{"id":168345,"date":"2026-02-07T18:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T18:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/168345\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T18:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T18:04:20","slug":"girls-describe-watching-oakland-man-kill-his-girlfriend-and-her-13-year-old-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/168345\/","title":{"rendered":"Girls describe watching Oakland man kill his girlfriend and her 13-year-old daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND \u2014 One of the girls was shot in the leg and had to crawl out of a Birch Street apartment as her best friend lay dying from gunshot wounds inside<\/a>. Another says she stared down the barrel of a gun held by her mom\u2019s boyfriend before he dropped the pistol and ran off.<\/p>\n

They witnessed horrible things inside the Jenkins\u2019 family home on April 23, 2023. Because of that, their testimony is crucial as authorities work to prosecute a double murder case against 49-year-old Antonio Powell, the man who allegedly killed 44-year-old Rebecca Jenkins<\/a>, his girlfriend, then turned the gun on 13-year-old Desiree Jenkins, then shot Desiree\u2019s best friend, before fleeing in what the girls described as a maniacal rage.<\/p>\n

At a January preliminary hearing, Judge Paul Delucchi held Powell to answer on charges of murder, being a felon in possession of a firearm, assaulting the girl with a pistol, and a count of child abuse for each of the four surviving children who were in the apartment that day. He pleaded not guilty on Feb. 3, court records show.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no apparent motive to the shooting, because the girls who witnessed it didn\u2019t hear words. What they heard was Powell\u2019s inaudible screams, which pierced through the walls of their apartment on the 500 block of Birch Street in Oakland, before and after the gunfire, according to their testimony.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike rage stuff.\u201d Rebecca Jenkins\u2019 teen daughter described\u00a0 \u201cNo words coming out. Just anger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Desiree\u2019s best friend, who was shot in the leg, testified that Powell fled the area after apparently running out of bullets. Police arrested him a short distance away from the apartment.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was, like, hopping and skipping around. Screaming like a maniac,\u201d as he ran off, Desiree\u2019s best friend testified.<\/p>\n

Both girls said that Jenkins and Powell argued that day, and Powell appeared to be sulking. That was nothing new for the couple, according to Jenkins\u2019 teen daughter, who said she didn\u2019t think much of it. That night, she was in her bedroom talking to an ex-boyfriend on her tablet, when she heard gunshots and ran to investigate.<\/p>\n

She went into a hallway of the apartment in time to see Powell shoot Desiree multiple times, she said. Then he pointed the gun at her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Don\u2019t shoot me,\u2019 and nothing went off,\u201d she testified. Powell walked out of the hallway a few moments later.<\/p>\n

Desiree\u2019s best friend had to crawl out of the apartment with a gunshot wound near her ankle. She said her recovery required a weeklong hospital stay and months of physical therapy.<\/p>\n

The only eyewitness to Rebecca\u2019s death was the couple\u2019s 1-year-old daughter, family members told this news organization after the shooting. No one who testified could explain what started the fight. Jenkins\u2019 daughter testified the couple had been dating for a few months and occasionally delivered food orders together on DoorDash. They argued throughout their relationship, which had become more \u201cconstant\u201d before the shooting, she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI miss (Desiree) every day,\u201d she testified. As for her mother, \u201cShe was my light. She was my whole world. She was a family person all the way. Cared about everybody. Loved everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND \u2014 One of the girls was shot in the leg and had to crawl out of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[80899,861,862,15699,80900,143,80901,145,864,144],"class_list":{"0":"post-168345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-antonio-powell","9":"tag-bay-area-crime","10":"tag-california-crime","11":"tag-double-murder","12":"tag-family-murder","13":"tag-oakland","14":"tag-oakland-double-murder","15":"tag-oakland-headlines","16":"tag-oakland-murder","17":"tag-oakland-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}