New details on HHI family discovering deadly alligator attack in Spanish Wells lagoon
The first information from an official police report gives new insight into the death of Hilton Head woman Holly Jenkins, who was fatally attacked by a nine-foot alligator while walking her dog along a Spanish Wells lagoon. The report also details the family’s efforts to locate her on the morning of July 4.
This report was released to The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette Wednesday morning as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request.
The sequence of events leading to the discovery
John Jenkins, the woman’s husband, told police he woke up around 7 a.m. July 4, immediately noticing his wife was not around. His worries were relieved about 20 minutes later, when their son told him Holly was walking the dogs in the backyard near the golf course.
But the family was planning to attend the Spanish Wells neighborhood’s July 4 parade later that morning — and Holly was organizing the picnic to follow, according to reporting from the Post and Courier. With the start time nearing, the father and son left their Cusabo Place home to search for her, soon finding the dog “walking by itself” in the immediate area, the police report says.
They put the dog back inside their home, thinking Holly could be searching for the pet after it got away from her. Checking the canal further west of the golf course, the son saw his mother “laying face down” in the water while “actively being attacked” by a nine-foot alligator.
Using the family’s golf cart to drive a half-mile to a home across the canal on Brams Point Road, the son approached the scene and “used whatever he could” to get the alligator away from his mother until rescue crews arrived around 9:30 a.m., according to the report.
Spanish Wells’ annual July 4 parade and picnic, community events Holly Jenkins had spearheaded for years, were both canceled in the wake of the morning tragedy. The hundreds of hot dogs in the Jenkins’ refrigerator were donated to local firemen.
The nine-foot alligator that interrupted rescue efforts by “guarding” the woman’s body was captured by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources and later euthanized. A subsequent necropsy performed on the alligator showed no evidence that people had been feeding it, which experts say can attract the animals closer to humans and increase the likelihood of an attack.
History of attacks in Beaufort County
The July 4 attack was the second fatal alligator incident in Beaufort County in less than a year, reigniting local discourse about whether humans and alligators can coexist in the Lowcountry.
On Aug. 15, 2022, an 88-year-old Sun City woman was killed by an alligator while doing yardwork beside a lagoon near her home.
Before that, the next previous fatal attack was in the Hilton Head community of Sea Pines in 2018, when an alligator pulled a 45-year-old woman and her small dog into a pond after it grabbed hold of the leash.
In June, Shipyard on Hilton Head temporarily banned fishing in lagoons on the community’s property after a man fishing there was chased by an alligator. No one was injured in that incident, but three alligators showing signs of aggression ultimately were removed from the lagoon.
This story was originally published July 19, 2023 at 2:06 PM.
