
On January 13, Walker stood before Judge King on the old drug charge. He was given the maximum five-year sentence in federal prison.
SEATTLE
MARCH 1975
KIT NEVER expected to hear from Buck Walker, not ever. His letter arrived with the abruptness of a bolt of lightning. She sat now in her kitchen with his eight-page handwritten missive in her hands, utterly unprepared emotionally for what it had to say.
The envelope carried a March 11, 1975, Hawaii postmark. Jennifer had enclosed a short note, explaining, “Buck wrote to you some time back while we were in dry dock,” but the letter had been “lost and forgotten in the shuffle.”
In the upper-right-hand corner of the letter, Buck had penned, in his neat writing, “October—Hawaii.”
Dear Kit,
It’s difficult to write this, as the news we have to convey is very sad for us, and we know it will be so for you. I’ve made numerous attempts in this regard and each has always seemed inadequate. Even now I can find no words that seem appropriate to the circumstances. We are torn in many ways in this matter, yet we feel a deep obligation to communicate with you.
My name is Roy Allen and my wife is Jennifer. We’ve recently returned to Hawaii from Palmyra, where we met Mac and Muff, and although we were fellow inhabitants for only a couple of months on a remote atoll, we came to care very much for them.
Please prepare yourself for the worst.
Mac and Muff disappeared August 30th, and we haven’t seen them since. We believe they died in a boating accident. They had gone fishing in the afternoon and never returned. The next day we found their overturned dinghy washed up on the beach.
All else that follows is an elaboration of circumstances, as well as our own thoughts and feelings. I hope you’ll bear with my clumsiness in the telling.
The image of Mac that, for me, signifies his essence, is drawn from the day I first saw him. He was standing out on the bowsprit of the Sea Wind, directing Muff at the helm as they glided into the lagoon. He waved and smiled…
Kit felt bile rising. How was it possible for Mac’s and Muff’s murderer to have the incredible boldness to write her any kind of letter, much less this kind? she wondered. The very thought made her light-headed and caused her to perspire. She had to pause for a minute before continuing to read on.
…as I was rowing close by. I offered to help in getting the Sea Wind secured and he replied, “Nope, I can handle it.” In this simple refusal, he seemed to imply much more; that as much as he appreciated the offer, he couldn’t forgo the pleasure of doing it himself! There was an indescribable look about him when he smiled that I’ve felt always permitted him to say anything whatever with perfect graciousness.
Walker told of his admiration for Mac’s “self-sufficiency,” and Mac’s “utter love and regard” for Muff. The two couples were “friendly and neighborly,” Walker waxed on, sharing fish from their daily catches. He alluded to their having fun together at Jennifer’s birthday party, “singing Happy Birthday and talking away a long evening.”
Kit’s eyes flitted back to the words “friendly” and “neighborly.” Her hands trembled.
It may seen a little strange to you how we could derive so much enjoyment from simple pleasures. Of course, the setting is important. Palmyra is enchanting and mystical. There is a natural beauty that numbs the senses going hand in hand with hard realities: poisonous fish, sharks, scorpions, spiders, rats, mosquitoes, etc. There is the fear of serious injury because the nearest outside help is days away, and on the other hand, an eagerness for the challenge.
The humidity is usually uncomfortable, making a delight of a cold bath from stored rainwater. There is a sameness to the days, a silence composed of only sounds of nature, the pulse of the surf, the wind through the coconut trees, the nesting birds taking flight; an acute sense of being alone. Sharing a meal, a drink, a smoke, a conversation, playing chess, greetings as you pass going in opposite directions, all take on a pronounced flavor.
The chess games were a special treat, except that Muff didn’t play. Mac and I were fairly evenly matched, while Jennifer beat us both on quite a few occasions.
Walker mentioned the planned trip to Fanning. He said Mac had invited him and Jennifer for a “bon voyage dinner” the night before their scheduled departure. He told of arriving at the Sea Wind’s anchorage around six o’clock, and not finding Mac and Muff. “Mac had mentioned earlier in the day that they were going fishing in the afternoon,” Walker said, so he and Jennifer were not initially worried. But “the later it became, the more we worried.”
Buck went on to tell of their searching for Mac and Muff in the morning and finding their overturned Zodiac not far away, “washed up on the beach.” They searched for three days, he said, but found no other signs of Mac and Muff.
Kit tried desperately to concentrate on the details presented in Buck’s rendition, rather than give in to her growing urge to ball up the patronizing letter and chuck it into the garbage.
Jennifer and I hardly spoke except for calling out for Mac and Muff, and we didn’t get much sleep. In retrospect, I think we were in a mild state of shock at the loss. It was unbelievable. I can’t say how much we miss them!
