Jenny Fields is assassinated

Jenny Fields is assassinated by Kenny Truckenmiller, and the consequences of her death extend beyond the killing itself: her former daughter-in-law’s application to the Fields Foundation makes Jenny’s writing and public legacy a source of practical change, while forcing the foundation to confront the risks of helping someone connected to her killer.

The Killer’s Family and the Application

Kenny Truckenmiller’s divorced wife had three children, including one placed in a reform school for preteens. After Kenny was killed by gunfire from New Hampshire State Police and other armed men who had been cruising the parking lot, his child-support payments stopped, leaving the family in financial difficulty. His death therefore does not close the story of violence surrounding Jenny’s assassination; it also deprives his former wife and children of the support he had been ordered to provide.

The application reveals the abuse that preceded the divorce. Kenny had beaten his wife at least twice a week for almost thirteen years and had also abused each of the three children. His wife had long understood the suffering as her own lot in life rather than recognizing it as his responsibility. Reading Jenny Fields’s autobiography, A Sexual Suspect, helped her reconsider that understanding and learn that she might have rights and choices.

Jenny’s Influence and the Foundation’s Decision

The applicant had supported herself as a hair stylist in North Mountain, New Hampshire, and continued working after the court required Kenny to leave their home. With his income gone, however, hair styling alone could not adequately support the family. In her nearly illegible application, she wrote that she had been forced to compromise herself to make ends meet and did not want to do so again. She never gave herself a first name in the application, and she acknowledged that her hatred of Kenny might prejudice the board against her, adding that she would understand if the members chose to disregard her request.

John Wolf, an unwilling honorary member of the Fields Foundation board, immediately argued for granting the application. He reasoned that helping the former wife of Jenny’s killer would attract wide publicity, demonstrate that the foundation’s work was not politically selective, and bring in donations. Garp cautioned that the foundation was already receiving substantial gifts. The exchange frames the application as both an urgent request for support and a test of whether a case would be judged on its merits when public relations offered an obvious incentive to act.

Suspicion and the Legacy of the Assassination

Roberta challenged the board to consider the possibility that the applicant was not genuinely in need, but someone who habitually compromised herself and might make the foundation appear foolish. Her warning introduces a counterweight to Wolf’s confidence: publicity could benefit the organization, but it could also magnify the consequences of a mistaken judgment. The board must weigh a woman’s account of prolonged abuse and financial hardship against the uncertainty of what it can verify.

The episode extends Jenny’s influence into a decision made after her death. Her autobiography had helped the applicant reinterpret years of abuse as something inflicted on her, not simply an unavoidable condition of her life. Yet the application also makes the killer’s former wife an uncomfortable figure for an organization bearing Jenny’s legacy. The assassination thus remains consequential not only as a loss, but as the connection that tests the foundation’s stated purposes and the practical reach of Jenny’s work.