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'Don't Give Up On Your Dreams': Businesswoman Shot in the Head in Tragic Plot to End Her Life
Makeva Jenkins' dreams were finally coming true when the successful entrepreneur and mom was shot to death in her Florida home in a bizarre home invasion.
Makeva Jenkins didn’t just want to reach her own dreams, she wanted to help others find theirs too.
“Don’t give up on your dreams,” the Florida businesswoman said in one inspirational video on social media, according to Oxygen’s Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins. “Remember why you became an entrepreneur or business owner in the first place and make it a great day.”
Just as it seemed that Makeva’s hard work had finally led her to the life she’d always imagined, the pregnant mom of three from Florida was gunned down in her own home, shot in the head by a masked gunman as she slept.
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Investigators initially believed Makeva’s mother, known as Quest, may have been the intended target, but after piecing together the clues that emerged in the days following the shocking shooting, they discovered a chilling plot much closer to home.
Raised by her grandmother, Makeva’s aunt Sabrina Yarns said she “was special from day one.” The popular teenager was elected homecoming teen and was always surrounded by friends, but she also had a strong sense of ambition.
“She was a hard worker, a model student, good grades were, like, mandatory in our house,” Yarns said.
After high school, Makeva headed off to the University of South Florida, but she got an unexpected surprise when she discovered that she was pregnant. Even as a single mom to daughter Ceniya, Makeva was determined to get her education and not only graduated but eventually went on to get her Master’s degree.
“She was a fantastic mom,” her brother, Quay Greer, recalled. “Her and Ceniya were just the best of buddies.”
As an entrepreneur, Makeva began to open small businesses of her own, but she still longed to get married and have a family.
That dream inched closer to reality on New Year’s Eve of 2009, when she met 23-year-old barber Euri Jenkins at a church celebration.
"She had the biggest smile on her face when she was talking about it,” her friend Kimberly Wilson recalled.
The handsome pastor’s son quickly charmed Makeva. While her family urged her to go slow, within a few months she announced that she was pregnant.
“Makeva wanted a family, so meeting Euri was like a second chance for her,” Wilson said.
After welcoming a son, the pair tied the knot in a church ceremony surrounded by friends.
“I ended up walking her down the aisle,” Greer said. “That was the happiest I ever seen her.”
But a few years into the marriage, the couple hit a rough patch when Makeva discovered that Euri had gotten another woman pregnant.
“That just broke her heart,” Greer said. “She ended up kicking him out.”
Despite the betrayal, Makeva still loved Euri and eventually agreed to take him back. He even helped her develop her new business idea, a company that helped people create business plans called The Prime Enterprise Group.
The business was a success and after years of struggling financially, the couple began to enjoy a more comfortable life. They also celebrated the birth of their daughter.
“She had a glow and it was just like, ‘Kim, all my blessings are coming together,’” Wilson recalled.
On June 23, 2017, Makeva reflected on her good fortune herself in a post on social media. "I been with my husband for seven years and every time I look at him, it feels like New Year’s Eve 2009 when I saw him in church. I thought he was the most handsome guy I ever met. I didn’t say anything to him until 2010 and we’ve been making history ever since. I love me some Mr. Jenkins,” she wrote.
Just six days later, on June 29, 2017, Makeva would be shot to death.
"Get here now! My sister’s fighting for her life, man!” an anguished Greer screamed in a frantic 911 call. “She’s fighting for her life!”
According to Greer, who lived with the family, he was hanging out in the makeshift garage barber shop with Euri and their friend, Dametri Dale, after midnight when a masked gunman barged into the garage.
“All you could see is his eyes, he’s asking ‘where the money at?’ ‘where the money at?’” Greer said.
The gunman forced the trio into the home’s upstairs where Makeva and her children were asleep. Euri told detectives that he asked the gunman if Dale could take his children downstairs and, inexplicably, the gunman agreed.
“I thought, well, that’s kind of odd for a gunman to leave two people upstairs, but let one person go downstairs with a kid and possibly escape,” now retired Palm Beach County Det. Sean Oliver remarked.
The gunman then forced Greer and Euri to lay facedown on the ground.
“Quay wanted to jump the guy. I was afraid,” Euri would later tell investigators.
While the two men laid on the floor, the gunman went into the dark bedroom where Makeva was sleeping and fired a shot into her head before fleeing the scene in Dale’s Charger.
Greer and Euri rushed in moments later to find Makeva bleeding from the head.
“Euri, he’s crying, holding her head, telling Makeva, ‘I can’t do this without you. Don’t leave me’ and you know, he’s telling her to breathe,” Greer said.
Police arrived and rushed Makeva to the hospital, where she died of her injuries.
“It was just something out of a horror movie, you know,” Greer said.
Initially, investigators believed that the gunman may have been looking for Makeva’s mom, Quest, after all three witnesses reported the suspect had been asking “Where’s Quest?”
Greer knew his mom may have recently purchased some drugs with fake money and thought the crime may have been in retaliation for her actions. He also believed it was possible that the gunman mistook the sleeping Makeva for Quest, who hadn’t been at the residence that night.
But detectives could never figure out why an angry drug dealer would have gone to Makeva’s home rather than track Quest down at her own Belle Glade apartment, close to 45 minutes away.
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Quest also denied passing any fake money to drug dealers and said there had been no one after her at the time of her daughter’s death.
Authorities began to suspect that Quest may have never been the target at all and that the gunman had meant to kill Makeva all along, particularly after investigators found that no valuables had been taken from the home.
“For some reason the shooter just runs into the bedroom, fires one round, runs out. It didn’t make sense,” Oliver said.
After recovering the white Dodge Charger a quarter of a mile from the crime scene, investigators discovered a Miami Sub receipt inside the vehicle from the day of the murder. They looked at the restaurant’s surveillance footage and found Dale with another man, later identified as Joevan Joseph, at the restaurant.
Dale told investigators he and Joseph had been out to Euri’s home earlier that day but insisted when he returned to the home that night he had been alone. Yet, investigators recovered surveillance footage showing a vehicle matching Joseph’s following closely behind the white Charger that night.
They also learned that Makeva, who had been pregnant at the time of her death, had a $500,000 life insurance policy, giving her husband Euri a possible motive. In addition, Euri owed his former affair partner nearly $20,000 in unpaid child support payments and had propositioned her for sex just a day after his wife’s death.
Armed with the new information, they put pressure on Dale, who ultimately admitted that Joseph shot Makeva at Euri’s request in exchange for money. Dale also agreed to record a damaging conversation between himself and Euri, which helped put Makeva’s husband away.
Euri was convicted of first-degree murder in May of 2022 and sentenced to life in prison. In exchange for his cooperation, Joseph received a 15-year-sentence for first-degree murder. Dale was convicted of manslaughter and received a 45-day sentence.
For Makeva’s family, it won’t bring the beloved mom back.
“You know, I’ve cried so much to the point where I just can’t even cry no more, but everywhere I go, [I] just try to keep strong and be strong for her,” Greer said.
