OMAHA, Nebraska โ The man who told the state he would ๐๐พ๐๐ if released, who carved warnings into letters and begged psychiatrists to keep him locked up, is still alive 12 years after a jury sentenced him to die. Nikko Allen Jenkins sits on death row at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution, his execution date nowhere on the calendar, while the families of four murder victims wait for a justice that Nebraska has not delivered.
In August 2013, Jenkins was a free man for exactly 11 days. In that time, he shot four people in the head with a shotgun and a revolver. Juan Uribe-Pena, 26, and Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz, 29, were found dead in a park.
Curtis Bradford, 22, was executed in a garage. Andrea Kruger, 33, a mother of three, was pulled from her SUV and shot four times on her way home from a bartending shift. None of them had ever heard of Nikko Jenkins before he killed them.
The state of Nebraska had been warned. Jenkins had spent months before his release writing to prosecutors, judges, and parole officials. He told them he would eat people.
He said he was hearing the voice of an ancient Egyptian serpent god named Apophis, commanding him to ๐๐พ๐๐. A parole board assistant sent an emergency email: โThis guy scares me to death.โ Two psychiatrists formally recommended civil commitment to a mental hospital.
The recommendations were ignored. On July 30, 2013, a corrections officer opened Jenkinsโ cell door and let him walk out.
Jenkins was born into a cycle of violence and neglect. His father had a history of violent crimes. His mother struggled with addiction.
By age 7, he brought a loaded handgun to school. By 8, he was in foster care and undergoing psychiatric evaluations. By 15, he was sentenced to prison for armed carjacking.
Inside, he spent years in solitary confinement, accumulating 71 disciplinary infractions. He assaulted inmates, crafted weapons, and told prison staff he was hearing voices. Yet when his sentence expired, the state said it had no choice but to release him.
The murders were methodical. Jenkins used his sister Erica and cousin Christine Bordeaux to lure victims. For the first two, the women promised the men they would meet women at Spring Lake Park.
Instead, Jenkins shot them both in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun. For Curtis Bradford, a former prison acquaintance, Jenkins called him to say they would commit a robbery together. When Bradford arrived, Jenkins and Erica shot him twice in the back of the head.
For Andrea Kruger, Jenkins and his uncle Warren Levering followed her from a McDonaldโs drive-thru. They blocked her SUV. Jenkins pulled her out and fired four times.
Erica Jenkins later expressed anger that her brother had โstolen her first ๐๐พ๐๐.โ She was sentenced to life in prison. Their mother, Lori Jenkins, received 10 years for buying the ammunition.
Warren Levering got 40 years. Christine Bordeaux got 20. The family that produced Nikko Jenkins went to prison alongside him.
During his trial, Jenkins represented himself. He spoke in tongues. He howled as prosecutors described the murders.
He carved โSatanโ into his forehead. He cut his own tongue. He laughed.
He told the victimsโ families he would be exonerated. Psychiatrists debated whether he was genuinely mentally ill or faking to avoid execution. The courts ruled each time that he understood what he was doing.
In 2017, a three-judge panel sentenced him to death on four consecutive counts.
Now, 12 years later, Jenkins remains on death row. In March 2025, he filed a handwritten document demanding Nebraska execute him. He wrote, โI no longer desire to appeal the death sentence imposed upon me.โ
But Nebraskaโs last execution was in 2018. There are 11 men ahead of him on death row. The state has not set a date.
The families of his victims continue to wait.
Valita Glasgow, Curtis Bradfordโs mother, told the court: โI held him. I kissed the exit wound in his head. How do you cure evil?
Because I donโt know. This is evil beyond grasp.โ Terri Roberts, Andrea Krugerโs mother, said: โHe killed a part of each of us the morning he killed Andrea.
Each of them deserves to have their mother in their life.โ
The Nebraska State Legislature investigated the Department of Correctional Services. A 61-page report concluded that corrections had failed not just Nikko Jenkins, but every person he killed. The state changed its laws on solitary confinement.
A new oversight office was created. Mental health policies were rewritten. But the four victims are already in the ground.
Nikko Jenkins told the state he would ๐๐พ๐๐. They opened the door anyway. And 12 years after a death sentence, Nebraska still has not carried it out.