Witnesses testify Jenkins was angry before slayings

      VISTA, Calif. -- The aunt of a Las Vegas teen-ager who killed five members of his family in 1996 wept on the witness stand Thursday as she looked at the hairband and torn panties the boy's 10-year-old sister wore when she died.
      After the emotional testimony from Sandy Sulzman of Los Angeles, two witnesses from Las Vegas talked about Josh Jenkins' angry behavior in the months leading up to the slayings. One witness identified pellet guns, bows and arrows and knives he said the boy's father had removed from the house and given to him for safekeeping.
      Jenkins, now 16, pleaded guilty on April 16 to bludgeoning and stabbing to death his parents, George and Alene Jenkins of Las Vegas, his grandparents, William and Evelyn Grossman, and his sister, Megan, during a Jenkins family visit to the Grossman condominium in Vista.
      The jury must now decide whether Jenkins was sane at the time of the Feb. 3, 1996, crime.
      Sulzman, the identical twin of Alene Jenkins, remained composed for much of her testimony about the last time she saw and spoke to her parents, sister, brother-in-law and niece. But when Prosecutor Mark Pettine showed her the clothing found on Megan's body, Sulzman covered her face with both hands for several seconds and cried. She had earlier testified that she and Megan shared a special bond, and that the girl often stayed overnight with her in a hotel room when Sulzman visited Las Vegas on business.
      Sulzman said Joshua Jenkins became angry with his father when financial troubles forced the family to move from a 5,000-square-foot home in the Agoura Hills area of Los Angeles to Las Vegas "to start over." She said the boy confronted his father in the driveway as movers packed their belongings into a truck, and said, "It's all your fault" in an "angry, intense" voice.
      "I almost stopped breathing; it brought me up short," she said of the remark. "It wasn't shouted; it was delivered with intensity."
      During cross-examination by Public Defender Jack Campbell, Sulzman agreed that the boy had been different from other children for years. She agreed she had told an interviewer that Jenkins "seemed like someone had showed him how to smile, and he'd mimic that smile." He also avoided looking people in the eye and showed no emotion on his face, she said.
      The three psychiatrists called by the defense testified that these traits are symptoms of Jenkins' illness, schizophrenia, which they say rendered him insane at the time of the slayings.
      Later in the day, Jenkins' family friend Penny Pesicka of Las Vegas recalled an argument in a car when members of her family were accompanying George, Alene and Joshua Jenkins to dinner at a restaurant. "There was a lot of hatred displayed" toward his father, she said, with Joshua telling George, "I hate you, I hate you."
      "If we'd do things together as far as family functions, he was always angry at his parents," she said, but with her family "he was fine."
      The second Las Vegas witness, Mark S. Harrison, a nephew of George Jenkins, testified he accepted several weapons from his uncle in the spring or early summer of 1995. Those weapons, which included a bow and several arrows, a crossbow, several pellet guns and air guns and two hunting knives, were brought to his house by George Jenkins, Harrison testified.
      On his videotaped statement to police after his arrest, Jenkins said he had considered killing his father with the crossbow before it was taken away.
      Testimony resumes Monday with expert witnesses. The case is expected to go to the jury next week.