Find Jennifer Watkins!

Jennifer Hollowell Watkins disappeared from Washington, North Carolina, in June 2025, and more than a year later, her family is still searching for answers. A devoted mother of three, nature lover, and educator at the North Carolina Estuarium, Jennifer vanished after what should have been an ordinary morning, leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions and a community desperate to know what happened.

In this episode of Recipe for Murder, we take a fact-based look at Jennifer's final known movements, the timeline leading up to her disappearance, the documented history of domestic violence that concerned her family, and the ongoing investigation by the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office. We also share the heartfelt perspective of Jennifer's sister, Amber, who has worked tirelessly to keep Jennifer's name in the public eye while advocating for renewed attention to the case.

What happened during the early morning hours of June 27, 2025? Why did Jennifer never return to her children? And could someone be holding the answers her family has been waiting for?

Join us as we separate confirmed facts from rumor, honor Jennifer's life, and explore one of North Carolina's most heartbreaking unsolved disappearances.

If you have information about Jennifer Hollowell Watkins' disappearance, please contact the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office. Even the smallest detail could make a difference.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey guys, this is Laura Michelle from Recipe for Murder. Tonight is not one of our normal podcasts, but it's one that I just had to get on here and talk about. I live in North Carolina and I spend a significant amount of my time in eastern North Carolina. Um, pass through a little area called Washington, also known as Little Washington for people around here. And over the weekend, I was scrolling through social media and I followed the page called Friends of Downtown Washington, North Carolina. And I saw a case of a missing woman that I've never heard of. And she's been missing for over a year. And I immediately looked into it because I know this area very, very well. And the more I learned about this case, the more frustrating it became. And I think her story, no, I don't think I know that her story needs to be told, and pressure has got to be put on the sheriff's station to really investigate this case and give it the seriousness that it deserves. Tonight we are going to talk about Jennifer Watkins. Jennifer was 45 years old when she went missing. She is the mother of three sons and two are still young. She was last seen on June 27, 2025, and she was reported missing on June 29, 2025. So we are recording on the one year anniversary of her being reported missing. Her sister Amber is on a mission to find out what happened to her, and she posts about her almost every day, and she reaches out to the detectives often. They believe that she went missing between 6 15 and 8 15 a.m. on the morning of June 27th. The night before, she was seen on CCTV at a speedway gas station on 264 West. She was last seen wearing a gray tank top dress, black or brown sandals, and she was carrying a clutch-like purse. It is possible that she was wearing different clothes on the morning that she went missing, but that has not been confirmed, and the official report does have her wearing the dress and the sandals. But I'm also thinking that she was seen on TV at nighttime and she went missing the next morning. So to me, it is possible that she did change her clothes before she left the house. Little Washington, also known as the original Washington, is a historic waterfront in eastern North Carolina that runs along the Pamlico River in Beaufort County. And it's about 20 miles outside of Greenville, North Carolina, which is where East Carolina is, or roughly 100 miles outside of Raleigh. Its population is only around 10,000. So it is a very small town, but it is growing. Like I said, I know this area well. So just picture a historic little beach town with the Pamlico River, little marshes, a lot of like farmland and forested areas. It's just a very, very small town in North Carolina. She was last seen on VAO Road and the Ponderosa Road. And this is a very important location in this case. According to the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office, Jenny was last seen during the early morning hours of Friday, June 27, 2025, on the VOA Road in Washington. Now, someone said they saw her on foot walking down that road. However, this source has not been verified to be credible, and so there's no way to know if this is true. Before we get into her case, I want to talk a little bit about Jenny and what her sister had to say about her. And you can just tell how much Jenny is loved by her family and her sister Amber, listening to Amber talk about her. According to her, Jenny had the most incredible laugh. She said it was a bright, hilarious cackle that would fill the room. She said she was bubbly, creative, and loved the outdoors. She said that nature grounded her like nothing else could. She said that she misses her love of simple things, such as finding peace in the woods, by a river, or just being outside. At the time of her disappearance, she was working at the North Carolina estuarium and she loved her job. She loved teaching kids and adults all things nature related to eastern North Carolina. And I've been to the estuarium. I've been there. I've learned so much about eastern North Carolina because of that place. I learned that the wind pushes the water. I learned about the blue crabs. It's just a really cool little place that I encourage everybody, if you are in the area, check it out. It's free, it's educational. That's my plug for Washington. Amber said that she was creative