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Gorgeous Mississippi state representative gunned down weed-eating · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How does a beautiful young mom,
0:16
Speaker 1: a Mississippi State representative end shot dead while she's simply
0:24
Speaker 1: out working the lawn weed eating As a matter of fact,
0:28
Speaker 1: and it hasn't been solved yet, shot what I believe
0:34
Speaker 1: to be execution style. Still no answers. Crime Stories with
0:47
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. Does the name Ashley Henley ring a bell?
0:59
Speaker 1: It will take a listen to this. It's a call.
1:01
Speaker 1: Brandon Henley never thought he would get his beloved wife
1:05
Speaker 1: and former Mississippi State Representative, Ashley Henley, found shot to
1:10
Speaker 1: death on Sunday while doing yardwork in Yellow Busha County.
1:14
Speaker 1: They called the police and they found her shot in
1:17
Speaker 1: the back of the head in front of the weed
1:19
Speaker 1: eater with their phone in her hand. Henley said his
1:23
Speaker 1: wife was mowing grass outside this burned trailer. It's the
1:27
Speaker 1: same property where his sister, Christina Jones was found dead
1:30
Speaker 1: back in December. Investigators say Jones's death is under investigation,
1:35
Speaker 1: but Henley believes his sister was murdered and believes the
1:38
Speaker 1: same person may be responsible for killing his wife. We
1:42
Speaker 1: weren't going away, and we were pushing for justice from
1:44
Speaker 1: my sister to find out who killed her and see
1:47
Speaker 1: that person brought to justice, brought to jail, and I
1:52
Speaker 1: think that person knew what happened, who killed her. Grieving
1:56
Speaker 1: the death of now two family members, Henley said he's
2:00
Speaker 1: continuing his fight for justice for his sister Christina and
2:03
Speaker 1: now also his wife Ashley. It's so hard to take in.
2:07
Speaker 1: This guy has lost not only his sister Christina, but
2:11
Speaker 1: now his wife Ashley, who is leading a crusade into
2:15
Speaker 1: the investigation of the sister in law Christina. Does anybody
2:20
Speaker 1: on this panel want to try and tell me with
2:23
Speaker 1: a straight face that two women alone at the time
2:28
Speaker 1: and near the same age bracket, at the same property
2:34
Speaker 1: die just a few months apart, and they're not connected
2:40
Speaker 1: with a straight face. I don't think so. Guys. You
2:46
Speaker 1: were just hearing our friends at thirteen Memphis, what happened
2:50
Speaker 1: to Ashley? What happened to Christina? With me an all
2:54
Speaker 1: star panel to break it down and put it back
2:56
Speaker 1: together again. Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of Red Flags.
3:01
Speaker 1: You can find her at Wendy Patrick, PhD. And on
3:03
Speaker 1: Today with doctor Wendy kcb Q, San Diego, doctor Jerry
3:08
Speaker 1: Cross and police psychologist faculty Saint Leo University research consultant,
3:14
Speaker 1: author of Operation Soos. Doctor Michelle Dupree, renowned forensic pathologist,
3:21
Speaker 1: former medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, and
3:27
Speaker 1: former police detective with Lexington County Sheriffs to boot. Karen L. Smith.
3:32
Speaker 1: You know her well. She is a forensics expert, lecturer
3:36
Speaker 1: and University Florida and creator of the Shattered Sould podcast.
3:42
Speaker 1: But straight to Tom Deese, reporter twenty six years with
3:47
Speaker 1: Fox thirteen There in Memphis, three time Emmy Award winner.
3:51
Speaker 1: You can find met Fox thirteen Memphis dot Com. You
3:54
Speaker 1: don't just pick up Emmy awards for nothing. This guy's
3:59
Speaker 1: done three times. You're on this case. You've been studying this.
4:04
Speaker 1: Give me some answers, Tom des But I don't want
4:07
Speaker 1: to put the cart before the horse. Let's start at
4:09
Speaker 1: the beginning. Let's start with Ashley Henley, a young Mississippi
4:15
Speaker 1: state representative, the mother of one boy, left without a
4:20
Speaker 1: mom to help raise him, and wife. She's out weed
4:24
Speaker 1: eating doing the lawn of sister in law Katrina Jones,
4:30
Speaker 1: who was found dead just a few months before of
4:33
Speaker 1: what seemed to be a house fire. Let's start with
4:38
Speaker 1: Ashley the state rep tell me about her death. What
4:42
Speaker 1: do you know, Tom Des I know that she was
4:45
Speaker 1: out that according to the family, she had gone to
4:48
Speaker 1: the property to clean it up. It had been the
4:51
Speaker 1: trailer had been set on fire six months before. I
4:54
Speaker 1: was on December twenty six, Ashley was out in the yard.
5:00
Speaker 1: I'd like to describe that to you. Where it is
5:03
Speaker 1: where that trailer sits in the middle of kind of
5:07
Speaker 1: a trailer community, is kind of it looks to be
5:09
Speaker 1: kind of a weekend getaway area for some folks, and
5:12
Speaker 1: some folks go there full time. There's about twenty roads
5:17
Speaker 1: in that community, but there's only two ways well there's
5:20
Speaker 1: only two ways in or one way in and one
5:23
Speaker 1: way out, depends on how you look at it. It's
5:25
Speaker 1: in the middle of Yallabusha County on Enid Lake. Now
5:30
Speaker 1: it's about what tom Days tom Days Fox Start Team Memphis.
