Posted on September 13, 2004

Cops: Woman Stabs Cousin To Death Over French Fries

Maureen O’Donnell, Chicago Sun-Times, Sep. 13

They’d known each other all their lives, but Antoinette Jenkins stabbed her cousin in the heart Sunday in an argument over french fries, Chicago Police said.

Antoine Jenkins, 19, “died for a dollar,” a police source said. “They got into an argument over a 99-cent box of White Castle french fries.”

Antoinette Jenkins, also 19, fled after the stabbing and was found later Sunday in a hotel, said Austin District Lt. Wade Ingram.

“She had all the White Castle stuff all over the hotel room,” Ingram said

Antoine’s mother, Joyce Jenkins, said her heart goes out to her sister, Antoinette’s mother.

“It’s my sister’s daughter,” she said quietly. “She’s tore up, too.”

And despite her grief, Joyce Jenkins made a public plea Sunday for people to be kind to one another.

“They need to control it, think first, before they react,” she said.

The fight was “stupid, that’s what it was,” Joyce Jenkins said.

She said she thinks her niece was intoxicated at the time of the stabbing outside 17 S. Leamington, next-door to where both cousins lived.

“Antoine, he’s not a violent child,” his mother said, still speaking of him in the present tense. “He gets along with everybody.”

The cousins had visited the White Castle at Madison and Pulaski, Joyce Jenkins said. Oddly, she is the manager of a White Castle at North and Central.

“This morning, my sister called me and said they got to fightin,’ “ Joyce Jenkins said. “They got to fightin,’ arguin’ about something, and Antoinette just got a knife and stabbed him . . . over a hamburger or something.”

Antoine attended Austin High School, his mother said.

“My family is here with me, comforting me,” Joyce Jenkins said. “Got to hold on.”

Antoinette Jenkins was being held at the police department’s Area 5 facility, Ingram said.