TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

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  • Defense attorneys say the stupidest things

    Attorney: Suspect had normal upbringing:

    Defense attorneys continue to make me chuckle. Take, for instance, defense attorney Walter McKee. He’s representing 14-year-old Patrick Armstrong of Fayette, Maine, who is charged in the murder of 14-year-old Marlee Johnston. He’s trying to portray Armstrong as your average American boy next door…

    The boy charged last week with killing a 14-year-old girl grew up with pets, laughed as he sat on a sled and learned to ride a horse.

    Family photographs supplied by defense attorney Walter McKee show typical childhood poses of Patrick Armstrong, now 14, of Fayette, who was arrested in the Nov. 26 death of Marlee Johnston, a neighbor.

    “People have seen a picture of him going to court and made incredible judgments about who he is and what he did. There’s far more to it than that,” McKee said. “He led a very normal, small-town life, nothing unique or out of the ordinary or disturbing. He was just a boy growing up in central Maine. He didn’t torture animals.

    “Children at 14 years old, young teenagers, often have conflict with their parents. They think bad things and they say bad things; it doesn’t mean they’re going to do it,” said McKee. “We wouldn’t expect they would act on those things. He’s a 14-year-old, not a 24-year-old.”

    Let me refresh your memory on what this all American boy allegedly said on his website…

    “I hate this society and I hate most people within it,” the site reads. In a list of general interests, the site mentions skateboarding, hanging out with friends, serial killers and Columbine High School, among others. A list of heroes mentions Eric Harris, one of the gunmen in the 1999 Columbine shootings in Colorado.

    “I am very interested in serial killers and school shootings and I find it hilarious that this fact bothers people,”

    Here’s what McKee said about that…

    “These are things people say off the cuff thinking it’s funny. When you’re 14, you don’t realize how inappropriate it is when you say certain things,” said McKee.

    No, I think when you list serial killers as your heroes even at the age of 14 you know how inappropriate it is. It galls me to see people like this list killers as their heroes. When I was a kid the first serial killings I remember hearing about on the news were the Son of Sam killings. I couldn’t imagine, even at that age, going around saying, “Yeah, David Berkowitz is cool. He’s my hero. I want to be just like him.”

    But this was the funniest thing of all…

    He also said he plans to ask that Armstrong be released in the custody of his parents.

    He can’t be serious, can he? Stay tuned and I guess we’ll find out together.

  • Evidence released in Bradenton killings

    Police release list of evidence in Bradenton quadruple slaying:

    In case you haven’t heard I’ve received some comments from people in support of Richard Henderson Jr. In case you’ve forgotten, he’s the 20-year-old who confessed to bludgeoning his entire family to death on Thanksgiving night. The general theme of the comments is that Henderson was a supportive, loyal, sensitive guy with a good heart. I guess he just wasn’t supportive, loyal, and sensitive to his own family and his good heart must have been as black as a thousand midnights…

    A letter, metal pipes and a broken baseball bat were among evidence collected from the home of four family members who were bludgeoned to death, police documents released Tuesday showed.

    Detectives found skull fragments inside and outside the house. A search warrant inventory listed bloody comforters found covering the four bodies and stained metal pipes and a broken baseball bat found in June Henderson’s bedroom, The Herald in Bradenton reported.

    And it seems like he’s already setting up his insanity defense…

    In telephone interviews from the county jail, Henderson told The Herald that he is severely mentally ill, and that his parents had been trying to get him help in the weeks before the fatal beatings.

    And he shows his gratitude by beating them to death.

    He deserves nothing less than the death penalty.

  • Zarate’s brother charged with murder

    New murder charge in Randolph killing:

    There’s been a major development in the ongoing story of Jonathan Zarate. To sum up 18-year-old Zarate killed 16-year-old Jennifer Parks, dismembered her body, hid her body in a trunk, hid the trunk in his dad’s Jeep for 24 hours, then tried dumping her body in the Passaic River. Now his 15-year-old brother known only as “J.Z.” has now been charged with helping his brothers commit the murder. Originally “J.Z.” was only charged with unlawful disposal of human remains and hindering apprehension…

    This afternoon, the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office served him with a complaint that charges him with being a principal or accomplice to the July 30 beating and stabbing death of the 16-year-old Parks girl.