They stayed on the island another week or ten days, Walker went on, then decided to take the Sea Wind to Fanning, towing the Iola, and “report the matter there.” But on the narrow passage out of the Palmyra lagoon, the Iola “crunched up on a coral head.” When they couldn’t free the damaged Iola, they set out on the Sea Wind for Hawaii.
After a while we decided that going to Fanning wasn’t a good plan because we’d be in a foreign jurisdiction and there was a question of whether the Sea Wind would be confiscated, leaving us homeless and stranded. We felt a great responsibility for the Sea Wind. She’s a beautiful yacht and we’ve come to love her.
One thing I might as well tell you is that Jennifer and I tend to be romantics, which often leads to rationalizations about life. I suppose this comes fro
m being overanxious for something better, and we tend to color reality with our dreams. I mention this because I wish to be candid about everything, and I hope it’ll aid in understanding something of us.
Here in Hawaii, we’ve had to haul out the Sea Wind for repairs. (This is being written at the boatyard.) Last but not least, we wanted to get married…
Hadn’t he said a few pages back that “my wife is Jennifer”? Just one small lie, Kit was sure, in comparison to the rest of the letter.
…which we haven’t felt the necessity to do before, but we’ve been talking of having children—the time for a wedding now seems completely right.
I realize this may be the wrong place to mention this, but we want to file a salvage claim on the Sea Wind. I hope I can make you understand all that we mean by this, as there are many factors involved. We’ve lost our own boat, market value about $10,000, although price tags have nothing to do with how a sailor values his vessel, whether she be a tub or a luxury yacht. We love the Sea Wind and we want, eventually, to continue with her in voyage around the world. Also, I’ve registered the Sea Wind, renaming her Lokahi, meaning “of one mind,” which we think aptly sums up the spirit of our feelings. We haven’t yet notified anyone about the true circumstances. We feel you should be the first to know.
There are many things we know you’ll want to have whatever happens, and we’d like to ship them to you at the earliest opportunity. We would appreciate hearing your feelings about everything. We intend to write again soon. We want to keep you fully informed.
I know this letter must be a sensitive experience for you, and I know I’ve stated things badly. I seem to have great difficulty finding an end and a beginning, and in determining appropriate language for in between. I apologize for my lack, but we want and very much need an understanding.
Thank you for listening, and please let us know if there’s anything we can do. We send all our deepest sympathies to you and others who will feel Mac and Muff’s loss. We cared, we care.
Sincere regards,
Roy and Jennifer
P.S. We found about $400 aboard and used it on repairing and painting the Sea Wind. However, we’ll return this amount to you if you feel it’s the right thing to do.
Kit was convinced the letter was largely a pack of lies—and she didn’t believe for a minute that Buck Walker had written it back in October 1974, from an Oahu boatyard. She could picture this glib, manipulative murderer hunched over a cot in his steamy Honolulu jail cell concocting these elaborate explanations in a desperate attempt to save his own skin.
Kit promptly called the FBI’s Calvin Shishido, told him about the letter, and vented her outrage by reading him a few of the more unbelievable excerpts.
“It’s just a bunch of nonsense written by a pathological liar,” he said. “Don’t let it get to you.”
“I won’t.” She took a deep breath. “I just hope Walker and the girl get what they’ve got coming.”
“Send me a copy of the letter. Maybe we can use it against them someday.”
UNITED STATES v. Jennifer Jenkins, criminal action 74–160, began on June 19, 1975, in Judge King’s courtroom in the Honolulu federal building on King Street. The street was not, as some Hawaii residents believed, named to honor the well-connected judge or his late father, who had been a territorial delegate to Congress from Hawaii between 1934 and 1942, but rather the Hawaiian royalty who formerly resided in the lolani Palace, located across the street.
The unseasonably chilly morning did not deter the curious from crowding into those gallery seats remaining after the contingent of newspaper and television reporters pitched camp in the front rows.
At 9:05 A.M., prosecutor Bill Eggers approached the podium and began his opening statement to the jury by setting forth the nature of the three charges against the defendant: theft of the Sea Wind; illegal transportation in the interstate commerce of stolen goods, to wit, the Sea Wind and its contents; and theft from the Sea Wind of four hundred dollars belonging to the Grahams.
Murder had not been included, though the authorities were convinced that Mac and Muff Graham had been murdered, and that the killers were Buck Walker and Jennifer Jenkins.
Although it is commonly believed that the word “corpus” in corpus delicti refers to the body of the victim in a homicide case, and that without a body there can be no prosecution, corpus delicti actually means “the body (that is, the elements) of the crime.” Those elements have to be present, together with evidence that it was the defendant who perpetrated the crime, before there can be a successful prosecution. One of the elements in a murder prosecution is, of course, a dead body. (Other elements of the most common type of first-degree murder are malice aforethought, premeditation, and deliberation.) But the prosecution only has the burden of proving that an unlawful killing took place, not the burden of actually producing the body.
