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Confusion haunted Angela Jenkins.
The Millcreek woman with blue eyes and a big smile didn't understand, at the age of 7, why her parents were getting divorced. She wasn't a good student and just barely managed to graduate from Highland High School in 1985, said her mother, Denise Doebbeling.
Jenkins' adult relationships with men were mostly abusive, both physically and emotionally. She gave birth to two sons, one in 1987 and one in 2002, but was estranged from both because of a 20-plus-year addiction to heroin.
What it came down to, her mother said Friday, was that Jenkins just couldn't take care of herself.
"She grew up confused," Doebbeling told The Tribune. "Until Wednesday night or Thursday morning, she was confused."
On Thursday morning, Jenkins was found dead in her apartment near 2200 East and 3300 South. Police say she was beaten and strangled.
Her boyfriend, 23-year-old James Rafael Sanchez, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on Friday on suspicion of aggravated murder and aggravated kidnapping.
Police say Sanchez, who had been living with Jenkins at the Cherry Hills Apartment for about two months, was known to beat her. He was arrested at a nearby home after a short search, followed by a standoff with SWAT police. After his arrest, Sanchez admitted to assaulting Jenkins until she lost consciousness and stopped breathing, said Unified Police Department Lt. Justin Hoyal.
"Why would he [Sanchez] do that?" Doebbeling said. "What would enrage him?"
At the time of her death, the 44-year-old Jenkins was trying to turn her life around. She had gone back to school and was one semester away from graduating from college, Doebbeling said. She was also on a methadone program and had supposedly kicked her heroin habit several years ago.
Doebbeling, her husband, Stuart, and a family acquaintance were following news reports of the murder investigation on Thursday before they even knew Jenkins was the victim.
It wasn't until about 6 p.m. when police announced that the dead woman wasn't in her 20s, as initially reported, but in her 40s, that they became concerned. Knowing that her daughter fit that description and lived at the same apartment complex, Doebbeling called police.
"I was just waiting all day long to find out," Doebbeling said. "I just wanted to know if this was my daughter."
Three officers arrived an hour later at Doebbeling's Salt Lake City home to confirm that it was her daughter who was killed.
What happened next was odd.
"I was surprised I didn't have any reaction," Doebbeling said. "I think I've just been dealing with her problems for so long ... I just kept thinking she would end up in a bad place. I don't mean to sound like a cold person. I just worried about her my whole life."
As a child, Jenkins was creative, her mother said. She loved to make up games with her older sister, Susan, like making a toilet plunger into a steering wheel and pretending to drive.
Jenkins also loved to play with some large tiles her mother kept around. "She made the most wonderful designs with them," Doebbeling said.
Doebbeling said the last time she saw her youngest daughter was in February in the hospital while Doebbeling was recovering from back surgery.
"All I remember was it was a good conversation," she said. "I was so glad to see her. She was so bright and happy."