    Assistant Prosecutor Ralph Amirata would not give many specifics on the reasons for the first-degree charge against the juvenile, but acknowledged it is at least in part based on statements provided by a 16-year-old Clifton youth, who helped the teen and 18-year-old Jonathan Zarate try to throw a steamer trunk containing the girl’s corpse over a bridge into the Passaic River. The disposal attempt was thwarted when police passed by.

    At a hearing tomorrow, prosecutors are going to ask the judge to let them try “J.Z.” as an adult.

  • Why is this even a question?

    Juvenile or adult? Armstrong trial forces difficult decision:

    This is an editorial about whether or not Patrick Armstrong, the 14-year-old accused of killing 14-year-old Marlee Johnston from Fayette, Maine, should be tried as an adult or not. The editorial meanders around for a bit but finally gets to its point…

    Nothing society can do is a fair exchange for what was done to Marlee, whom all describe as vibrant, joyful, caring and kind. Nothing can return her to her family and friends or replace the life she would have lived.

    That would be equally true if her killer were imprisoned for the rest of his life.

    The right answer balances many needs: the need for society to be protected from people of any age who pose a danger, the need to punish the guilty, the need to rehabilitate those who commit crimes.

    The juvenile justice system is based on the theory that children who commit even the worst crimes can grow into productive adults. That is clearly more true of younger lawbreakers than older ones.

    Considering his age, even if he is convicted as an adult, Armstrong is very likely to be released from prison while still a young man. That would make treatment and rehabilitation at least as important as punishment. That treatment is more likely at a juvenile detention facility than at a state prison.

    It is difficult to look past the anger and grief we all feel at Marlee Johnston’s death, to move beyond the need for vengeance, but the prosecutors and judge who deal with this case must do so.

    We recognize that not all the facts of this case have been disclosed. It is unlikely, but possible, that prosecutors will find information or evidence that would argue against keeping the case in juvenile court.

    Those unlikely circumstances would have to be compelling to overcome the fact that Patrick Armstrong is a boy, not a man.

    The author of this editorial is misguided at best.

  • Even his own aunt says he should die

    MURDERS IN MYAKKA: Aunt says Henderson should die:

    How bad is it when you’re own aunt thinks you should be given the death penalty? The aunt of Richard Henderson Jr., who confessed to bludgeoning his family to death on Thanksgiving, had this to say…

    The deaths of June, 82; Richard Sr., 48; Jeaneane, 42; and Jake, 11, have torn Joyce Henderson’s family apart.

    “At first, when it happened, I could hear in my head Jeaneane’s voice saying, ‘Joyce, don’t kill my baby,’ ” Joyce Henderson said Saturday.

    It was after a trip to the family’s home, after the cleaners did their best to remove signs of the crime, that Joyce’s compassion for her nephew cracked.

    She had to hunt for documents to prove who her four deceased relatives were, because they were beaten so severely they had to be identified through dental records, fingerprints, or in Jeaneane’s case, tattoos.

    “I walked outside and said, ‘No,’ ” Joyce Henderson said. “I heard Jeaneane said to me, ‘Joyce, if he killed us the way he did, he deserves to die.’ “

    On top of that, I’ve already had some comments from people who claim to be friends of Richard Henderson who say he was a sweet caring individual with a good heart. (It almost made me puke to type that.) His aunt gives a different story…

    Joyce Henderson and her daughter Rebekah Rogers said they remembered Richard Henderson Jr. as a spoiled and aggressive child who would hit his grandmother and always wanted his way.

    Sorry but sweet individuals with good hearts don’t hit their grandmothers, threaten to slash their wife’s throat, plan to shoot up a school or bludgeon their family to death so brutally that they need to be identified through dental records and fingerprints.

    If anybody deserved a date with the needle, or since it’s Florida Ol’ Sparky, it’s this scumbag.

  • Patrick Armstrong

    Neighbor accused

    Judge orders youth held in girl’s murder:

    14-year-old Marlee Johnson from Maine was murdered last weekend. One Patrick Armstrong, also 14, is being held in her murder. The cause of death and motive for the killing have not been released yet. It has also not been decided on whether or not to try him as an adult. Why my interest in this particular case you ask. I’ll show you…

    Hours after the killing, police were looking into a personal Web site believed to be Armstrong’s, a source close to the investigation said.