Nonetheless, it is self-evidently true that without finding the body in a homicide case, the prosecution’s case is generally weakened. The automatic first defense for the accused is to claim that the supposed victim might still be alive. Also, if the defendant is prosecuted for the murder and found not guilty, he can never be prosecuted again for the murder—even if the body of the victim and other evidence, no matter how incriminating, is subsequently found—because of constitutional safeguards against double jeopardy. For this reason, prosecutors frequently wait a considerable period of time before filing murder charges, hoping that the body will turn up. There is no statute of limitation for the crime of murder.
Law enforcement officials connected with the Palmyra case agreed that sooner or later Buck Walker and Jennifer Jenkins would be prosecuted for murder, whether or not the bodies of the Grahams were ever found, and that the theft cases were only dry runs for the murder prosecutions—with the same witnesses and virtually the same circumstantial evidence.
The first Government witness was Kit Muncey, her face pale and wan from grief and worry. She was obviously ill at ease as she took the stand. But though she had never testified in court before and was as nervous as she looked, Kit wanted to be here. She wanted a hand in convicting Jennifer Jenkins. She only regretted that the charge was not murder.
Testifying that the Sea Wind and sailing were her brother’s “whole life,” she added that her brother and sister-in-law were experienced, competent blue-water sailors who had expertly prepared themselves for the trip to Palmyra.
Kit also attested to the characteristic stability of the Zodiac and Mac’s skill in operating it safely.
In succeeding days of testimony, four Government witnesses—Larry Briggs, Jack Wheeler, Tom Wolfe, and Bernard Leonard—testified about events on Palmyra in the summer of 1974. Two themes were emphasized by them all: the Iola was in wretched shape, and Jennifer and Roy Allen were getting desperate for food. Leonard also testified about the details of Jennifer’s flight from authorities on the morning of her arrest.
Lorraine Wollen, who lived with her husband on their sailboat at Pokai Bay, testified next that they had met Jennifer Jenkins and Roy Allen in October 1974, when they moored their boat in the adjacent berth.
“Did Miss Jenkins speak with you about how they obtained the boat they sailed into Pokai Bay on?” Eggers asked.
The morning the Sea Wind was to depart, Wollen answered, Jennifer invited her over for coffee. Afterward, as Wollen was about to leave, she noticed a photograph on the wall. “I asked Jennifer if it was a picture of the previous owners. She said it was, that the man had owned the boat for fourteen years and just got tired of all the maintenance that goes with a boat and decided to get rid of it. I got the impression Jennifer and Roy got a very good deal.”
Later that day, according to her testimony, Wollen returned to her own boat after doing some errands and found a note from Jennifer explaining that she hadn’t had time to pick up a roll of film at the Waianae Drugstore. She asked Lorraine to please pick up the prints and mail them to an address on Maui. Folded inside the note were a five-doll
ar bill and the stub off the film envelope.
Several days later, Wollen did pick up the prints, but before she got around to mailing them, she heard the news about Jennifer’s arrest at Ala Wai. Thinking the pictures might be important evidence, she took them down to the Waianae police station.
“The policeman on duty spread the pictures out on the counter, and told me he didn’t think they were evidence, and gave them back to me. The next day, I mailed the pictures to Jennifer Allen at the address she had left.”*
Eggers showed the witness five pictures, which she identified as the photos she had picked up for Jennifer.
The five photos entered into evidence by the Government showed the Iola under full sail next to the Sea Wind. Palmyra could be seen in the background.†
The pictures of the Iola, minus its front hatch cover, had been taken from the deck of the Sea Wind, the rigging of the Sea Wind being visible in the photo. Clearly, they contradicted Jennifer’s statement to Shishido that the Iola got hung up, and was left, on a reef in Palmyra’s channel. The little boat had obviously made it well clear of the channel and out to the open sea. The lack of a hatch cover suggested that Buck and Jennifer intended from the very start to scuttle her.
The Government attempted to discredit Jennifer’s story about finding the Zodiac capsized by calling to the stand Kenneth White, an expert on small boats. White testified that he had examined the engine from the Sea Wind’s Zodiac and concluded that there was no evidence it had been submerged in salt water, as would have occurred if the dinghy capsized in the Palmyra lagoon. Furthermore, White characterized the Zodiac as “about the most stable water craft you can buy.” He had personally tested the stability of Mac and Muff’s Zodiac. “We put four men in it and took it out into the water and tried to capsize it. We could get just a little bit of water into the boat by the four of us bouncing on one side. That’s all.”