London Premiere Screening – Life with Murder

The story of a family coming to terms with the murder of their 18-year-old Jennifer Jenkins who was shot 4 times with a single-shot .22 rifle in January 1998.

The film follows parents Brian and Leslie Jenkins who not only had to deal with the loss of their daughter but also the conviction of their 20-year-old son Mason for the murder.

Mason’s parents chose to stand by him and were ostracised by their friends and community in Ontario, even when he finally confessed to the killing in 2007, claiming it was “an accident”.

Using a wealth of material, including crime scene videos, recorded telephone calls, and forensic evidence, Life with Murder pieces together the events of 6 January 1998. Through interviews with Mason, his family, and the detective in charge of the investigation we get a sense of the impact of a family tragedy of this proportion.

Part psychological study, part investigation, Life with Murder is a film which takes a compassionate look at the repercussions of crime upon a family, perpetrator and community.

Directed by John Kastner
93 mins
2010

Dr Rachel Condry is a Lecturer in Criminology and a Fellow of St Hilda’s College at the University of Oxford. Her work focuses broadly on the intersections between crime and the family. She is the author of the only academic book specifically about the families of serious offenders: Families Shamed: The Consequences of Crime for Relatives of Serious Offenders (Willan, 2007) and has written a range of academic, policy and newspaper articles about their predicament.