    The name, birthdate and other personal details match Armstrong exactly, though authorities have not confirmed that Armstrong is the author of the content. Pages downloaded from the site were circulating among Kents Hill School students early this week.

    The site could be interpreted as the ramblings of a troubled individual, or someone who enjoyed sharing very dark humor with friends given access to the site.

    “I hate this society and I hate most people within it,” the site reads. In a list of general interests, the site mentions skateboarding, hanging out with friends, serial killers and Columbine High School, among others. A list of heroes mentions Eric Harris, one of the gunmen in the 1999 Columbine shootings in Colorado.

    And from the second article…

    McKee said that Armstrong, who has been home-schooled his entire life, has no criminal history. But he said he was aware that police are examining a personal Internet Web site that includes some troubling references. The site is believed to be Armstrong’s and, according to sources, became part of the investigation shortly after the killing.

    On the private site, which was accessible to a small circle of friends, the author identified himself as “offensive” and hostile. Visitors who have posted comments on the site include someone claiming to be Armstrong’s sister.

    The site lists people the author “hates,” including “moronic jocks,” “bullies,” “old people,” and “little kids.”

    “I am very interested in serial killers and school shootings and I find it hilarious that this fact bothers people,” the author wrote. “I laugh at people, including myself, who get hurt, so if you ever see me lying on the ground next to my skateboard laughing, I’m probably also bleeding.”

    The site believed to be Armstrong’s lists Eric Harris, one of the Columbine shooters, as a hero.

    The kid is a mutant plain and simple. Another Harris and Klebold worshipper that decided to follow in their cowardly footsteps.

    As usual, we have a very funny defense attorney…

    Armstrong’s attorney, Walter McKee, said he will argue for his client to be released to his parents’ custody while the case moves through the court system.

    “He should be released to his mom,” McKee said. “He’s 14 years old, he’s never spent more than two nights away from home. He’s been there ever since he was a baby.

    “I know that’s difficult for everybody because it’s a small community, but it’s really appropriate with a boy that age,” McKee said.

    Which part about “He killed a girl” doesn’t he get? Killers don’t get to go home to mommy.

    More yuks from Mr. McKee…

    McKee made clear that his first job would be to keep Armstrong in the juvenile system. He said an adult punishment would be wrong for such a young person.

    “I think it’s scary,” McKee said. “It’s virtually unprecedented in the state of Maine. This means somebody 15 years old sitting in a corner of the Maine State Prison in Warren, and that’s just unheard of.”

    If an adult punishment is so wrong for a young person how do you think he feels about a 14-year-old girl who received an unsolicited death penalty? No trial, no appeal, no last meal, just death. And I’m supposed to feel sorry for a murderer that sits in state prison? I don’t think so. I don’t care about his age. He was old enough to allegedly make the decision to kill Marlee Johnston then he’s old enough to spend the rest of his life in jail.

    And once again this should serve as a warning to parents about their kid’s internet activities. Don’t believe me? How about this guy?…

    Today’s teenagers use the Internet to record their deepest feelings the way people once used private journals, said Dr. Andy Hinkins, the residency training director in child and adolescent psychiatry at Maine Medical Center and Spring Harbor Hospital.

    Whether the medium is the Web or a diary, the writer may hope that someone will find the document and do something about it, he said.

    “They can provide a psychological profile of the child,” Hinkins said. “It behooves us to be vigilant and take them seriously. It is not a normal part of adolescence to be writing such dark things.”

    Hinkins said he knows of no study that looked at what percentage of teenagers act out violent fantasies in their writing. But after the Columbine school shootings, in which the killers left disturbing letters and journals, families should not ignore them, he said.

    “I would certainly talk to the child about it,” he said. “And it would be helpful to have a mental health professional work with the family.”

    Couldn’t have said it better myself.

    My prayers and condolences go out to the friends and family of Marlee Johnson.

    A huge nod to The Cellar.

  • More on Richard Henderson Jr.

    The other day we discussed Richard Henderson Jr. the 20-year-old who confessed to bludgeoning his family to death on Thanksgiving. I had mentioned that in 2001 he was arrested on suspicion of being part of a Columbine-like plot and I asked if anyone has further information on that. Well my readers came through in spades.

