Police say surveillance video, witness statements and the suspect’s own account form the basis of a first-degree intentional homicide charge.
WEST MILWAUKEE, WI — A 38-year-old man has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide after prosecutors said he beat his 66-year-old mother to death with a wooden baseball bat inside her West Milwaukee home on Feb. 24, then fled and was arrested hours later at Potawatomi Casino.
The case has drawn attention in the Milwaukee area because the charging document describes a killing inside a family home after what investigators said was a late-night argument over money and silver coins. Prosecutors say Hayward Jenkins admitted striking his mother, Cheryl Jenkins, multiple times. The charge he faces is the most serious in Wisconsin’s criminal code, and court records show he is being held on a $300,000 cash bond ahead of a preliminary hearing.
According to the criminal complaint, officers were sent to 1720 S. 44th St. in West Milwaukee at 8:07 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 24, after a caller told dispatch that his fiancée had been struck in the head with a bat by her son, who had already left. The caller, identified in the complaint as Cheryl Jenkins’ fiancé, told police the defendant had arrived the night before, sometime around 9 to 10 p.m., knocking on the window and asking to come in. He said Cheryl Jenkins got her son something to eat and let him stay in the guest room.
The fiancé told investigators that he went to bed between 10 and 10:30 p.m. because of medication he takes. Before falling asleep, he said, he told Cheryl Jenkins to come to bed later. He woke again around 4 to 4:30 a.m. after hearing a noise, walked into the living room to check it, and decided he thought it came from upstairs neighbors. He went back to bed. Cheryl Jenkins was not there, and he assumed she was in the guest room with her son. When he woke again around 7:30 a.m., he tried calling her. She did not answer. He knocked on the closed guest room door, then checked the garage and saw the car still there. After finding the bedroom door locked, he entered through the bathroom and found her on the ground, he told police.
When Officer Luis Gutierrez arrived, the complaint says, he found Cheryl Jenkins lying face down on the floor of the guest room with a wooden baseball bat on top of her. The officer reported seeing blood on the barrel of the bat, a large open wound on the back of her head and blood pooling around her head. Police also noted blood on her face, right hand and forearm. The room appeared disturbed, according to the complaint, with clutter, a broken metal bed frame and what officers described as blood spatter on the back of the bedroom door and on part of an east wall. Gutierrez began CPR until Milwaukee Fire Department crews took over. Their lifesaving efforts were unsuccessful, and Cheryl Jenkins was pronounced dead.
An autopsy later added detail to the injuries. Dr. Lauren Decker of the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office found numerous blunt-force injuries, according to the complaint, including contusions and abrasions on the left side of Cheryl Jenkins’ face, lacerations to the scalp, hemorrhaging in head muscles, skull fractures, bleeding around the brain, a temporal laceration and bruising on an arm, forearm and legs. The medical examiner determined that she died from blunt-force injuries. That finding matched what investigators said they saw at the home and became a key part of the probable-cause case filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.
Investigators then worked outward from the home. The complaint says officers canvassed the area and gathered several surveillance clips from around the apartment buildings near the residence. In those videos, police said, they saw a person in dark clothing running between buildings in the 1700 block of Miller Park Way and heading to a bus stop near Miller Park Way and W. Mitchell Street. Officers reviewed Milwaukee County Transit System footage and said it showed the defendant waiting for and boarding a bus at about 6:07 a.m. Police said the clothing and facial features on the bus video matched Hayward Jenkins. That timeline became important because it placed the suspect leaving the area hours before the 911 call and before officers arrived at the apartment.
The search for Jenkins ended later that same day. Officers went to Potawatomi Casino after receiving information from family members that he might be there. Police said casino security confirmed he was on the property, and officers arrested him at about 12:33 p.m. on Feb. 24. Investigators noted that he was wearing the same clothing seen in the surveillance video, according to the complaint. Authorities have not publicly described in detail what he did between boarding the bus and arriving at the casino, and the complaint does not say whether any additional physical evidence was recovered from him when he was taken into custody.
In a statement described in the complaint as a Mirandized interview, Jenkins told police that he and his mother argued over silver coins, money and what he felt was her refusal to listen to him. Investigators wrote that he said she had “blew off” his concerns and kept getting in his face. He also told officers, according to the complaint, that his mother had scissors in her hand and looked as if she might do something to him. He said he felt the conversation was going nowhere, that he had exhausted every option, and that he became angry and “flipped out.” Prosecutors say he then told police he picked up the baseball bat and struck his mother in the head multiple times while she was sitting in a chair.
That statement is likely to remain central as the case moves forward, but it may also become an early point of dispute. The complaint includes Jenkins’ claim that his mother had scissors and that he feared she might stab him. At this stage, the filing does not show a self-defense claim by the state, nor does it say whether prosecutors found independent evidence that supported his account about the scissors beyond his own statement. Wisconsin charging documents are built to show probable cause, not to present every defense issue, so more detail may emerge through later hearings, testimony or additional filings as attorneys examine the physical evidence and interview records more closely.
The legal path ahead is clearer. Milwaukee County prosecutors charged Jenkins with one count of first-degree intentional homicide, a Class A felony that carries a mandatory life sentence if there is a conviction. He made his initial court appearance on Sunday, March 1, when a judge set cash bond at $300,000. Court coverage from local outlets said his preliminary hearing was scheduled for March 10. That hearing is expected to test whether prosecutors have enough evidence to keep the felony case moving toward arraignment and later trial proceedings. It is also the next public checkpoint where more details about the state’s theory and any early defense position may become part of the record.
Beyond the charge and court dates, the case stands out for the setting described by police: a home where the defendant had been fed dinner and allowed to stay overnight before the killing investigators say followed. The complaint says the fiancé believed Cheryl Jenkins was in the guest room talking with her son when he first woke in the early morning hours. By daybreak, police say, she was dead on the floor of that room. The investigation leaves some questions unanswered for now, including whether there had been any earlier reports of family conflict, what specifically triggered the argument in the final moments and whether prosecutors will present more witness testimony about the hours before Jenkins arrived at the apartment. For now, the public record is built mainly on the fiancé’s account, the medical examiner’s findings, surveillance footage and Jenkins’ own statement to police.
As of now, Jenkins remains jailed in Milwaukee County, charged in the death of Cheryl Jenkins and awaiting his next court appearance. The next milestone in the case is the preliminary hearing set for March 10, when prosecutors are expected to outline the evidence they say supports the homicide charge.
Author note: Last updated March 5, 2026.