5:35
Speaker 1: One way in, one way out. If you're in a car,
5:39
Speaker 1: if you're on foot, you can kind of filter in
5:42
Speaker 1: anywhere you want. Isn't that right? Well, if you're in
5:44
Speaker 1: a car, yes, it's one way in, one way out,
5:47
Speaker 1: but you're twelve miles from the interstates. You're twelve miles
5:53
Speaker 1: from Yallabusha County, I mean from anywhere else in the
5:58
Speaker 1: county from Water Valley, And the only other way in
6:02
Speaker 1: I would guess would be if you came in by
6:04
Speaker 1: boat on the lake. So I'm trying to get this
6:08
Speaker 1: picture in my head. You know a lot of people
6:11
Speaker 1: mock trailer parks. They think, I guess olo class people
6:18
Speaker 1: lived there. Have you ever driven through those trailer parks
6:20
Speaker 1: down in Florida near the beach Tom Dee's. I mean,
6:24
Speaker 1: those lots go for thousands and thousands of dollars their
6:27
Speaker 1: vacation their vacation getaways like you just described, and they're
6:32
Speaker 1: they're actually pretty ritzy. Then there are trailer parks that
6:37
Speaker 1: are not posh. But I don't like it very much
6:41
Speaker 1: because my great grandmother lived in a trailer. She had
6:47
Speaker 1: worked her whole life, bought a farm in cash with
6:51
Speaker 1: money out of Mason jars, and when the house filled
6:56
Speaker 1: up later in her life, she let her daughter have
6:59
Speaker 1: the house, my grandmother, and she pulled up a little
7:04
Speaker 1: airstream by the house because she wanted to live in
7:08
Speaker 1: her own place but not displace her daughter. So I
7:11
Speaker 1: don't take very kindly to that. Now I'm taking I'm
7:14
Speaker 1: understanding time be said. You're saying this was a weekend getaway,
7:18
Speaker 1: So it sounds like the ritzy kind of trailer park
7:23
Speaker 1: with twenty two zero roads. Is that what you said?
7:27
Speaker 1: Or rose two twenty two roads R O A D
7:33
Speaker 1: S r WS R R O A DS gotcha, So
7:40
Speaker 1: not that much. Twenty two roads, one entry exit if
7:45
Speaker 1: you're in a vehicle, and about twelve miles outside of
7:49
Speaker 1: outside of Memphis. Now about twelve miles. That's about an
7:53
Speaker 1: hour and a half from Memphis, but it's about twelve
7:57
Speaker 1: miles from Water Valley, Mississippi. It's population from about three thousand.
8:02
Speaker 1: Oh that's important. Yeah, that's very important. And let me
8:06
Speaker 1: go out to you to Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author
8:09
Speaker 1: of Red Flags. That's important because you just heard Tom
8:12
Speaker 1: d say three thousand population, you don't expect a lot
8:16
Speaker 1: of murders to go down, but in my book, we've
8:19
Speaker 1: already got two and we're barely into the year of
8:22
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. Yeah, you know, Nancy, it's true you
8:25
Speaker 1: don't normally expect the high murder rate and that type
8:29
Speaker 1: of a rural community. But think about this. This was
8:33
Speaker 1: a young woman who was researching another murder at the
8:37
Speaker 1: exact same location. So that is one of the things
8:40
Speaker 1: I would look at right from the beginning is while
8:43
Speaker 1: generally speaking statistically that probably wouldn't be true, I would say, here,
8:47
Speaker 1: location matters. I think you're so right, location, location, location,
8:51
Speaker 1: not to be trying. Okay, tom Ds, you're the expert.
8:54
Speaker 1: Fox start team Memphis back to where you were before
8:56
Speaker 1: we so rudely interrupted. Go ahead. Oh, it's kind of
9:00
Speaker 1: like you described it, and I'll go back to the
9:02
Speaker 1: the trailer park. I lived in this railer park for
9:05
Speaker 1: a while. I lived in a nice trailer park, and
9:08
Speaker 1: I have a family that live in all the parks
9:10
Speaker 1: in Florida. License think you described your family. This only
9:14
Speaker 1: kind of runs again. Some of the lots very nice,
9:16
Speaker 1: some of them not so much. But she was out
9:19
Speaker 1: we eating the grass in the middle of the day
9:34
Speaker 1: time stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, for those of you
9:38
Speaker 1: just joining us, a lovely young mom, also a Mississippi
9:43
Speaker 1: state representative, out basically cutting the grass with a weed eater,
9:48
Speaker 1: and she's gunned down in my book, execution style, shot
9:51
Speaker 1: to the back of the head. That's not right, nor
9:55
Speaker 1: is it normal for water Valley, h population three thousand.
