State v. Henderson

551 S.W.3d 593
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 29, 2018
DocketWD 80066
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 551 S.W.3d 593 (State v. Henderson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Henderson, 551 S.W.3d 593 (Mo. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

VICTOR C. HOWARD, JUDGE

Angela Henderson appeals her convictions for second-degree felony murder, section 565.02, armed criminal action, section 571.015, and tampering with physical evidence, section 575.100, and sentences as a prior and persistent offender to consecutive terms of life, twenty-five years, and 3 years imprisonment, respectively.1 Henderson contends that the trial court plainly erred in submitting the verdict directors for felony murder and tampering with physical evidence and that it abused its discretion in excluding evidence regarding a letter written to the prosecutor by Henderson's cellmate. The convictions are reversed, and the case is remanded for a new trial.

Factual Background

Clinton Justice, known as "Sam," (Victim) was a Navy veteran and lived in an apartment in St. Joseph on his monthly veteran's benefits. Henderson dated Victim *596for seventeen years. Their relationship was "on-again off-again." Josh Mollett is Henderson's mentally challenged son. He was in his early 20s at the time of Victim's murder. Victim was like a "stepdad" to Mollett; he looked after Mollett. They loved each other and spent a lot of time together.

Approximately three months before the murder, Henderson began a relationship with Kim Keith. Keith pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for Victim's murder and was serving a fifteen-year sentence. As a condition of his plea agreement, he was required to testify truthfully against Henderson. Keith was a drug dealer, who sold methamphetamines and other drugs. He was also addicted to methamphetamines. He testified that late on the night of Friday, December 7, 2012, or in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 8, he received a call from Henderson that she wanted to meet him to buy an eight ball of meth, which sold for $300. When he arrived at the meeting, Henderson was with her son, Mollett, who Keith had known for about ten years "since he was a little kid." Henderson and Mollett did not have the money to buy the drugs so Keith accompanied them in their car to an apartment building to get the money.

When they arrived, Henderson got out of the car, and Keith gave her "the dope" to show "whoever [she] was getting the money from." Keith did not know at that time from whom Henderson was going to try to get the money. Keith and Mollett waited in the car, and each did a shot of meth. After waiting "a good ten minutes" for Henderson to return, Keith and Mollett went into the apartment because Keith "wanted my money or my dope, one of the two." Keith testified that he was "really high" at the time and that the three of them went into Victim's apartment "to do a drug deal."

When they entered the apartment, Keith saw Victim, who he realized he knew because his cousin was married to Victim's daughter. Victim was sitting in a recliner, and Henderson was sitting on a loveseat. Henderson still did not have the money and told Victim that she needed it. Victim said, "I'm not buying you your f* * *ing dope." Mollett then told Victim, "[W]e got to have the money." According to Keith, Henderson then "looked at [Mollett] and went like that (demonstrating), and [Mollett] got up, walked behind [Victim], pulled his head back, and when [Mollett] did that, [Henderson] went and cut him from side to side on the throat." Keith got the drugs back and left on foot.

As he was walking down the street, Henderson and Mollett pulled up in their car and asked him if he wanted to trade some Percocet and Xanax for meth. When he said no, Mollett held up a $50 bill and asked if he could get a half of gram of meth. Keith sold him the drugs and continued walking.

Victim had contact with his two daughters throughout the week before his murder. On Monday and Tuesday, December 3 and 4, 2012, one of Victim's daughters took him Christmas shopping for his family. Later in the evening of the fourth, Victim celebrated his fifty-seventh birthday with his family. On Thursday, he talked to one daughter on the phone around 8pm. Another daughter went to Victim's apartment around 9:30 or 10pm that night to loan him $20 because he was short on cash after Christmas shopping. Neither daughter had contact with Victim on Friday, December 7, although one of them tried to call him several times that day. After still not hearing from their father on Saturday, December 8, one of his daughters and her husband went to his apartment that evening to check on him. They found Victim laying face down in a pool of blood in front of the *597recliner in the living room. After not finding a pulse, the daughter's husband called 911.

When police arrived, they found Victim had wounds to his neck and right thumb. He had one sock on and one off. A bloody sock was stuck to the wounds on his neck, a fact closely-guarded by police. Victim had blood on the bottom of his bare foot and on the bottom of the sock on the other foot. There were blood and bloody footprints on the carpet from the recliner to the front door and smears of blood on the front door. A green folding chair was lying on top of Victim's body. Cast-off blood splatter patterns were found showing the injuries occurred in front of the recliner; and the right armrest was saturated in blood.

Victim had been stabbed in the upper chest through the right clavicle collarbone, striking a rib and cutting his carotid artery. There was also "a longer slicing type entry" into the neck that produced "a gaping wound" and sliced the jugular vein and created a small hole in the trachea. Victim died from massive blood loss, "his circulating volume," "on the order of a couple of quarts." In addition to the neck wounds, Victim had a defensive wound to his right thumb.

According to his daughters, Victim was very meticulous about his apartment and kept it very clean at all times. It was very neat and tidy, and nothing was ever out of place. Although he no longer smoked, he allowed others to smoke in his apartment but would always empty and wash ashtrays immediately after they were done. Police found cigarette butts in an ashtray in the living room. Henderson's DNA was found on the butt; only one in 1.347 quadrillion individuals in the Caucasian population and one in 55.8 quadrillion individuals in the black population fit the profile. Mollett's DNA was found on two other cigarette butts. Mollett's DNA was also found on a cup in the apartment.

Henderson spoke with police two times shortly after Victim's body was found, giving them inconsistent stories about when she last saw Victim. She initially told them that she had been with Victim Wednesday through Friday morning, leaving around 11am. She then told them she was at the Victim's apartment Tuesday night, leaving Wednesday morning, and not near the weekend. After police pointed out the discrepancies in her stories, Henderson returned to the original version that she left Victim's apartment Friday morning.

Becky Osborn was a friend of Victim's family; she "was basically adopted" by Victim's family when she "was a little kid." She considered Victim as "like my dad" and Mollett was "like my little brother." Victim was there for her when she was growing up when her parents weren't. She had known Henderson for sixteen to eighteen years. On March 28, 2013, almost four months after the murder, Osborn saw Mollett and Henderson in her old neighborhood. When Henderson went into a building, Osborn waived Mollett down to where she was and had a conversation with him about what he had witnessed on the day of the murder.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
551 S.W.3d 593, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-henderson-moctapp-2018.