Henderson v. State
| Decision Date | 21 September 2017 |
| Docket Number | NO. 02-15-00397-CR,02-15-00397-CR |
| Parties | MICHAEL HENDERSON APPELLANT v. THE STATE OF TEXAS STATE |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
FROM THE 297TH DISTRICT COURT OF TARRANT COUNTY
Appellant Michael Henderson2 appeals his conviction for capital murder. In ten points, Henderson argues that the trial court abused its discretion by allowingwitnesses to testify to an extraneous offense, that the trial court erred by denying his two Batson challenges, that the trial court erred by granting one of the State's challenges for cause, that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress in three respects, that the indictment was fundamentally flawed, that he was denied his right to confront a witness, and that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing testimony regarding spousal-privileged communications. We will affirm.
Henderson's biological daughter3 (Daughter) testified at trial that on the morning of March 22, 2011, as she was just stepping out of the shower and after her mother (Wife) had left for work, Henderson called her into his room. From there, Henderson ordered her to remove her towel and lie on the bed, where he sexually assaulted her. After ejaculating on her back, Henderson wiped her off with a towel. As she lay on the bed crying, Henderson told Daughter that the reason he had sexually assaulted her was because they had not spent enough "bonding time together." According to Daughter, Henderson ordered her to take a shower and then left the house.
Daughter said that she chose not to shower. She then dropped her little brother off at school and drove to a friend's house, where she told her friend what had happened. The friend told his mother, who called the police. Daughter saidthat she attempted to call Wife but was unable to get ahold of her. Daughter said that when officers arrived, she spoke with them about what had happened. The police took her to the hospital, where a sexual assault (SANE) nurse examined her.
The SANE nurse testified that after obtaining Daughter's medical history, she wrote down verbatim Daughter's account of what transpired. During the examination, the SANE nurse said that she discovered tears, swelling, and tenderness to Daughter's labia and vagina, indicating recent trauma. The SANE nurse also took DNA samples. A DNA expert testified that the fluids the SANE nurse obtained matched Henderson's DNA profile.
Daughter said that as she waited at the hospital for Wife, Henderson's sister visited her. Daughter said that this struck her as "weird" because the two were not close. Daughter averred that the sister called Henderson from the hospital and put Daughter on speaker phone. By Daughter's account, Henderson urged her to not report the assault to the police because "this is family" and you "don't talk about this."
Wife testified that on March 22, she had left her phone at home, so she did not receive Daughter's calls. She also averred that on that morning her sister (Aunt) and Henderson arrived at her work almost simultaneously. Wife said that as Aunt told her where Daughter was and why she was at the hospital, Henderson was there "to talk about the same thing." Wife averred that she and Henderson got into a "heated discussion" and that he then left.
Later that day, Wife received several text messages from Henderson asking her to "talk" to him. Wife said she initially ignored these texts but later responded that she would stand behind Daughter even though she did not know the truth of what had happened at that time.
Wife said that she and Henderson spoke on the phone over the next several days and that he told her that he had a gun and that he intended to kill himself. By Wife's account, Henderson later told her that he was going to find someone to kill him so that she could collect on his life insurance policy. He also told her that he had taken money from their joint bank accounts. The State introduced evidence that he had withdrawn more than $26,000 after Daughter reported the assault.
According to the testimony of Krista Grizzle, Henderson's paramour, Henderson arrived at her apartment late in March 2011 and said that he needed to leave town. Grizzle averred that Henderson told her that he had been in an altercation with a relative and that the relative had pulled a gun on him. He also told her that he was involved in a drug deal with the Mexican Mafia that had "gone bad" or that he owed them money and needed to escape their reach. Grizzle said that she was evicted from her apartment several days later and that the two moved in with Henderson's friends, Tim Penn and Brenna Leath, at the Westchase Apartments on the west side of Fort Worth.
By Grizzle's account, on the afternoon of March 29, Henderson called her and told her to borrow some money from Penn and Leath, then take his Buick toa gas station and purchase the largest gas can available, and then to go to a different gas station and fill the can with gas—he also told her to fill up the car.