10:01
Speaker 1: No Way, take a listen to our friends at Local
10:03
Speaker 1: twenty four ABC, Memphis. Homer, Mississippi state representative, now dead
10:08
Speaker 1: after she was killed outside the burn trailer her sister
10:10
Speaker 1: in law was killed in nearly six months ago. The
10:13
Speaker 1: Yellabusha County Sheriffs Department confirmed Ashley Henley of DeSoto County
10:17
Speaker 1: was shot and killed in the Water Valley boat Landing
10:20
Speaker 1: community last night. That's an hour and a half south
10:23
Speaker 1: of Memphis. The sheriff says Henley was cutting the grass
10:26
Speaker 1: outside a burn trailer. That trailer was where her sister
10:29
Speaker 1: in law was found dead December twenty sixth of last year.
10:32
Speaker 1: Her body has been sent to a corner that's where
10:34
Speaker 1: an autopsy and her death is under investigation. Henley served
10:38
Speaker 1: as a Mississippi State representative for DeSoto County from two
10:41
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen to two nineteen, when she lost by
10:44
Speaker 1: fourteen votes to Hester Jackson McCrae. Back to you, Tom
10:47
Speaker 1: deees joining us Fox thirteen, Memphis. Two things. It was
10:50
Speaker 1: a boat community, so you could come up, buy boat
10:55
Speaker 1: or go through the drive in if you're in a vehicle,
10:59
Speaker 1: and it was in broad daylight. That's what That's what
11:02
Speaker 1: the investigators are telling us. They found her body. It
11:05
Speaker 1: was another neighbor that that I'm told her husband called
11:08
Speaker 1: because Ashley hadn't returned home. Um, they called around later
11:12
Speaker 1: that evening. They found her body at ten o'clock at night.
11:16
Speaker 1: There was a lot of tall grass on the property.
11:19
Speaker 1: From where I could see from standing outside the crime
11:24
Speaker 1: scene tape, there was a wee weed eater that was
11:28
Speaker 1: in the middle of the property, right near the trailer
11:31
Speaker 1: with canadas, and it looked like she really hadn't even
11:35
Speaker 1: started doing the weed eating when when she was killed.
11:39
Speaker 1: You know, everything matters, every single thing you know to you,
11:45
Speaker 1: doctor Michelle Dupre, forensic pathologists from medical examiner and author
11:49
Speaker 1: of homicide Investigation Field Guy, doctor d Pree. If her
11:53
Speaker 1: body's not found till ten pm that night, then how
11:58
Speaker 1: do we know, basically a physical inspection of the body
12:04
Speaker 1: that she was killed and broad day right, how do
12:07
Speaker 1: we know she wasn't killed at nine thirty pm or
12:09
Speaker 1: nine fifty nine pm? Nancy, Those are good questions, and
12:11
Speaker 1: that's one of the questions that we always ask Collin.
12:13
Speaker 1: Find a personal life best we go by many factors.
12:16
Speaker 1: It's not like on TV where you can say, oh,
12:18
Speaker 1: they died at nine oh seven pm. But we look
12:21
Speaker 1: at the state that the body is in. We also
12:23
Speaker 1: have to take into consideration the environment she was outdoors,
12:27
Speaker 1: was she indoors, was the heat on the air conditioning whatever?
12:30
Speaker 1: Since she was outdoors, the body is going to decompose
12:33
Speaker 1: a lot faster, and we take those things into consideration.
12:37
Speaker 1: We also look at the state of the injury, and
12:39
Speaker 1: we also look at the surrounding area to determine if
12:41
Speaker 1: there are any other clues that might tell us what
12:43
Speaker 1: time she was actually killed. Dodger, Michelle Dupree, Let's not
12:47
Speaker 1: put perfume on the pig when you say you look
12:50
Speaker 1: at the state of the body to determine time of death.
12:55
Speaker 1: We already know cod cause of death. She's got a
12:59
Speaker 1: gaping bullet hole, the gunshot into the back of the head.
13:02
Speaker 1: But you look to see is the blood still flowing,
13:06
Speaker 1: has it coagulated, is it dried? Has lybra mortis set
13:11
Speaker 1: in or rigor mortis set into the body? I mean,
13:15
Speaker 1: get real, doctor, Michelle Dupree. We ain't at a tea party.
13:18
Speaker 1: How can you tell how long the body's been there?
13:21
Speaker 1: That's true, Nancy, We do look at that. We do
13:23
Speaker 1: look at the liber mortis, which is the settling of
13:25
Speaker 1: the blood according to gravity. We can tell according to
13:29
Speaker 1: whether it blanches or not if we touch it, how
13:32
Speaker 1: long has that person been in that position? We can
13:35
Speaker 1: what do you mean by that? Well, not everybody's a
13:37
Speaker 1: medical examiner, doctor Michelle Dupre. When we push on that
13:40
Speaker 1: discolored area of the skin that has the liber mortis
13:43
Speaker 1: or that discoloration of the skin, we push on it.
