Burley man to spend life in prison for quadruple murder
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RUPERT – A 56-year-old man who admitted to murdering four people in two counties will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Benjamin Roy Naylor was sentenced by District Judge Blaine P. Cannon to four life sentences with no possibility of parole for the murders of Kelly and Donna Jenks, ages 66 and 62, who were killed in their Burley home in Cassia County, 25-year-old Angelica Medina, and 77-year-old Dennis Mix, who were both killed in Minidoka County.
Naylor will also be required to pay child support for the minor children of one of the Minidoka County victims.
Naylor signed a plea agreement in December, agreeing to plead guilty to all charges, and the state agreed not to pursue the death penalty.
RELATED | Burley man admits to killing four people
KTVB previously reported that Naylor’s daughter said her father had schizophrenia. During the case, he was deemed fit to stand trial.
According to a news release from the Prosecuting Attorneys McCord Larsen and Lansen Stevenson through the Vera Causa Group, the case and sentencing involved “significant mental health considerations.”
“In 1982, Idaho became one of the first states in the nation to abolish the insanity defense entirely,” the release said. “Idaho Code 18-207 is unambiguous: mental condition is not a defense to any charge of criminal conduct.”
Larsen describes in the news release how Naylor’s mental illness has affected the victims’ families as the case progressed.
“When a defendant’s mental illness becomes part of the public conversation, it can be re-traumatizing for victims’ families,” the release states. “There is a tendency in media and public discourse to shift focus toward the defendant’s mental state in a way that can make victims’ families feel erased from their own tragedy.”
Larsen and Stevenson also acknowledged Naylor’s family in the release, and the fact that this case caused them pain and grief as well.
“They are grieving too,” Larsen says. “They are grieving the person they knew before the illness progressed. That grief is real, and it is largely invisible to the community.”
The attorneys say in the release that they continue to hope for healing in the communities where these crimes occurred, and urge the public to help reduce the stigma around seeking professional help for mental health issues.
“Four people are gone. Families are forever changed. We as a community have to reckon with how we address mental illness before it reaches the point of tragedy,” Larsen and Stevenson say in the release. “We have to fund mental health services. We have to reduce the stigma that keeps people from seeking help. … Justice, in this case, meant four fixed-life sentences. It meant certainty for victims’ families … but justice also means asking ourselves, as a community, what we could have done differently before we ever got here.”
The killings
On July 8, around 3:30 p.m., an officer with the Rupert Police Department was called to respond to a home in Minidoka County for a report of an “unattended death that occurred under suspicious circumstances,” according to police reports.
When he arrived, he learned that Medina had been found dead in the northwest bedroom of the home with “at least one gunshot wound to the head.”
According to her obituary, Medina was a mother of four and “loved hard.”
“Angelica was gentle and kind but unstoppable, playful yet profound. Angelica was a true jokester as she had the ability to make even the weariest of hearts laugh,” the obituary states. “Angelica brought life to every room she walked into (and) she loved life she loved hard.”
Obituary for Angelica Medina | Morrison Payne Funeral Home & Crematory
Detectives found Blink doorbell footage from the home, which reportedly showed a white man with a “darker mustache and light beard, wearing a black full-brimmed hat, a camouflage print jacket, a dark-colored T-shirt with a multi-colored logo, black shorts, white socks and light-colored tennis shoes” ringing the doorbell and being greeted and allowed into the home around 1:35 p.m.
According to court documents, the man also had a “yellow glove on his left hand,” and his right hand was “holding a firearm tucked under his jacket on the left side of his body.”
The video reportedly shows the same man leaving the home around 1:50 p.m. He then walked west down a concrete pathway until the camera stopped recording.
Just hours later, around 6:20 p.m, investigators with the Cassia County Sheriff’s Office responded to an address in Burley for a report that two people had been shot.
When they arrived, deputies and detectives searched the home, finding Kelly Jenks lying dead on the floor of the living room with a gunshot wound to the head.
Soon after, deputies also located Donna Jenks, deceased with a gunshot wound to the head, inside a closet near the back of the house.
Obituary for Donna Lynn Smith Jenks | Rasmussen-Wilson Funeral Home
Obituary for Kelly Wayne Jenks | Rasmussen-Wilson Funeral Home
According to their obituaries, Donna and Kelly were the parents of a daughter and grandparents of a granddaughter.
“Donna and Kelly shared a deep love for the outdoors, teaching (their daughter) to hunt, fish, and camp,” reads Donna’s obituary. “They also passed along their love for the ocean, creating cherished memories as a family.”
Deputies reportedly found video footage from earlier in the afternoon showing a “gold 2013 Toyota Tundra pull against the curb across the street from the residence.”
A man reportedly got out of the driver’s seat and walked into the home where the dead bodies were later found.
A short time later, the man exited the home and left in the Tundra.
Detectives were shown a photo of the Rupert homicide suspect, who was caught on a video doorbell and determined to be Naylor.
At 10:04 p.m., a Lincoln County Sheriff’s deputy found the Tundra near the intersection of South Greenwood Street and State Highway 24 in Shoshone.
The deputy followed the Tundra northbound on State Highway 75 while waiting for additional officers and then initiated a traffic stop near milepost 90. The driver was identified as Naylor, who was wearing a light-colored woodland camouflage jacket, a black Steve Miller Bank T-shirt, and black shorts.
According to police reports, Naylor has a 1911-style handgun strapped to himself inside a shoulder holster. He was transported to the Mini-Cassia Criminal Justice Center, where he is being held without bond.
Court documents say detectives interviewed Naylor, but the court sealed the interview details, making them unavailable to the public.
After Naylor’s interview, police reports say deputies were asked to check the area near Connor’s Cafe, at 339 South 600 West in Heyburn. Deputies found Mix deceased inside a 2010 Ford Expedition parked behind the building.
