Skinner-Watkins, Jennifer Lee

Jennifer Lee Watkins (nee Skinner), 23, was the second of four children. Her youngest brother, Joseph, was closest to her heart. Jennifer graduated from Hanover (CO) High School. She liked to hang out with friends and she loved her animals. Jennifer enjoyed volley-ball and wanted to help people. She loved music and played clarinet in the school band. Jennifer wanted to be a nurse. It was after she enrolled in Barnes Business College in Denver that Michael Watkins, with whom she had gone to grade school, moved in and “her life went downhill from there,” according to her mother, Irene Skinner. Michael had problems with drugs. Jennifer was a victim of domestic abuse, requiring emergency room treatment on more than one occasion. They were married about three years when Michael got a job in maintenance at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs. Jennifer followed and got a job there as a dietician. On November 8, 1999, her body was found under a staircase leading to the helicopter pad at the hospital. She was wrapped in a sheet covered with construction plastic which was duct-taped closed. Jennifer suffered blunt trauma to the head. In addition to her mother, step-father and brothers, Jennifer left her children, Michael Jr., 3, and Mariah, 11 months. Jennifer is loved and missed by her family very, very, very much. If you have any information that might be pertinent to this murder, please call Detective Derek Graham, 719-444-7561.