13:46
Speaker 1: If it blanches, if it turns, why that means that
13:49
Speaker 1: it hasn't formed yet, it hasn't fixed, and so then
13:52
Speaker 1: we can shorten the time down. We also do that
13:55
Speaker 1: with rigor mortis, which is the stiffening of the joints
13:58
Speaker 1: and of the muscles. And depending on again the outside
14:02
Speaker 1: circumstances like the temperature, rigor mortis and labor mortis will
14:07
Speaker 1: settle differently, So anywhere from five to six to twelve hours,
14:13
Speaker 1: we can tell looking at those conditions of the body
14:16
Speaker 1: approximately how long that body has been there. Guys, take
14:19
Speaker 1: a listen to our friend Laura Barrett at NBC. She
14:23
Speaker 1: was actually found shot in the back of the head.
14:26
Speaker 1: She actually had a gun on her possession. It was
14:28
Speaker 1: still in the holster it's safety on, so it suggests
14:31
Speaker 1: that she didn't even know what was coming. She was
14:33
Speaker 1: working to clean up the property where her sister in
14:36
Speaker 1: law was living. They had had a memorial set up
14:39
Speaker 1: there because her and her husband believed that the sheriff's
14:42
Speaker 1: office here wasn't doing enough to get answers about the
14:45
Speaker 1: sister in law's death here. Though today, six months after
14:49
Speaker 1: the sister in law's death and now a week out
14:51
Speaker 1: nearly a week after Ashley's we somehow any answers, any arrests,
14:55
Speaker 1: or any leads in the case. The Sheriff's office neglecting
14:58
Speaker 1: to respond to any comments here today. As we've we've
15:01
Speaker 1: been working Againside multiple times to get some of those answers.
15:04
Speaker 1: The family not getting any answers either, so they're expressing
15:07
Speaker 1: doubt and making sure that anyone will be held account
15:09
Speaker 1: of hold on Tom Deisher Porter or Fox starteamvs. The
15:13
Speaker 1: sheriff isn't responding with even a comment. Who do they
15:18
Speaker 1: think is paying their paycheck? Us? Why no comment and
15:23
Speaker 1: why is it? The family says, the Sheriff's department is
15:27
Speaker 1: not doing their job. I think to get to the
15:30
Speaker 1: root of it, and I'm getting fingers pointing in both directions.
15:34
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, Nancy, in the state of Mississippi,
15:38
Speaker 1: there is a huge delay at the crime lab. Everything
15:42
Speaker 1: that goes any homicide, any autopsy, anything to that degree
15:48
Speaker 1: of goes through the state crime lab. Why two years
15:53
Speaker 1: ago it was taking a year to get an autopsy done,
15:59
Speaker 1: Miss Jones autopsy took six months for the processing. And
16:06
Speaker 1: I'm taking this is coming from the Assistant District Attorney's office.
16:10
Speaker 1: I'm Stephen Dubarro, and he's telling me that it took
16:13
Speaker 1: six months to get the autopsy results back from the
16:16
Speaker 1: fire hold. On second, Tom Ds, Okay, I don't believe
16:20
Speaker 1: that for one minute, not even one minute. Yeah, I mean,
16:26
Speaker 1: I've worked for ten years in inner city Atlanta. We
16:31
Speaker 1: had a huge glutt of crime. Can you imagine all
16:36
Speaker 1: those ter fours over drugs, all the murders and the
16:40
Speaker 1: shootings that go along with that. A year for an autopsy, Well,
16:46
Speaker 1: what do you keep the body on a cold slab
16:48
Speaker 1: for solid year? No, you don't. I just don't believe that, Tom,
16:55
Speaker 1: I don't buy that. Aecond Oh your coach uper jump in.
17:01
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking What they mean by that is depending
17:04
Speaker 1: on the outside tests that are run. Absolutely an autopsy
17:07
Speaker 1: has done within a matter of hours or days on
17:10
Speaker 1: the actual physical body, but it very well may take
17:13
Speaker 1: several months to get all of the toxicology results back
17:17
Speaker 1: or the firearms examination. Every lab in the country in
17:20
Speaker 1: firearms is backed up for many, many months. In a
17:24
Speaker 1: lot of cases. I hear months, and I agree with you.
17:27
Speaker 1: I agree with many months. I've worked with many months before.
17:32
Speaker 1: But when you've got a potential double homicide, the sister
17:38
Speaker 1: and now her, she's leaving a crusade to find out
17:41
Speaker 1: why the sister's case hasn't been resolved in Oh, this
17:46
Speaker 1: isn't right. And yes, I understand toxicology lab results can
17:51
Speaker 1: take a couple of months. I know that, but not
17:54
Speaker 1: this long. Not this long. I believe the Sheriff's Department
17:59
Speaker 1: and love the Sheriff's Department. I put Minia Share up
18:03
Speaker 1: on the stand. It's my witness because I believe them.
18:07
Speaker 1: But I don't believe that they're not giving answers or
18:11
Speaker 1: at least a comment for Pete's sake because of the
18:14
Speaker 1: crime lab. No, no, no, no, I mean, doctor Jory Crassen,
18:20
Speaker 1: You're the psychologist. You work with the police, you teach
18:24
Speaker 1: there at Saint Looi's University, you're a consultant with the
18:27
Speaker 1: Blue Wall Institute, that's the police. This is complete BS.
