Inset: Holly Jenkins (Legacy.com/The Island Packet). Background: The area in South Carolina where Hilton Head resident Holly Jenkins was killed by an alligator (WSAV/YouTube).
A South Carolina grandmother was killed and eaten by a 10-foot alligator after her private community promised to protect residents from attacks but made "no effort" to actually do so, her family said in a lawsuit.
The community where 69-year-old Holly Jenkins lived, Spanish Wells on Hilton Head Island, reportedly agreed to settle her family's lawsuit last week after it was accused of failing to keep her safe following public promises to mitigate "risks" that they were "aware of and responsible for," per the family's legal complaint.
Court records show that a settlement for a confidential sum was approved on May 5. The order approving the wrongful death settlement says, "The offer of settlement made on behalf of the defendants and their insurers is solely to buy their peace from litigation and save the expense of trial if suit were pursued under either the wrongful death or survival statutes."
According to the Jenkins family, the Spanish Wells Club and its property owners association, as well as the private community's management company, were aware that alligator attacks in Hilton Head were "on the rise" before the local grandmother was killed while walking her dog on July 4, 2023.
The family alleged that residential neighborhoods and their authorized representatives were "aware of and responsible for mitigating the risks associated with these large and frequently dangerous animals," but Spanish Wells failed to do so after vowing to provide "on-site alligator risk management services" for the community.
"Residents reasonably relied upon defendants' representations and assurances that they were managing and reducing the risks posed by alligators," the family's complaint said. "Jenkins, a resident and community member of the Spanish Wells neighborhood in Beaufort County, was attacked and killed by a 10-foot alligator while taking a walk within her community."
The complaint said Jenkins' husband and her adult son were at her residence and saw their family dog in the backyard wearing its leash, with Jenkins nowhere to be found, after she said she was going to take the dog for a walk.
"The two men began to search the neighborhood for Holly," the document recounted. "Holly's son heard splashing in a pond near the family home. When he approached the pond on his golf cart, he saw his mother lying face down in the water with a large alligator swimming nearby."
Jenkins' son tried to distract the "massive" alligator to keep it away from her after contacting local authorities. The predator was killed upon their arrival.
"Jenkins was pronounced dead at the scene. She did not, however, die in the initial attack," the complaint said. "A necropsy of the alligator revealed Ms. Jenkins' foot and hand in its stomach."
Jenkins' family blamed her death on her community's "failures to provide reasonably safe premises," per the complaint.
"Upon information and belief, defendants were not, in fact, using reasonable measures to assess, understand, and reduce the risk posed by alligators in the Spanish Wells community," the document charged. "As such, as of the date of Ms. Jenkins' death, the ponds and lagoons had not been appropriately monitored, no effort had been made to identify 'nuisance' alligators that should have been removed, and defendants woefully underestimated the number of alligator depredation tags needed to appropriately protect residents and guests within Spanish Wells."
The Spanish Wells Club and G.W. Services did not respond to Law&Crime's requests for comment. They also failed to respond to requests for comment from the local newspaper The Island Packet.
An obituary for Jenkins that was published by the Packet described her as a "devoted wife, loving mother and grandmother, a dear sister, a loyal friend, and a proud dog mom."
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