and had an imaginative spirit. She was whimsical and goofy, but she also had struggles. And those struggles shaped the last few years of her life. She wasn't perfect, but she was human and she deserved safety, dignity, and respect. And this is what we know about the days leading up to Ginny going missing, and this is all according to her sister. The days leading up to her disappearance were chaotic. On Tuesday, June 24th, she was seen by a family friend. That same day, her on and off again boyfriend was arrested for violating a DVPO, which is a domestic violence protection order. Jenny sent her youngest son to stay with that family friend so she could just calm down and gather herself. She was clearly overwhelmed, emotional and angry, and I'm sure she did not want her son to see her like that. She then made the statement, quote, I will pay for this, end quote, referring to his arrest. The next morning, June 25th, she was at home with her roommate and left sometime mid-morning. Another woman, who was the cousin of a former boyfriend, had stayed there the night before and the two had planned to go to the beach together. The ex's cousin and Ginny remained friends, and the cousin wanted to fill out job applications at the beach, and Jenny was going to tag along just to get some space and some breathing room from all the chaos. So this is another account of someone who physically saw Jenny. On Wednesday, June 26th, Ginny's ex-boyfriend made bell and was released from jail that afternoon. That same evening, Ginny lost her phone and contacted that family friend to let them know by using the cousin's phone. The last known image of her was at the Speedway gas station that we mentioned earlier. And the next morning is where everything gets really mysterious. On June 27th, the cousin that Ginny was with was found passed out in her car around 8 15 a.m. on Ponderosa Road. The passenger door was open and Ginny and her belongings were gone. That night, Ginny's roommate called the family friend upset, saying that the cousin returned back from the beach without Jenny, claiming that she had fallen asleep in the car and woke up to find the passenger door open and Ginny was gone. On June 28th, Ginny's ex-boyfriend moved his camper from the property on Jenny's roommate's land to his father's property. On June 29th, Ginny was officially reported missing by that family friend. And the family friend has not been named, but her sister says this is the person that they trust. The family friend stated that the last time she saw Jenny, which was the 24th, Jenny was fearful, angry, and just disheveled. She said that Jenny was planning to send money to her oldest son for car repairs. Both her ex-boyfriend and her were living on the roommate's property before he was arrested and she went missing. He was actually violating one of those protective orders just by being there, and Jenny was emotionally overwhelmed. Her sister said that she had stopped taking her prescribed medications for anxiety and depression about a month earlier, and Jenny was also struggling with substance abuse issues, and she was in a very vulnerable state. Jenny was expected to contact that family friend to pick up her son. Remember, she was watching him for the day when her ex-husband or sorry ex-boyfriend was arrested. And I'm assuming that she was also watching him while Jenny and that cousin went to the beach. But she never called, and that's when everyone knew that something was wrong. Jenny was a really good mom and she would have never just left her son with no plans to return. As soon as Amber found out that Jenny was missing, she immediately went to worst case scenario that Jenny was dead. Amber stated that both her and her mom had been having water-based dreams in the weeks following, meaning that she was had possibly been placed in water somewhere. Amber gave an overview of what it was like with Jenny growing up. She said that Jenny was tenacious. She said that Jenny basically grew up outdoors. She loved all things nature. She loved photography, hiking, kayaking, gardening. She loved anything that connected her to nature. She collected rocks, arrowheads, feathers, and shells, and she painted and refurbished furniture. She also painted and refurbished furniture and had a side business doing that. She played sports in school. She actually taught herself clarinet, bass guitar, and drums. She sang in the choir. She was talented and creative, but she did struggle with her self-worth, which is maybe why she didn't surround herself with the best people. And Jenny loved being a mom. Her three boys meant the world to her. She was very protective, loving, devoted, and silly. Everyone loved being around her, and she knew how to make people laugh just by being her goofy self. Amber said that she was creative, fierce, whimsical, effervescent, and full of moxie. I love that description. She said that she would also be overwhelming and unpredictable at times. She said she was both light and storm. Amber was really concerned with the people in Ginny's life. She said she had questionable friendships and relationships and that her lifestyle lacked stability. I mentioned earlier that Ginny was on. I mentioned earlier that Ginny was in an on and off relationship with her ex-boyfriend, and Jenny stated that she was afraid of him. And she had multiple protective orders against him. She confided in Amber for more than a decade that she felt unsafe. And Amber said that she had sent at least a hundred messages over that time stating that. Public records state that Jenny had taken steps to get child support and or custody from her son's father, who is Samuel Justin Foster. He went by Justin and sometimes Jay. Jay is the father of her youngest child. Amber stated that even though she was fearful of filing for custody and support, she was determined