18:32
Speaker 1: Now that's a technical legal term. They probably didn't teach
18:34
Speaker 1: you in your psychology classes. But to not even work
18:37
Speaker 1: with the family the victims, that's key in police workers.
18:41
Speaker 1: You've got to have that relationship. And you know, with
18:44
Speaker 1: no comment, I mean any comment would be sufficient, even
18:48
Speaker 1: if it is the crime lab, then simply move it
18:50
Speaker 1: to the crime lab, say we're waiting on the results.
18:54
Speaker 1: There's so many ways to even address the crime lab.
18:57
Speaker 1: I mean you could ask for federal assistance and it
18:59
Speaker 1: could be unto Washington, so there's different ways. But just
19:04
Speaker 1: to not comment, yeah, that would kind of make the
19:07
Speaker 1: kind of suspicions. Well, typically, doctor Jerry Crossing, the last
19:11
Speaker 1: thing I want to do is to drag Washington into anything.
19:14
Speaker 1: And that's having been a fed myself for three years.
19:17
Speaker 1: I agree. But in this case, since the local crime
19:20
Speaker 1: lab can't handle it, and I'm talking about the state
19:23
Speaker 1: crime lab, it's not a county crime lab, it's a
19:26
Speaker 1: state crime lab, then I would send it to Washington too.
19:29
Speaker 1: I completely disagree with what the sheriff is saying. Crime
19:45
Speaker 1: stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we're talking about what I
19:50
Speaker 1: believe to be double homicide and a very quaint Mississippi
19:56
Speaker 1: town not far from water Valley Pop three. Thou take
20:00
Speaker 1: a listen to our friends at Fox thirteen, Memphis. Property
20:03
Speaker 1: where Ashley Henley was killed is out in the county,
20:07
Speaker 1: so far out there there are a few neighbors. The
20:10
Speaker 1: coronor tells me she died from a single gunshot wound.
20:14
Speaker 1: Relatives tell me she was shot in the back of
20:16
Speaker 1: the head while weed eating the property where her sister
20:20
Speaker 1: in law, Christina Michelle Jones died in December. Posters of
20:25
Speaker 1: Jones dot the property, the weed eater and medical gloves
20:29
Speaker 1: are still out here. State Representative Steve Hopkins of Southaven
20:35
Speaker 1: was Henley's friend and spoke to me by phone. I'm
20:38
Speaker 1: thinking the investigation is going to ran deep because this,
20:47
Speaker 1: from what I understand and what I have read, goes
20:53
Speaker 1: into another murder investigation as well. And personally calling on
21:01
Speaker 1: the FBI to investigate this case, you know. Karen L. Smith,
21:06
Speaker 1: forensic expert lecturer, University Florida, hosts of Shattered Soul's podcast, Karen,
21:11
Speaker 1: I think she was snuck up on while she was
21:14
Speaker 1: weed eating, because the sound of the weed eater masked
21:19
Speaker 1: somebody sneaking up on her, depending on which way she
21:22
Speaker 1: was turned, I believe she was snuck up from behind.
21:26
Speaker 1: I don't think she saw a shadow or any movement
21:29
Speaker 1: to alert her, no sound. She maybe even had in
21:33
Speaker 1: a protective earbuds for all I know, because the safety
21:37
Speaker 1: was still on her gun and the gun was not
21:40
Speaker 1: withdrawn from the holster. Absolutely, and you took the words
21:44
Speaker 1: right out of my mouth. Two things, Anthony. Let's start
21:47
Speaker 1: with the wheat eater, which apparently is still at the
21:49
Speaker 1: crime scene. Why that's evidence that should have been collected.
21:53
Speaker 1: And here's why. If you're correct, and she had started
21:56
Speaker 1: weed eating that property, Yes, if it was a gas
22:00
Speaker 1: word weed eater, which likely was, I can't imagine they're
22:03
Speaker 1: being electricity And that burned out trailer. Was the gas
22:06
Speaker 1: tank full or was it empty? Did it lay their
22:08
Speaker 1: idoling while she lay there dead? Did they collect it?
22:11
Speaker 1: Did they look to find out if it had even
22:14
Speaker 1: been started? Was the gas tank full? That's one thing.
22:17
Speaker 1: Number two was a neighborhood canvas done who heard a gunshot.
22:23
Speaker 1: We have a huge timeline here ten o'clock in the
22:25
Speaker 1: morning until about eight o'clock at night. That's ten hours.
22:28
Speaker 1: They're saying she was shot in broad daylight? Was a
22:30
Speaker 1: canvas done? Did anybody hear a gunshot? Can we narrow
22:33
Speaker 1: down that timeline to a point where somebody said, yeah,
22:36
Speaker 1: I thought I heard a pop, or I thought I
22:37
Speaker 1: heard a firecracker, anything like that. Who talked there? The neighbors.
22:41
Speaker 1: This is a small area of trailers. Somebody had to
22:44
Speaker 1: have heard something to narrow down that timeline. Nancy, it
22:47
Speaker 1: scotta all go. I agree with you three. Karen Smith,
22:50
Speaker 1: it's scotta all go back to the sister. Katrina tom
22:54
Speaker 1: Das jump in. I think that's going back through the autopsy,
23:00
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna jump back on that for a second.
