Self defense claimed as bizarre homicide case unfolds
by Brent Shrum, Kootenai Valley Record
December 17, 2008
Nineteen-year-old Heather Henson has never denied shooting Larry Kingsley. It’s up to a jury to decide, however, whether the killing of the 67-year-old man by Henson and her 17-year-old boyfriend last July at Sylvan Lake was premeditated murder or justifiable self-defense.
Henson is charged with deliberate homicide, tampering with evidence by accountability and felony theft. Her trial in district court began last Monday and continued through the week. After a break on Monday to allow the court to deal with other cases, the trial is scheduled to resume on Tuesday with another full day of testimony expected before the jury can begin its deliberations.
Henson’s boyfriend, Stephen Thomas, now 18, is also facing deliberate homicide charges and is scheduled to be tried in the spring. Thomas testified last week during Henson’s trial under an arrangement that does not allow anything he said to be used against him in his own case.
Defense attorney Scott Spencer characterized Henson as "basically homeless." She met Thomas a few weeks before Kingsley’s death at a Kalispell homeless shelter where he had been after moving from Texas. The two then lived with Henson’s uncle in Kalispell for a while before meeting Kingsley and going to camp with him at Sylvan Lake. Within five days, Kingsley was dead and Henson and Thomas were in jail on murder charges.
Henson took the witness stand on Friday afternoon, but the day ended before she could testify as to the events of the day Kingsley was shot. She said she had met Kingsley at Happy’s Inn on July 8 while hitch-hiking back to Kalispell from a visit to an ex-boyfriend who lived in Troy. Kingsley gave her a ride and said he could help her with her aspirations to be a writer and a model.
"He offered to help me with my career," Henson said.
Kingsley also offered to be "a father figure," Henson said, and gave her some marijuana, some hydrocodone pills and $2,300 in cash wrapped in foil so she could buy a laptop computer.
Henson said she showed the drugs and money to her uncle, Noah Powell, and he suggested she try to take as much from Kingsley as she could get. She said she didn’t want to do that because Kingsley seemed like "a pretty nice guy."
Powell remembered things differently and said he was concerned and angry at his niece and didn’t want the drugs in his home. He said his girlfriend was already getting upset because Henson and Thomas had stayed longer than they had said they would, and after the confrontation about the drugs Henson decided to leave.
Thomas said he told Henson "I didn’t think it was normal" for Kingsley to have given her the drugs and money.
"She told me he was just trying to be friends," Thomas said. "She said he was trying to be like a father and trying to help her career get started."
Henson and Thomas testified that the cash had disappeared from Powell’s home by the next day, when they met Kingsley in Kalispell and went shopping for music CDs and clothing before going to his camp at Sylvan Lake, located 14 miles off Highway 2 about 30 miles south of Libby.
At the campground, the three went swimming and shot some of Kingsley’s guns. Thomas said he and Henson had sex and Kingsley tried to join in but "didn’t fully succeed." The next day, they all went to Kalispell again and Kingsley bought Henson a laptop computer.
Henson said Kingsley forced her to have sex with him in exchange for the lost $2,300. Kingsley also pulled a knife on Thomas and said he needed to go away and leave Henson behind, the pair testified.
"What he asked me was what do I want more, love or drugs and money," Thomas said. "I told him love, and he told me I needed to make wise decisions. And that’s when he pulled the knife."
Thomas said he told Kingsley "she’s yours" to defuse the situation. He said he figured Kingsley was drunk and wouldn’t remember the incident the next day anyway.
Henson and Thomas both testified that Kingsley drank heavily and went through frequent mood swings, ranging from anger to sadness to manic happy periods in which he would give them things like coins and jewelry. The said he claimed to have been a Navy Seal in Vietnam and would frequently shoot guns in the air for his fallen comrades, telling them to join in.
Kingsley also claimed to have connections with white supremacists and outlaw bikers and talked of an army of 5,000 mercenaries coming from Canada to start a war, Thomas said.
"He tried to hire me to be his hit man or assassin to kill the mayor of Libby," Thomas said.
At one point, some other campers showed up at Sylvan Lake and Kingsley drove them off after urinating on their tent, Henson testified.
After staying with Kingsley at the camp for three nights, Henson and Thomas went with him to Libby to pick up Henson’s younger brother and do some more shopping. A Pamida employee called police after a female customer complained that Kingsley was harassing her, and a Radio Shack employee called police as well, reporting that Kingsley had attempted to illegally buy a gun using a false name and was exhibiting strange behavior.
Henson and her brother left Radio Shack on foot to go to a magic show. Henson’s brother, 14-year-old Zachary Uhing, testified that she confided in him that "she might have to kill Larry" if he "came at them and threatened them."
Uhing said he didn’t think too much of it at the time.
"She says weird stuff all the time," he said.
Thomas remained at Radio Shack with Kingsley, who was trying to get the stereo in his truck repaired. Kingsley apparently believed that the stereo had been bugged.
"I stayed with Larry while he was getting his alien transmitter out of his tape player and antagonizing the clerk," Thomas said.
Police officers who responded to the complaints stopped Kingsley’s truck a short distance from Radio Shack but let him go with a warning after finding he had no outstanding warrants. Thomas said one of the officers told him Kingsley was "a bad person" and that he should stay away from him.
Kingsley dropped Thomas off at the magic show and returned to his campsite. After the show, Henson called the dispatcher at the county sheriff’s office and tried to get an officer to take her back to Kingsley’s camp to retrieve her belongings. According to dispatch records, Henson called at 6:12 p.m. and again at 7:06 and 7:54. The phone calls were recorded and played for the jury.
