South Florida husband who hired hitman to kill pregnant wife loses appeal

An appeals court this month upheld the conviction of a Palm Beach County man in the 2017 murder-for-hire shooting death of his pregnant wife.

Euri Jenkins, 37, is serving a life sentence in state prison for hiring a hitman to kill his wife, Makeva, while she slept in their Lantana-area home. Prosecutors convicted him in 2022 with the help of two witnesses who said they conspired with Jenkins to murder her in order to collect on an insurance policy.

Jenkins resisted the conviction, first in a motion for acquittal and again in a bid to the Fourth District Court of Appeal. He argued that prosecutors failed to build a robust case against him and instead presented a flimsy one, based exclusively on "inconsistent statements" from two witnesses who, he noted, admitted to lying about their involvement early in the investigation.