Ex-US deserter to NKorea who married Japanese abductee dies
TOKYO — Charles Jenkins, a U.S. Army deserter to North Korea who married a Japanese abductee and lived in Japan after their release, has died. He was 77.
Jenkins was found collapsed outside his home in Sado in northern Japan on Monday and was taken to a hospital where he was later pronounced dead, a group representing families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea said Tuesday.
Public broadcaster NHK said he died of heart failure.
Jenkins, of Rich Square, North Carolina, disappeared in January 1965 while on patrol along the Demilitarized Zone dividing North and South Korea. He later called his desertion a mistake that led to decades of deprivation and hardship in the communist country.