The son of a suspected murder victim was told the remains of his dead mum would need to be broken down if he wanted to get them from Malaysia to Australia in something other than a cardboard box.
Adelaide man Greg Jenkins touched down on home soil on Tuesday morning with the remains of his mother Annapuranee “Anna” Jenkins, who vanished while holidaying in Penang in 2017 after visiting a dentist and getting in an Uber.
The 66-year-old had been travelling with her husband Frank, and was en route to visit her mother’s nursing home in George Town.
A botched investigation into her disappearance by Malaysian authorities eventually prompted Mr Jenkins to launch an appeal of his own, including offering his own reward and searching the South-East Asian city.
In 2020 he found his mother’s skull and spine fragments at a construction site.
He and sister Jen Bowen – who met him at the airport in an emotional reunion – blame Malaysian authorities for not being able to bring Ms Jenkins home alive.
And there was fresh fury when his mother’s bones were packaged in open bags inside a cardboard box, with Mr Jenkins told he would need to break them down if he wanted them to travel in something else.
“They were trying to say that if I put them into a jar, I would have to break the bones,” Mr Jenkins said, as reported by The Advertiser.
“I was pretty disgusted; there was no empathy and there was definitely no mincing my words on what I thought of that suggestion.”
Mr Jenkins and his family xjmtzywbelieved Ms Jenkins was murdered, and they plan to have her remains forensically examined in Australia.
