Crime Immemorial

On the night of October 30th-31st, 2009, a large disturbance involving between eight and twenty individuals broke out on and around Oronsay Road in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. The disturbance included a series of separate fights and assaults in the street.

Forty-one-year-old nursing home worker Jeannie Smith had gone outside her home to check on her younger son, Stephen Smith, in the midst of the disorder. She and her husband, John Smith Jr., were attacked; her husband was punched, kicked, and struck with a bottle. Another of her sons, Kevin Asken, also came out to help and was punched, kicked, and stabbed in the face during the chaos.

During the escalation of violence, Jeannie, her husband, and Kevin Asken retreated into the garden of the family’s home at 27 Oronsay Road. Three people followed them. According to witness accounts, one individual punched Jeannie, after which she was heard to exclaim, “John, I have been stabbed.” She returned to the house, collapsed in the kitchen, and was taken by ambulance to Monklands District General Hospital, where she later died.

The pathologist’s evidence at trial stated that Jeannie Smith died from a single stab wound to the heart, inflicted by a knife blade at least four inches long.

Initially, police suspected John Jenkins, who had been identified by some witnesses from a photograph. He was charged initially but released after a week on the instructions of the procurator fiscal (public prosecutor).

Following further information from a witness, officers detained John Jenkins. On December 17th, 2009, Jenkins was charged with Jeannie Smith’s murder. During his judicial examination in December 2009, he denied the charges and claimed he had heard that another man was responsible.

In September 2010, a jury at the High Court of Justiciary in Glasgow convicted John Joseph Jenkins of three charges: participating in riotous conduct, assaulting several family members, and the murder of Jeannie Smith. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder charge, with a minimum punishment of twenty years.

However, in 2011, the conviction was quashed on appeal. The Appeal Court determined that the eyewitness evidence—particularly from Jeannie Smith’s son who had identified Jenkins—was unreliable, and no other evidence sufficiently supported a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. As a result, Jenkins’ murder conviction was overturned.

With the conviction quashed and no new conviction entered, the death of Jeannie Smith is recorded in some summaries of crime as an unsolved murder in the United Kingdom. No one else has been convicted in connection with her killing since the appeal decision.