    First I got an e-mail from some we’ll call T-Rock…

    The high school is Lakewood Ranch High School. It is located in Eastern Manatee County, in Bradenton, FL.

    The plan in 2001 was to have one kid pull the fire alarms, while the other 3 kids layed in ambush in the courtyard, ready to pick off any students and faculty that were running out of thier classrooms. Luckily to say that never happened.

    T-Rock also had some other choice things to say about Henderson but we’ll save that for another time.

    Then reader Starviego came through big time with a plethora of news links.

    Suspect named in 2001 plot:

    Four teens had an ominous plan in the spring of 2001: Get guns, pull a fire alarm at Lakewood Ranch High School and shoot as many students as possible before killing themselves.

    Richard Henderson Jr., now charged with killing four family members, was one of those teens, and he had taken a major step toward making it a reality: He had obtained a handgun and brought it to the school.

    The local plan came to light in March 2001 when police found Henderson with a gun at a Manatee McDonald’s restaurant. They arrested him on charges of carrying a concealed weapon and possessing a weapon on school property. There’s no indication Henderson ever fired the gun.

    But authorities questioned him and his friends at length. The friends gave versions of the plots that varied slightly but had consistent themes.

    The group that included at least one girl talked of their plans in telephone conference calls over a period of a week, the report said. They planned to take muscle relaxers and do one of two things.

    In one scenario, they would sit in a circle and shoot each other one by one. The teens all agreed that “life sucks” and that they didn’t like their parents. One girl, the report said, “did not want to grow up to be like her mother, her father or the adults that are around her.”

    The other plan, which the teens each denied when confronted by sheriff’s investigators, involved pulling the fire alarm at Lakewood Ranch High and shooting students who had wronged them. The teens said “the rednecks” picked on them and treated them like “freaks” and deserved to be shot, the reports say.

    Henderson had written a suicide note and will, and signed it on Feb. 28, 2001. He was caught by police with the loaded handgun on Friday, March 2, 2001.

    “She felt that Richard Henderson Jr. was serious about this,” the report quoted one girl as telling authorities. “She also felt he would have done the shooting on Monday morning at school. She felt this because she understands how Richard Henderson Jr.’s mind works. When he sets his mind to something … he would continue to think about it until it became serious. Then he would really do it, and it would become reality.”

    What did Henderson get for his troubles? Five years probation…

    Though he was 15, Henderson was tried as an adult in the 12th Circuit Court. Records show he was sentenced to five years’ probation.

    But, according to the state attorney’s office, Henderson violated his probation when he committed another crime at the age of 19. Henderson, according to court records, was charged with aggravated assault and violation of an injunction after he went to his wife’s home in Bradenton on Dec. 5, 2004. There, he threatened to cut her throat if she didn’t go into the house with him. His wife was not injured, but Henderson cut his left wrist with a steak knife, according to the warrant.

    What did he get for that? Only four months behind bars…

    Henderson pleaded guilty to assault in the incident, said Dawn Buff, a prosecutor who worked on the case.

    A judge allowed Henderson credit for time served for the assault and violation of probation charges, Buff said. He had spent four months in jail by then.

    But that’s not all…

    Earlier, on May 5, 2004, Henderson was accused of domestic battery and aggravated assault charges. But the charges were dropped on Oct. 12, 2004, court records show.

    “The reason we didn’t proceed with that is because the victim reported the incident very late,” Buff said.

    And it seems like that this kind of behavior is nothing new…

    “Even when he was a kid, he’d grab animals out here and rip their legs off and just laugh about it. So he was kind of troubled in the first place,” Henderson’s uncle, Jeffrey Stringer, said.

    So it should be no surprise to anyone that this psychopath murdered his family on Thanksgiving and slept next to his dead mother in her bed that night.

    So after all the crimes that Henderson committed why was he allowed to walk the streets? Do any of the judges that previously sentenced Henderson have any regrets? They should.

  • Campbell County High survivor story

    Campbell County school shooting survivor shares story:

    One of the surviving victims of the Campbell County High School shooting, Assistant Principal Jim Pierce, decided to share his story with the local media. I’ll just quote the highlights…

    “After a little discussion, bang, bang, bang,” Pierce describes what happened. “It was quick.”

