Tehachapi News

'His personality was precious'

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To those who knew him best, it didn't take long to like Jerry Ennis.

“If you spent five minutes with him, you wanted to go with him wherever he went,” Tehachapi resident Gary Jones said.

Jones and dozens of other friends and family members gathered at the Tehachapi Veterans of Foreign Wars hall to remember Ennis, a 58-year-old Tehachapi resident who was killed Nov. 2 in Bakersfield.

Ennis, a Vietnam War-era Army veteran, was a “kind, generous person,” said his youngest sister, Janet Lara.

“He was the type to give someone a ride or buy them food if they needed it,” Lara said.

Lara said Ennis would sometimes make sandwiches to hand out to hungry and homeless people in Bakersfield.

“He just really lived life,” she said. “He was a man's man, but he could do anything.”

Ennis was an x-ray technician in the Army in the 1970s, and had a similar career at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi from 1991 until 2007.

Ennis was married to his wife, Kathy, for 36 years. The two met at a medical center in El Paso, Texas where Ennis was stationed. The two moved to Tehachapi in 1994, she said.

Kathy said her husband was “always joking” and “loved to dance.” He even raised wolves, she said.

 “Jerry was always looking for something fun to do,” said Jones, who was friends with Ennis for approximately nine years. “Whenever I saw him, he always had just come from something that was 'fun,' or 'exciting,' or an accomplishment at the prison.”

Jones said Ennis was the type person that could get along with just about anybody.

“He and I were a lot like brothers,” Jones said.

Jones recalled a time when he, Ennis and several other friends trekked out on a motorcycle ride to Bakersfield. At some point in the journey, Jones looked back and Ennis was nowhere to be seen.

“A trucker came along and asked us if we were riding with another guy,” Jones said.

The trucker told Jones that Ennis had fallen off his bike about a mile back, right into the path of an oncoming semi tractor-trailer.

When Jones hurried back to find Ennis, he was told the tractor-trailer passed right over Ennis, who eluded being crushed by slipping between the two back tires.

“When we got there, we saw Jerry giving advice to the paramedics on how to treat him,” Jones said. “He said, 'Oh, now don't wrap that too tight, there needs to be some circulation now.'”

Jones said Ennis had an “aura” about him.

“His personality was precious,” he said. “If you ever wanted to ask God why he takes the best ones, well, Jerry was one of the best.”

Ennis was also an active member at the Tehachapi Moose Lodge, said lodge member George Thompson.

Thompson said Ennis would sing karaoke at the lodge some nights, and would even help cook meals in the kitchen.

“He was a real sweet person,” Thompson said.

Ennis was killed Monday morning, Nov. 2 in Bakersfield, law enforcement officials said.

He was found with a stab wound in his neck just after 1:30 a.m. in the 3600 block of M Street in Bakersfield. He was transported to Kern Medical Center where he died from his injuries.

Kathy Ennis said police told her that her husband was giving two strangers a ride when he was attacked.

The incident is being investigated as a homicide.