Tag: bludgeoning

(Again this was written up yesterday but I took last night off.)

Henderson ‘normal’ after deaths:

More testimony in the trial of Richard Henderson Jr. This time let’s hear from his grandfather.

Loyal Stringer told jurors their grandson said he was taking a girlfriend home. He testified he appeared “normal,” but the girlfriend appeared scared and had “little color in her face.”

Henderson, before he drove off, told his grandparents not to go to the house because his parents were fighting “real bad.”

Again that doesn’t sound like an insane person to me.

Now some testimony from his friends…

More testimony from Nicole J. Russell and Zach Anderson – two friends of Henderson Jr. – indicated they had previously seen Henderson take Xanex and smoke marijuana.

Russell also said she had seen him the day after the killings and that he told her he was going to Mexico.

The day before and after the killings, Anderson testified, he saw Henderson Jr. at a friend’s house. Henderson, he said, appeared normal and “in touch with reality.”

If he appeared normal after slaughtering his entire family he must be one heartless S.O.B.

So far it doesn’t look like the insanity defense is going really well.

Sides come out firing on Day One of Henderson trial:

The trial of Richard Henderson Jr. opened yesterday. Henderson is accused of killing his entire family on Thanksgiving 2005.

The defense, of course, is pursuing an insanity defense…

But Franklin Roberts, one of Henderson’s court-appointed attorneys, told the jury a different story as he outlined his client’s defense. He contended the slayings in the family’s Myakka City mobile home were a tragedy brought on by Henderson Jr.’s severe mental illness.

“The horrible act of someone who was insane at the time it was committed,” Roberts said of Henderson, charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his father, Richard Sr.; mother, Jeaneane; grandmother, June; and younger brother, Jacob.

As Henderson occasionally jotted notes, Roberts described him as a man with a troubled youth full of drug abuse, suicide attempts and self-mutilation.

“Early in life, something was wrong,” Roberts said. “He had trouble keeping up in school . . . was disruptive in class. He is not someone who simply at one moment in time – suddenly exploded.”

Doctors will take the stand, Roberts said, and testify Henderson was insane when he killed his family.

But just as the prosecution asked how can Henderson be insane when he did this?

Henderson, while playing video games with his 11-year-old brother, took a metal pipe, struck him on the head and pushed the boy out a window. Then, in separate rooms, Henderson attacked his 82-year-old grandmother, his father, 48, and his mother, 42, killing each with “lethal amount of force” to their heads.

Sandy Stringer, Henderson’s other grandmother, called the home for her daughter, Jeaneane, on the night of the killings.

But Henderson Jr. answered instead.

Lying, he said that his mom was in the shower and would soon go to bed.

The day after the killings, Iten said, Henderson took his parents’ van, picked up his girlfriend and her friend and the three spent the next two nights in an Ellenton hotel. There, he told his girlfriend that he had killed people. But he lied about who, Iten said. He said he had killed his ex-wife, Brittany Wilde, and then killed his grandmother after she walked in on the attack.

He also later told friends he planned to head for Mexico, Iten said.

If he was insane he would have told his girlfriend that he killed Snap, Crackle, and Pop and was running away to Crunchland. (If he did kill Snap, Crackle, and Pop wouldn’t that make him a cereal killer?)

Henderson isn’t insane he’s just a cold-blooded killer.

Accused killer Henderson wants trial moved:

The defense attorneys for Richard Henderson Jr. are trying to get the trial moved. Henderson bludgeoned his family to death Thanksgiving Day 2005 with a lead pipe.

So defense attorneys Carolyn Schlemmer and Franklin Roberts have requested a change of venue for their client’s murder trial, set for next month.

“I don’t feel it can be held here,” Schlemmer said Wednesday. “There has been too much publicity, too much connecting him to other cases and there is just no way we’d get a fair trial.”

And Henderson himself has this little gem…

“Extensive publicity has caused me hardship at the jail,” states an affidavit signed by Henderson last month. “The pretrial publicity has portrayed me as guilty to four counts of murder in the first degree.”

A lot of the pre-trial publicity Henderson brought upon himself. Let’s not forget the letter that he sent to the Bradenton Herald. If you act like a murderous psychopath people may think you are.

Let’s also not forget that he basically confessed to the crime but as expected the defense attorneys are trying to get that thrown out.

In another motion filed Wednesday, Schlemmer said she wants Henderson’s statements to police suppressed and any evidence seized from him on Nov. 27, 2005, to be ruled inadmissible at trial.

She says the evidence was illegally obtained as a result of an unlawful stop by Deputy Rodney Norris, with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.

Norris, with his gun drawn, stopped Henderson as a possible suspect in the 4900 block of U.S. 301, according to the motion.

Henderson initially told deputies his name was Jason. But he fit the description of the suspect in the slayings, and Norris arrested him.

Norris found a glass pipe with marijuana residue in his left pocket, according to sheriff’s reports.

Norris did not have a “founded suspicion” that Henderson had committed, was committing or was about to commit a violation of the law, according to the motion.

What are the police supposed to do?

Officer: Dispatch, we have a male fitting the description of a fugitive wanted for murder. Moving in to apprehend.

Dispatch: Negative, wait for subject to do something “suspicious”.

“Founded suspicion” my ass. What if police didn’t approach him and he killed somebody else? How well do you think that would have gone over with the public?

A hearing for these ridiculous requests will be held on June 22nd.

Henderson hopes for death in letter:

Richard Henderson Jr. is currently awaiting trial in Florida for bludgeoning his family to death on Thanksgiving Day 2005. Before that, he was in trouble for plotting to shoot up his school. He wrote the following letter to the Bradenton Herald…

As for my case im happy to be closing in on the day i’ll know where my future lies. As for if I get the Death instead of life or possibly something else, Great, ill be happy. Id rather get Death then life so I don’t have to witness the schemes and abuse of Authority the State lives by. As for my so called Family, let me make this clear. I don’t give a damn what they think, they say they know me how can that be if I only saw them 7 times in my life, to hell with them, I want them to know if I do get the death penality I will haunt their dreams and forever taint the blood of our Family. The way I see it, it’s their fault, if someone could of got me help instead of gossiping maybe my family be alive, maybe I could of had a normal life,” he wrote. “But no, everyone wants to talk, to judge. Find a way to live my life, to do all I did, to fell all my pain then you can judge me. How many Virginia tech massacers, how many columbines, how many Ross’s, Davis’s, Henderson’s is it gonna take to show kid’s are not being properly raised/helped/counsaled like they need to be. The Guilt of the crimes lies in the so called innocent, we were just the puppets that released the evil society breeds. You want Justice, you want us to feel pain, our whole lives have been pain. Me being in here with no friends, no family, just guilt, that’s pain. Just keep gossiping, keep . . . cause pain is coming to a place called home. Let’s see how you handle it.

First off if he wants death I say no problem. To me, it sounds like he’s trying to pull a Susan Smith. She begged for a death sentence and they gave her a life sentence. Personally, I don’t think Henderson wants any part of a death sentence. I think he’s bluffing and I hope the jury calls him on that bluff.

Secondly, I love how Henderson pulls the old “blame society” crap. Society didn’t cause him to kill his family. Only Henderson caused that. No one in this society is owed anything. The only thing that I hope is owed to Henderson is a quick trial and a death sentence.