    Pierce, now recovering at home, says he tackled Bartley after a few shots had been fired.

    The next thing he remembers is seeing Bartley tied up.

    A teacher peeling Pierce off the floor told him to hang on and keep breathing.

    “I know if someone didn’t do something, we were all doomed,” Pierce explained. “I just jumped to grab him, and I think that’s when he shot me.”

    The bullet that grazed Pierce’s hand came close to killing him.

    “It came through the back of my arm, through my side and it collapsed both my lungs,” he pointed to the scars. “I’ve never experienced that kind of pain before.”

    This is the first time in 36 years of teaching Pierce has used his sick days for illness.

    Pierce is left wondering why a student whose father was a boyhood friend would want to hurt him.

    “We ran around together,” Pierce said of Kenneth, Sr. “I really hadn’t met Kenny Junior until he enrolled him at the high school. He introduced him because we were friends growing up.”

    Other than that introduction, Pierce said the two had waved at each other in the hallway.

    Both Pierce and Seale will carry bullets forever. Pierce isn’t sure how he feels about having it lodged behind his aorta.

    He says he doesn’t have any hard feelings towards the alleged shooter but thinks he does need help.

    He’s definitely a bigger man than me.

  • Jourdain pleads guilty

    Teen Pleads Guilty for Role in Shootings:

    Louis Jourdain, the teen arrested for allegedly being a co-conspirator in the Red Lake shootings, has pleaded guilty threatening interstate communications. Conspiracy to commit murder, and conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States charges were dropped.

    The docket, some of which had been blacked out, gave few details of the charge, saying only that Jourdain used a computer to conduct interstate communications that “could be taken by an objective observer as threatening” sometime between Jan. 1, 2003 and March 2005.

    No sentencing date has been set yet.

    But according to this article even though Jourdain may get off easy in criminal court he’s still looking at problems with possible civil trials.

    “The civil part is just beginning,” Minneapolis attorney Marshall Tanick said. “The end of the criminal case is just the turning point to start the wheels moving in the civil end, of which there’s no shortage of plaintiffs and an abundance of defendants.”

    Personally, I don’t see how a civil suit could be filed unless Jourdain had implicit knowledge of the exact time and place of the attack. Since according to the judgment reached it doesn’t seem to me that he had such knowledge. Then again I’m not a lawyer. I really should keep one around here. Any volunteers?

  • Richard Edgar Henderson Jr.

    Family bludgeoned to death:

    Earlier today I read the story of Richard Edgar Harrison Jr., the 20-year-old accused of bludgeoning his family to death on Thanksgiving. If you haven’t heard the story yet here are the details…

    Police say Henderson told them he killed his 11-year-old brother Jake first in a bedroom.

    Then he went to his 82-year-old grandmother’s bedroom, asked her to fetch something from a drawer and killed her.

    He lured his father, Richard, 48, into the living room to play video games, and killed him there before beating his mother, Jeaneane, 42, as she sat playing poker on a computer in her bedroom.

    “Henderson said he put the pipe in his bedroom, took a shower, wrote a note and spent the rest of the night lying in his parents’ bed staring at the ceiling,” a detective’s report said.

    “Henderson said that he killed his family because they wouldn’t let him leave.

    “He said that he was not angry at his family and that after he had hit his brother, he had to kill everyone.

    “Henderson planned to collect money to buy enough drugs or poison to kill himself,” according to the report.

    Henderson was arrested on Sunday night walking along a busy road and charged with murder.

    But here’s the part that caught my attention…

    In 2001, Henderson was part of a Columbine-style murder-suicide plan that was to have taken place at a local high school but was foiled by police, sheriff’s officials said.

    Henderson, who was 16 at the time, was among four to six students involved in the plot, and was arrested on concealed weapons charges.

    I couldn’t find anything else on the web about this without knowing the name of the school. And since Henderson was a minor at the time I doubt his name would have been mentioned in the press. If anyone has any information about this alleged plot from back in 2001 please let me know.

    In the meantime maybe they’ll start dealing out harsher sentences for would be school shooters in order to avoid another situation like this.