An ex-con who said he fatally stabbed his 79-year-old mother while hallucinating on drugs is due back in court on Thursday.
In an interview from Harris County jail with local media, Garry Jenkins, 56, said he wishes he could go back in time and save her life.
His mother, Vertie Hamilton, was found murdered in her home near Humble on Monday.
Garry was arrested at a bus stop Tuesday on an unrelated warrant.
Speaking in a matter-of-fact tone, Garry described how the events leading up to his mother’s death unfolded.
He told us he was already high on cocaine Sunday morning before the alleged killing took place. He said someone then offered him the dangerous drug, PCP.
According to him, he smoked two “sticks of PCP.”
Garry eventually returned to his mother’s house off Audubon Forest. He said he started to hallucinate on the drug and heard a voice. Garry said the voice told him to grab a kitchen knife and kill his mother. He said he then carried out the killing.
“I heard a voice in my head. I’m not the monster they’re painting me to be. If it wasn’t for PCP, she’d be here,” Garry said. “She’s my best friend. I love her. I’ve asked the Lord to forgive me. I never wanted to hurt her.”
We also spoke again Wednesday with Garry’s brother A.J., who is in California. We shared with him what Garry said. A.J. said his brother killed the person who most cared for him.
“‘If it wasn’t for PCP, then she’d be here,'” A.J. said. “She’d be here had you not taken the PCP. The PCP didn’t jump on you.”
A.J. told Eyewitness News that Garry was a star athlete in high school and a good student who later served in the military, but was always a follower and spent time with people who led him down the wrong path.
A.J. is now on his way to Houston from California. He expressed very little sympathy for his brother.
“He’s not a monster,” A.J. said. “That would give him way too much credit. In order to be a monster, one has to be cunning and smart, and you know these people are very deliberate. There’s nothing deliberate about him. When you see that child in the supermarket lying on the floor kicking and screaming because they can’t have a cupcake, that’s him. So unless you can call that child a monster, he’s not a monster. He’s an idiot.”
Jenkins remains in jail. He’s being held with no bond.