23:01
Speaker 1: You've got two medical examiners for the whole state to
23:04
Speaker 1: in fifteen hundred autopsy of a year. I want to
23:07
Speaker 1: get that, get that out there. The crime Lab is
23:13
Speaker 1: pointing at delays from their end, saying they're not funded.
23:18
Speaker 1: The state legislature says it's a problem at the crime lab.
23:22
Speaker 1: I think in order for us to get some answers,
23:24
Speaker 1: and it's not the only story that I've done on
23:26
Speaker 1: this in the state of Mississippi, that the answers, the
23:30
Speaker 1: answers for families where they die, where they have to
23:33
Speaker 1: sit and wait on an investigation because the local folks
23:37
Speaker 1: can't get the help that they need or get the
23:39
Speaker 1: answers that they need, is repeatedly. It's repeated over and over,
23:46
Speaker 1: and we've dealt with in a Mississippi for a long
23:51
Speaker 1: long time. But that property sits, there's wide open. It's
23:57
Speaker 1: wide open because then snuck up on on the back.
24:04
Speaker 1: I do know that she had her ear budge in.
24:07
Speaker 1: I know that she had her holster. And why was
24:11
Speaker 1: she carrying a gun? Curious? I'm all about the Second Amendment.
24:15
Speaker 1: I'm not knocking carrying a gun. But well, in talking
24:19
Speaker 1: to her husband and talking to Brandy, Brandy told me
24:23
Speaker 1: and he made a stepent. I trained my wife well.
24:28
Speaker 1: And she was also a politician, you know, actually also
24:33
Speaker 1: a politician. But even Biden or Trump didn't have a
24:36
Speaker 1: twenty two strap to their thigh, not that I know
24:38
Speaker 1: of anyway, I've never seen their naked thigh. But I
24:42
Speaker 1: find that interesting that she was carrying a holster weapon.
24:46
Speaker 1: She never got it out of her holster, nor is
24:48
Speaker 1: she even get the safety off? But was there a
24:50
Speaker 1: threat on her life that we know of, Tom, No,
24:53
Speaker 1: not that I know of, not outside of outside out.
24:56
Speaker 1: She thought she needed to carry that gun for a reason.
24:59
Speaker 1: And nobody have you heard a thing? You got twenty
25:02
Speaker 1: roads of high scale trailers here and nobody heard anything.
25:06
Speaker 1: I'm just putting it out there if you live out
25:09
Speaker 1: in the county, in Yallabusha County, I don't think because
25:12
Speaker 1: people hunt, people shoot, I don't think a gunshot would
25:16
Speaker 1: have gone necessarily gone notice. But did anybody hear one?
25:20
Speaker 1: So I can get a timeline going I I haven't
25:24
Speaker 1: heard that has not been apported. Now, huh, interesting, right, Nancy.
25:28
Speaker 1: That tells me that an appropriate canvas wasn't done. That's
25:32
Speaker 1: what that tells me, because even if somebody said, well, yeah,
25:34
Speaker 1: we hear gunshots all the time, or if it was done,
25:37
Speaker 1: they're not releasing it. I mean, I grew up in
25:39
Speaker 1: the mill of as they say nowhere. It was somewhere
25:42
Speaker 1: to me, and I would have noticed if I heard
25:44
Speaker 1: a gunshot, much less one right outside my window. Well,
25:47
Speaker 1: especially when you find out it was a woman has
25:49
Speaker 1: been murdered in the same place that you're living. Of
25:52
Speaker 1: course you're gonna say, yeah, I heard a pop. I
25:54
Speaker 1: didn't think anything of it at the time, but now
25:56
Speaker 1: it might be important. They need to go back and
25:58
Speaker 1: question these folks who live around there the realities. There
26:01
Speaker 1: should no way these two cases are not connected. Let's
26:05
Speaker 1: cut forward to our cut number seven. This is our
26:09
Speaker 1: friend Shep Smith. Take a listen to our cut set.
26:13
Speaker 1: Forty year old Ashley Henley found dead this past Sunday. Henley,
26:18
Speaker 1: the ex Republican state lawmaker, shot and killed. According to
26:21
Speaker 1: local police, she was shot in the back of the head,
26:24
Speaker 1: assassination ambush style. The victim's husband, Brandon Henley, tells local
26:29
Speaker 1: reporters she was at the property where the day after Christmas,
26:33
Speaker 1: firefighters found his own sister, Christina Michelle Jones dead inside
26:38
Speaker 1: a burned out trailer. The former lawmaker there to tidy
26:41
Speaker 1: up around the memorial they'd laid out. It includes this
26:44
Speaker 1: sign begging the local sheriff to further investigate. She was
26:48
Speaker 1: murdered and her body was burning. My father's house under
26:51
Speaker 1: in the bed. There was a excellant port out throughout
26:53
Speaker 1: the house, The local coroner says. The official cause of
26:56
Speaker 1: death is undetermined. He says there were no gun shot wounds,
27:00
Speaker 1: but that Jones had no smoke in her lungs, suggesting
27:04
Speaker 1: she was dead before the fire. Oh man, it just
27:07
Speaker 1: gets worse and worse from the local coroner. Is it
27:11
Speaker 1: a coroner or is it a medical examiner? Because Tom
27:13
Speaker 1: D's I mean, you could be the dogcatcher and be
27:16
Speaker 1: a coroner, you just have to get elected. But a
27:18
Speaker 1: medical examer, I'm pretty sure has to be an actual MD.