During the first call, Henson was told that all officers on duty at the time were tied up at the scene of a bad traffic accident but that an officer would be contacted and asked to call her. When she called the second time, she was told that the officers were just getting clear from the accident scene. During her third call, Henson was kept on the line while the dispatcher radioed an officer, who said he would be at the sheriff’s office in about 20 minutes and would call Henson then.
But Henson decided to hitch-hike back to the campground to get her things, Thomas said.
"That was everything she had," he said.
Thomas said he was worried because Kingsley had already threatened to kill him if he didn’t leave Henson, but "we figured if we had a witness maybe Larry wouldn’t act all crazy."
Thomas said he was willing to sacrifice his life for Henson if necessary.
"If I had had to let him slash my throat to keep her alive, at that point, I would have done it," he said.
The two got a ride to the top of Whiskey Hill from Michael Boothman, who testified that Henson said she had been "kind of kidnapped," and that Thomas seemed nervous.
"All he was saying was that the guy was threatening his life, that he was kind of freaked out by it," Boothman said.
Henson and Thomas were then picked up by William Sterling Goodrich, who was headed to Kalispell and agreed to take them to Sylvan Lake. Goodrich testified that they told him Kingsley was "crazy" and that he was concerned about what he might be getting into.
Goodrich said they ran into Kingsley, who was driving in his truck, as they were nearing the campground. "He said something about, ‘I was just coming to look for you,’" Goodrich said.
Goodrich said he accepted an offer of a shot of whiskey from Kingsley. Kingsley told Thomas to shoot the vent pipe on the outhouse at the campground, and Thomas refused. He held a knife to Thomas’ throat and told him, "‘Do what you’re told, corporal,’ or something like that," Goodrich recalled.
"I was ready to go right then," Goodrich said, but he waited for Henson and Thomas to collect their things. As Henson was putting her belongings into Goodrich’s truck, Goodrich asked Kingsley if she could leave with him. Kingsley refused, and Goodrich asked him why.
"He said, ‘Because I’m the master,’ so I shut up," Goodrich said. "What do you say to that?"
Kingsley tried to get Henson to perform a sexual act on Goodrich, who told him he was "sick."
"He said ‘You need to leave peacefully. You need to leave now, peacefully,’" Goodrich said.
Goodrich said he felt bad about leaving Henson and Thomas behind, "like I was letting them down or something." Kingsley said he had been "prepared to kill 200 people to find us," Thomas said.
After Goodrich left, Kingsley told Henson she would "mate with him" and "take his seed" or she would die, Thomas said. While the three were sitting around the campfire and shooting guns in the air for Kingsley’s alleged fallen comrades, Henson passed Thomas a note written using the text messaging feature on a cell phone. She wrote, "I think we’re going to have to shoot him to get out of here," Thomas said.
While Thomas was clearing a jam from one of the two .223-caliber semiautomatic rifles they had been shooting, he heard Henson shooting and looked up.
"She was shooting at him, and it looked like he was going at her," Thomas said. "And that’s when I turned around and started firing."
Henson is believed to have fired two shots at Kingsley’s head as he was sitting in a chair. When he started to get up, she shot at his chest, and he fell forward. She fired an undetermined number of shots from the rifle before picking up a .22-caliber pistol and emptying it at Kingsley. Thomas also fired an unknown number of times from the rifle he had been holding, the last several from point-blank range into Kingsley’s head. Altogether, Kingsley was hit about 10 times.
"Everything disappeared," Thomas said. "I was so scared that I didn’t know if what was going on was really going on."
Thomas said he panicked and kept shooting because Kingsley was still moving. Afterward, he reloaded the .22 pistol and put it in Kingsley’s hand because he didn’t think anyone would believe the true story, he said.
Thomas and Henson took Kingsley’s truck and headed to Powell’s home in Kalispell. When they got there, around 1:45 a.m., Powell was at a nearby bar waiting for his girlfriend to finish her bartending shift. Henson called Powell on his cell phone and said she had "killed an old guy," Powell testified. He said he didn’t believe her and told her he was on his way to a party and couldn’t do anything about it then.
When Powell got home a few hours later, he said he found a note from Henson and Thomas that said they had gone to the store but would be back soon and needed to talk. He also saw Kingsley’s truck, and decided to call the police.
Officers arrived and looked around for Henson and Thomas but didn’t find them and left. Powell went to sleep for a few hours and woke up to find Henson sleeping on his couch. He called the police again, and officers returned and arrested her.
"She looked at me crying and said ‘I trusted you Uncle Noah. I thought you were going to help me,’" Powell said.
Thomas, who had gone to find his mother, was arrested a short time later. He testified that he had told his mother they had killed Kingsley but that Kingsley had shot first.
"I didn’t want to lie to my mom, but I was scared of what she would think, along with everyone else," he said.
Henson’s testimony was expected to conclude on Tuesday. After all witnesses have testified, the attorneys for the prosecution and the defense will make closing arguments before handing the case over to the jury for a decision.
_______________________________________
Editor’s Note: See the December 16, 2008 edition of the Kootenai Valley Record for the printed version of this story. The Kootenai Valley Record publishes once a week, now on Tuesday, in Libby, Montana. They are a locally owned community newspaper, located at 403 Mineral Avenue in Libby. For in-county and out-of-county subscription information, call 406-293-2424, or e-mail kvrecord@gmail.com.
|