After giving her directions, Henderson told Grizzle to bring the full gas can to a rental property that Wife owned in Everman. After arriving at the rental property, Henderson told Grizzle to back the vehicle out of the driveway so that he could move his Dodge pickup out of the garage—she then pulled the Buick into the garage. When she stepped out of the Buick, she saw a body wrapped in a striped sheet, covered in a pool of blood, and propped up against the wall of the garage. Grizzle said that this caused her to begin "freaking out," which in turned caused Henderson to step into the garage, pull down the garage door, and yell at her to "stop panicking and [] get into the f'ing house." Grizzle went inside the empty home, and Henderson placed the body into the trunk of the Buick. Later, Grizzle said that she peeked into the garage and saw that Henderson had unwrapped the body and was cleaning the walls and floor, using a rag to soak up the blood and wringing it out in the sink.
Grizzle said that as Henderson used chemicals and water to clean the walls and floors, she began to gag. This caused Henderson to become angry and to again yell at her to calm down. According to Grizzle, she wanted to flee, but she believed that Henderson would be able to catch her and feared that she would "end up just like the person in the garage." Grizzle said that other than placing some bags in a pillowcase at Henderson's command, she did not assist him in cleaning the garage.
By late afternoon, with blood spattered over his clothes and having placed his belt and phone case in the trunk with the body, the two left the house and drove his Dodge pickup to a thrift store in order to buy something else for Henderson to wear. Grizzle accompanied him inside, where Henderson purchased some clothes and a wallet for himself and some clothes for her. Henderson also filled out an application for a reward card in the name of "Gary Ali," whose birth certificate, Social Security card, and identification card he possessed, and Henderson used the address of the Westchase Apartments, where the couple was now staying. The transaction was caught on the store's security camera, and a video of it was played for the jury.
After their visit to the thrift store, the couple drove back to the Westchase Apartments. Grizzle averred that sometime that afternoon, Henderson told her that he had shot the victim six times and that the man, later identified as Ali, had "begged for his life." He also told her that he intended to change his name and flee to Canada, but he complained that in order to do so, he needed to obtain a "long" form birth certificate.
In the early hours of the next morning, the couple returned to the rental property. From there, Henderson told Grizzle to follow him in the Buick, but she refused. So instead, she followed him in the Dodge pickup to a park on the shore of Lake Arlington, where Henderson drove the Buick off a dead-end road, through a road-side cable, and onto a grassy area surrounded by trees. Grizzle averred that she could still see the vehicle's taillights from where she hadstopped the pickup and waited. About fifteen minutes later, Grizzle said that she heard and saw that he had set the Buick on fire. Grizzle said that Henderson then came running back, carrying the gas can. He then threw the can in the bed of the truck, jumped in the cab, and yelled at her: Grizzle recalled that as the two drove away, Henderson declared, By Grizzle's account, she could see smoke and flames from the burning car as she drove away and then heard sirens. After stopping and switching seats, the couple returned to the Westchase apartment.
Tom Gierling, a police officer for the City of Fort Worth, testified that he responded to a call regarding the burning vehicle. As the Buick burned, Gierling wrote down the license plate number and continued to search for anything unusual. As he searched, he noticed a few items on the ground, including a tennis shoe and a wallet. Gierling said that the wallet was arranged strangely in that it was open and the identification was flipped up, exposing the identification. Gierling said it was as if it were being "displayed" for someone to notice. Fearing that it might be destroyed by encroaching flames, Gierling picked up the wallet, and another officer discovered that it contained Henderson's driver license, a Best Buy credit card, a Fort Worth library card, and a Six Flags card, each in one of the names Henderson was known to use—as well as Blockbuster and Kroger cards. Later that morning, while still on scene, the officers learned that the Buick was registered to Henderson. They also learned he was a suspect in a sexualassault case. After the fire was extinguished, Gierling and other officers inspected the automobile and discovered the body inside the trunk.
Christopher...
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