27:23
Speaker 1: Right the coroner, the coroners locally elected, and the body
27:27
Speaker 1: would have gone through the crime lab. Once again in Jackson, Mississippi,
27:33
Speaker 1: the body went to the crime lab, or tissues from
27:36
Speaker 1: the body, well tissues from it, well the body, the
27:39
Speaker 1: body would have gone to the crime lab and tissues
27:40
Speaker 1: from the body would have been been taken there. The
27:45
Speaker 1: initial report, the initial report would have come out fairly quickly,
27:49
Speaker 1: but the full report, including the toxicology that was spoken
27:53
Speaker 1: to earlier, would have taken up to six months, along
27:58
Speaker 1: with the examine that the fire Marshal's report, which would
28:02
Speaker 1: have taken that long as well. And that was that
28:07
Speaker 1: that evidence. That information was shared with the family the
28:11
Speaker 1: week before Ashley was killed by the das Wow, that's
28:16
Speaker 1: pretty significant timing time stories with Nancy Grace. I'm going
28:34
Speaker 1: to circle back to the sister Katrina Jones's death. Did
28:41
Speaker 1: I hear there was no smoke in her life? I
28:44
Speaker 1: haven't seen the autopsy report, but they basically the cause
28:50
Speaker 1: of death has not been determined as what the family
28:52
Speaker 1: has been told. Well, I'm hearing from ship that there
28:54
Speaker 1: was no gunshot wound and there was no smoke in
28:57
Speaker 1: her lungs, absolutely suggesting she was dead before the fire.
29:02
Speaker 1: And not only that, we learned that it wasn't a
29:06
Speaker 1: light switch that suddenly exploded. It wasn't a cooktop or
29:12
Speaker 1: a stovetop or gas left on. We're hearing that there
29:17
Speaker 1: was accelerant i ate gas. That's what my understanding was
29:22
Speaker 1: that it has been deemed in arson and she was
29:25
Speaker 1: already dead, so she was dead and then gas was
29:29
Speaker 1: poured and the place burned up. So there's no way
29:37
Speaker 1: that she that had to be murder. Tom Deese And
29:42
Speaker 1: another thing, Tom des why didn't I just hear about
29:46
Speaker 1: a sign that maybe it was Ashley herself or her
29:52
Speaker 1: husband that posted a sign asking the sheriff to, for
29:56
Speaker 1: Pete's sake, please do something about Katrina's murder. There was
30:01
Speaker 1: a sign that was placed on the property that reads
30:04
Speaker 1: I was murdered and it has her sister in laws
30:10
Speaker 1: picture on it, and it is facing Billy brooks House,
30:18
Speaker 1: who was the suspect wasted on. Brooks was arrested and
30:24
Speaker 1: he has been charged with arson in the case of
30:28
Speaker 1: setting the trailer on fire. He has not been charged
30:32
Speaker 1: with the sister in law with Missus Jones with her death,
30:37
Speaker 1: but he has been charged in the arson of the
30:41
Speaker 1: trailer fire. Also on the side of the trailer it
30:44
Speaker 1: has been spray painted I was murdered. But the sign
30:49
Speaker 1: that was erected as memorial by Brandon Henley and by
30:56
Speaker 1: Ashley Henley Henley is facing brooks House. Take a listen
31:00
Speaker 1: to our cut eight. This is Shep Smith at CNBC.
31:04
Speaker 1: This is the death certificate. Authorities released it last month
31:08
Speaker 1: and Ashley Henley posted it on Facebook and wrote absolutely unacceptable.
31:14
Speaker 1: My family waited five months for this to those granted
31:17
Speaker 1: public trust and responsibility for ensuring justice for all. You
31:21
Speaker 1: may think this is over and your job is done,
31:23
Speaker 1: but you're mistaken. This is only the beginning. I will
31:27
Speaker 1: leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth. Twenty
31:30
Speaker 1: days after that post, cops found her shot and killed
31:34
Speaker 1: at the memorials she built for her sister in law,
31:37
Speaker 1: for whom she was demanding justice. I believe she got closer,
31:40
Speaker 1: she ruffled some feathers, and whoever was responsible stepped up.
31:45
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think it was because somebody
31:48
Speaker 1: didn't like her. They just didn't like the fact that
31:51
Speaker 1: she was poking around trying to get answers for who
31:53
Speaker 1: had murdered her sister in law. Dan Eubanks is a
31:56
Speaker 1: Mississippi state lawmaker and friend of ex Representative Ashley Henley.
32:00
Speaker 1: It was an execution style murder, straight back out to
32:03
Speaker 1: Tom Dee. So you mentioned the name Billy Brooks, who
32:07
Speaker 1: is he in relation to Christina Jones, the dead sister.