to make it happen. But she was afraid of retaliation. She was afraid of him taking their child, making false allegations, or physical harm. Now, I do not a hundred percent know that this person that she was filing for custody and child support was the ex that had just gotten arrested, but I did find a protective order that was filed in 2024 against him, so I'm assuming this is who we are talking about. At the time, they were living on Deer Track Drive off Cherry Run Road, and Cherry Run Road runs directly into VOA Road. At this time, the Sheriff's Department is claiming that Ginny left on her own and that foul play is not suspected. However, an anonymous tip was submitted that stated Ginny is the victim of foul play. Jenny had a long history of unreported protective order violations. She didn't always want to report them, likely in fear of what would happen if she did. Amber said that multiple sources stated that she might have been dumped off a boat near Crystal Beach. There are also rumors that she was dumped in the water by the Pamlico Beach. Amber stated that Jenny loved the water and would have gone willingly, but not if she felt threatened. There are also several tips that she may be somewhere near the VOA Road or Ponderosa Road, but we cannot confirm the validity of these tips, obviously, and whether or not they're coming in from trustworthy sources. Jenny's ex had a history of domestic violence. He was convicted of violating a protective order of a previous partner on December 11th, 2025, which is actually Jenny's birthday, and ten other violations were dopped that same day because she fled the state. So clearly she was terrified of him. Just make sure you understand the timing. Jennifer went missing in June of 2025, and it's December, so that same year. So however many months that is after she went missing, that he violated a protective order of another girlfriend that he had once had. Actually, multiple women have protective orders against him. Jenny's family feels that he played a role in her disappearance, whether that's primary or partial, but they do believe that he is involved. We do have non-foul play possibilities. She was off her meds, she could have had a medical emergency, and she was struggling with substance abuse and she was struggling with substance abuse and she could have been disoriented. And it was around a hundred degrees at the time that she disappeared. So if she was disoriented and became lost or confused, she likely did not have what she would need to survive those weather conditions for, you know, several days. And she was scared. So maybe she did walk away from her life. Currently, the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina is handling the case. And Amber said that the communication was pretty steady in the first two months of her disappearance, but fell off drastically after that. In August 2025, the family submitted a request for them to partner with the NCSBI, but that request was ignored. Emergency resources were not alerted until September, which is three months after she went missing. By October, the communication with the sheriff's station went from weekly phone calls to weekly emails, which became inconsistent. On October 28th, public comments on their Facebook page became disabled after a massive manhunt with extensive resources was held in a neighboring county. Community members were questioning why Jenny's case didn't get the similar urgency as that missing person and why her case wasn't getting as much attention. The family had a scheduled meeting with the district attorney's office on November 7th, and the sheriff did not attend, and no attempt was made to reschedule it. He also missed a meeting arranged with Kevin Jones of the Washington Initiative on December 11th. About a week later, her Crime Stopper award was increased to $10,000, which is great, but they did not involve the family in any of that. The family asked for a meeting to review and reclassify Ginny's case on January 2nd, 2026. They wanted her case to be reclassified to either a suspicious death or a homicide. They also asked them to partner with two nonprofits investigating Ginny's case, and the family received no response. In almost a year, the sheriff had only spoken to Amber once. The lack of communication on the sheriff's office is infuriating and they need to be held accountable. They need to follow up on the leads, hold community press conferences, they need to treat Ginny's disappearance seriously and not someone who just walked away, especially considering her history of being a domestic abuse victim. So if someone knows something, please speak up or submit an anonymous tip. She has three sons and a family that loves and misses her. She deserves justice. We need to put pressure on the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office to take this case seriously. They need to question her ex and the woman that she went to the beach with. They need to question everyone in her circle of friends and then to review all the doorbell camera footage on the road that she was last known to be on. They need to actually investigate what happened to her. Jennifer's family has consistently said they do not believe she chose to disappear. They believe someone knows what happened to her and has not come forward. For more than a year, they have continued asking the public to keep Jennifer's name in the spotlight, share her story, and provide information no matter how small to investigators. As of this recording, investigators have not publicly identified a suspect, announced an arrest, or publicly stated they have evidence of foul play. The investigation remains active right now. Please share this story. And if you know anything, please contact the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office at 252 946 7111. Thanks, guys. Bye.