When Father and Son Conspire: A Minnesota Farm Murder

When Father and Son Conspire examines in depth the September 29, 1983, murders of two southwestern Minnesota bankers by 46-year-old James Jenkins and his 18-year-old son, Steven, on a farm mortgaged to the bankers and abandoned by Jenkins. The crime led to a nationwide search, the apparent suicide of James, the surrender of Steven, and a case for Steven’s defense based on the bizarre relationship between father and son. Was their crime really the desperate act of desperate men caught in the farm crisis, as the media espoused? Or was it the eruption of both men’s growing mental illness fed by mutual delusions of reality, rootlessness, divorce, loneliness, and obsessive behavior? Nine detailed chapters examine the men, their myths, the murders they ommitted, and the motivation of it all-considering facts not taken into account at the trial and concluding that the farm crisis was a convincing excuse but not the real reason for this ruthless crime.