When Damage Kills – II (Regarding Stepha Henry 01-17-08)

  http://www.averagebro.com/2008/01/stepha-henry-case-takes-bad-turn.html

The Stepha Henry Case Takes A Turn For The Worse

I had a really rough time at the Day Job today, but then someone forwarded me a news story that put everything in perspective. A man suspected of having murdered missing college student Stepha Henry was arrested today in New York.

The body of Stepha Henry has not been found, but so much of her blood was in the car that took her to a Sunrise nightclub that she could not possibly have survived, officials said Tuesday.At a news conference at the Miami-Dade Police Department, officials for the first time said Henry, 22, was brutally murdered last May, and though she remains missing, her killer, police said, has been located.

Police in Brooklyn arrested Kendrick Lincoln Williams, 32, Tuesday morning and have been questioning him much of the day, said Jim Loftus, assistant director of investigative services for the Miami-Dade Police Department. Williams is being charged with second degree murder.

Henry, a recent graduate of John Jay College who aspired to attend law school, was visiting her aunt in North Miami during the Memorial Day weekend last year when she disappeared.

Prosecutor Abbe Rifkin, of the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, said the second degree murder charge against Williams could change as the investigation continues. Williams is also charged with tampering with evidence.

The body has yet to be located, but all signs seem to point to a bad ending.I’ve had people periodically ask me why I kept posting updates about this story, when there really hasn’t been any new news since June. I guess my thought has always been that Henry could just as well be my wife, mom, aunt, sister in law, or for that matter, my son, since this phenomenon of “who cares if they’re black and missing?” is hardly gender specific. How would I feel if my loved one was missing, yet I couldn’t even get the police to search for them because they didn’t fit the typical profile of a distressed missing person?

While Henry’s case did get some low level of cable news media coverage, it is nowhere near the frenzy typically generated by a missing Jesse Davis, Natalee Holloway, or Elizabeth Smart. The case is perhaps most notable for having been famously bumped from cable news coverage when breaking news of Paris Hilton’s imprisonment pre-empted it. And that’s a damn shame, but it tells you a lil’ something about the country we still live in. Politricks of Hope™ and “A New America” aside, we still have a long way to go.

I could go off on some tangent about how that pregnant marine story is all over the news, yet I wouldn’t have heard about the break in this case unless my readers told me about it. Would more media attention to Henry’s disappearance have possibly lead to her safe return? The world will never know. Why is it that the media, and by proxy (in some cases), the police don’t seem to care about missing people of the wrong hue? If you’re a male college student like Julian McCormick, a female college student like Henry, or any age above and below, reality is, you better find your own damn self, because nobody will be looking for you. Except for your family, friends, and Black and Missing, nobody cares. There is no Laquita Alert.

What is true is that none of that matters right now.

A life is quite possibly lost, and though I don’t know anything about Ms. Henry other than what I’ve posted here for the past six months, I felt a deep and profound sense of sorrow when I was forwarded this story.

If these allegations are true, I hope there’s a sauna in West Hell waiting for Mr. Williams.

Please pray for the Henry family in this time of sorrow, and always pray for God’s hedge of protection for your loved ones.

Police: Blood evidence shows Stepha Henry was murdered [Sun-Sentinel]

  

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 Suspect: Christopher Lee McCuin

 

Victim Jana Shearer & Her Myspace Page: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=78489621

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7206485,00.html

      Authorities Find Grisly Scene in Texas

Tuesday January 8, 2008 3:01 AM

By PAUL J. WEBER

Associated Press Writer

TYLER, Texas (AP) – A man who told a 911 operator he killed his girlfriend and cooked parts of her body later described his actions as being compelled by God, police said Monday.

Christopher Lee McCuin, 25, made his initial court appearance Monday on a capital murder charge. He was arrested Saturday after police said they found an ear boiling in a pot on a stovetop and a hunk of flesh impaled on a fork on a plate at the kitchen table at his mother’s house in this town about 110 miles east of Dallas.

McCuin, wearing a jail-issue red jumpsuit, was not asked to enter a plea as he appeared before state District Judge Jack Skeen Jr., who continued McCuin’s bond at $2 million and appointed an attorney to represent him.

Skeen also sealed the arrest and search warrant affidavits and issued a gag order in the case.

Authorities said it is unclear whether McCuin consumed any part of the woman’s body. McCuin told investigators that God made him kill 21-year-old Jana Shearer, Smith County sheriff’s Lt. Larry Wiginton said.

“When he said God told him to do it, one of the investigators looked at him and just said, ‘What did you say?”’ Wiginton told the Tyler Morning-Telegraph on Monday.

McCuin is also the suspect in the stabbing early Saturday of a man described as his estranged wife’s boyfriend, authorities said.

Sheriff J.B. Smith said McCuin was known to authorities and had “a history of violence,” including assaulting his estranged wife, his girlfriend and his sister.

McCuin has a criminal record that includes driving while intoxicated and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charges. When he was arrested, McCuin had an outstanding felony retaliation warrant.

Officials believe the horrific chain of events began when Shearer was taken by McCuin from her home late Friday night and killed.

Smith said McCuin then drove to his estranged wife’s home, where he stabbed William Veasley, 42. His condition was unavailable on Monday night.

McCuin was still at his estranged wife’s home when deputies arrived, but he jumped into his car and escaped after a short chase, Smith said. “We did not know at the time that he had murdered anyone,” the sheriff said. “We thought it was a disturbance or an assault.”

McCuin wasn’t seen again until Saturday morning, when he arrived at the home he shared with his mother and called her into the garage so she could “come see what he had done,” Smith said.

His mother and her boyfriend saw the remains of Shearer, authorities said. McCuin’s mother and her boyfriend fled the home and flagged down a police officer. McCuin dialed 911 after they left and told an emergency dispatcher he had killed Shearer and was boiling her body parts, Smith said.

Shearer appeared to have died of blunt trauma to the head, Smith said. She may have been kidnapped Friday night, when her mother saw her get into McCuin’s truck.

“You can’t sleep. You can’t think straight anymore,” said Amy Gage, a friend and neighbor of Shearer. “Then you just keep finding out more and more. It’s the most difficult thing anyone can go through.”

Gage said McCuin and Shearer had been dating only a few months. She remembered McCuin as an unflappably happy friend who had a knack for making her neighbors laugh.

“We really want to focus on her being a person who loved life, and not what happened to her,” Gage said. “It was such a tragedy. We have to try to focus on the fact that Jana was a good person.”

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Associated Press writer Jeff Carlton in Dallas contributed to this report.