'We were in a haze': Akron father reflects on losing son in road rage shooting, mother and now daughter

George Jensen Sr. doesn't want to say he is used to family trauma, but the last year has been a whirlwind for him and his family.

The Akron man lost one son in an untimely death that he didn't know about until reading about it on Facebook. Then a few months later, he lost his mother, who had been in hospice.

"We've had so much support with the death we've experienced in the past year, first with my oldest son's murder, and then my mother's passing, we were just in a haze and fortunately we had a community behind us help to get us through those tough two first months," Jensen said.

The Jensens, who lost one child during a May 2023 road rage incident in Norton and another family member months later, are now dealing with yet another loss.

Emma Jensen, whose brother George "Geo" Jensen was killed on I-76 in Norton last year, died Wednesday morning at 33, Jensen said. She had been hospitalized at Cleveland Clinic Akron General since April 17, and eventually placed on life support after suffering from multiple cardiac arrests and strokes.

She was taken off life support Tuesday evening.

"The doctor told us she would've been intubated with a breathing tube and in a nursing home for the rest of her life, but we elected just to let her go," Jensen said.

Emma Jensen fought to be present for brother's killer's trial

Two months before her brother's killer, Dacarrei Kinard, was sentenced to more than a decade in prison on April 12, Emma was admitted to Akron General on Feb. 4, where it was determined she had blood clots on her liver. She was diagnosed with Budd Chiari Syndrome, a rare liver disease.

"The intervening months between her getting out of the hospital in February and the sentencing and her going back to the hospital a week ago were difficult for her, but she always put on the brightest face no matter how she felt," Jensen said. "We didn't really know the level of her suffering."

As Emma's condition worsened, she was determined to make it through Kinard's trial and sentencing, which began in late March.

"It was torture for her to go through this with her big brother being taken from her and she hated guns and hated the violence that was happening in her community and hated how her brother met a violent end," Jensen said. "Although I knew she was in pain or out of it, she always wanted to come to the trial and was seemingly trying to stay around long enough to see this through."

She wrote a victim impact statement to be read in the court but couldn't physically stand long enough to read it herself. Her cousin had to read it for her.

"It was physically challenging for her to come to court, we had to get her out of the car, into the chair, across the bridge, up the elevator, and it was tough for her," Jensen said. "We'd go over bumps in the road and she would cry out in pain, but there was no way that she wasn't going to go."

Emma first faced blood clotting issues over a decade ago

On April 17, five days after Kinard's sentencing, Emma collapsed and was hospitalized for the final time. The family was in the process of coming to Cleveland Clinic's main campus for lab testing for an upcoming surgery in May, but instead, Emma was rushed to Akron General.

"I remember she was conscious in triage and we went to see her and the nurses stuck a needle in her and she said 'ow' and we were asked to leave after that," Jensen said. "That was the last word I heard from my daughter, who lost consciousness shortly after we left the room."

Emma had her first clotting episode 12 years ago when she was a student at Ohio University, stemming from her being on oral contraceptives for acne, Jensen said. She got sick again a few years later when she was diagnosed with intracranial hypertension, a fluid buildup in the skull which causes pressure on the brain. But she had been relatively healthy leading up to her February hospitalization.

"She was maintaining her health pretty well through the years until we got to late January/early February of this year and she started bloating and getting this fluid build-up and she really didn't understand it," Jensen said. "The doctors did all kinds of testing on her for a few days and finally did an MRI and they found the clots in her liver."

The doctors removed the clots and inserted a shunt through her carotid artery to help establish better blood flow to her liver. After she left the hospital Feb. 15, she would have to go back periodically for paracentesis, or the draining of abdominal fluid.

"My wife (Sue) and I acted as her care providers from the time she left the hospital in February up until the end," Jensen said.

'She taught me ... about being selfless, loving'

Emma was a Stow native and the youngest of three siblings; George was the oldest and Anthony born a few years later. She received her Master's Degree in education from Kent State before finding work as a teacher in Norton for a year. She last worked for the past three years as a third grade teacher at Campus International School in Cleveland.

"[Campus International School] is the most diverse, wonderful place, and Emma loved working there and being a part of the school, and we had so much fun going up there to visit," Jensen said. "We want to find a way to continue to be part of the school, we have a bunch of packages on our front doorstep that Emma had delivered, things such as whiteboards and other things for her students, so we are very happy to have a reason to go back there."

Jensen remembers how much Emma wanted to give of herself to others and loved helping others and making people smile.

"What I did as a father was I followed my children and what my kids wanted to do is what I wanted to do," Jensen said. "I followed all three of my kids and she taught me more about being selfless and loving than she would ever know."

A funeral service for Emma is scheduled for May 4 at the Bethany United Church of Christ in Cuyahoga Falls.

Reporter Anthony Thompson can be reached at ajthompson@gannett.com, or on Twitter @athompsonABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Family mourns loss of youngest child year after son George Jensen dies