32:11
Speaker 1: He lives across the street from her. He's a neighborhoods
32:16
Speaker 1: and his house would be facing the trailer that she
32:20
Speaker 1: lived in directly. How he knew her beyond that? At
32:27
Speaker 1: this point, I do not know. They're working to find out.
32:32
Speaker 1: They certainly aren't playing this close to the vest, or
32:36
Speaker 1: they're refusing to get out information, which is a really
32:40
Speaker 1: difficult thing for the family of the victims. Doctor Jerry
32:44
Speaker 1: Cross and psychologist, faculty Saint Leo University and author. The
32:50
Speaker 1: families just left hanging. Why, Yeah, They've got to be
32:54
Speaker 1: extremely frustrated. And I mean, you know they've followed everything
32:57
Speaker 1: by the law and to her murdered like that, you
33:04
Speaker 1: know they still have answers that they can demand and
33:07
Speaker 1: that they need to be answered. These questions to doctor
33:09
Speaker 1: Michelle Dupree, forensic pathologists for a medical examiner into author
33:14
Speaker 1: Doctor Dupree, I assume that you, of course have autopsied
33:20
Speaker 1: cases that dealt with arson. You have been too in
33:25
Speaker 1: arson seeing correct, Yes, absolutely, you know it's not really
33:31
Speaker 1: rocket science. When you go into a home or any
33:36
Speaker 1: structure that has been burned, you can almost immediately tell
33:40
Speaker 1: where the fire started because that will be the most
33:43
Speaker 1: heavily damaged part of the arson, part of the structure.
33:48
Speaker 1: That's where it started, that's where it burned the most. Also,
33:51
Speaker 1: when accelerant is used, it's typically playing a day. In
33:58
Speaker 1: every arson case I've or prosecutor where accelerant was used.
34:03
Speaker 1: And proving an arcing case is it's an art because
34:07
Speaker 1: first you have to prove that a crime even occurred,
34:11
Speaker 1: this was not an accident. Then you have to prove
34:14
Speaker 1: who did it. But with accelerant, not only can you
34:18
Speaker 1: bring in a fire dog to smell the accelerant, they
34:22
Speaker 1: can smell accelerant underwater. Often used in civil cases, rarely
34:28
Speaker 1: used in criminal cases, with which I disagree. But with
34:32
Speaker 1: a naked eye, a human can see the accelerant. If
34:37
Speaker 1: there's enough of the structure left. It looks to me
34:40
Speaker 1: like somebody poured a big jug of coca cola onto
34:48
Speaker 1: the ground and it dried even after the fire. You
34:54
Speaker 1: can see the poor pattern exactly, Nancy. And also we
34:58
Speaker 1: can take elements from the crime scene, take them to
35:02
Speaker 1: the laboratory, put them under the mass spect right, yes, exactly,
35:06
Speaker 1: and we can open them under something called a fume hood,
35:09
Speaker 1: which the gases from that accelerant will escape, and we
35:13
Speaker 1: can measure that to determent what kind of accelerant was
35:16
Speaker 1: actually you think, I'm sure you've had to do this
35:18
Speaker 1: on the stand, doctor Michelle Dufrey. But did you just
35:20
Speaker 1: dummy down for us what happens in a mass spectrometer? Sure? Sure,
35:25
Speaker 1: Well there's actually two parts to that. One is called
35:28
Speaker 1: the GC or the gas chromatograph is the technical term,
35:32
Speaker 1: And what that does is it breaks down the category
35:35
Speaker 1: of substance, whether it's an accelerant or drugs or whatever
35:38
Speaker 1: it may be, then the mass spectrometer actually identifies the
35:43
Speaker 1: specific drug or accelerant or whatever it may be that
35:46
Speaker 1: you're looking for. It's incredible, and I can't tell you
35:50
Speaker 1: how long I had to work with the crime lab
35:52
Speaker 1: and the arson experts to nail down in my own
35:56
Speaker 1: mind how a mass spectrometer works. What does it do?
36:00
Speaker 1: What is the hood do? How can you determine exactly
36:03
Speaker 1: what type of excelerent was used? But once you figured out,
36:07
Speaker 1: I mean, even I, and I'm a j D, not
36:09
Speaker 1: an m D like a lot of you guys are,
36:11
Speaker 1: even I could figure it out. So there's no way
36:14
Speaker 1: Tom D's that they don't know exactly what happened. I'm
36:17
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out why they're looking at Billy Brooks.
36:20
Speaker 1: Isn't it true, Tom D's that the sign that's been
36:24
Speaker 1: put in Katrina Judge's yard is looking directly over at
36:28
Speaker 1: Billy Brooks's place, directly at Billy Brook's house. Yes, ma'am,
36:34
Speaker 1: it's plain directly out of there's no way for him
36:36
Speaker 1: not to see it and spray painted on the trailer.
36:38
Speaker 1: So if he's on the hook for the arson and
36:42
Speaker 1: as if yet he has not been convicted, let's just
36:46
Speaker 1: be clear about that. I'm sure he is insisting he's innocent,
36:53
Speaker 1: but if he's on the hook for that, would logically
36:56
Speaker 1: they would look at him in the murder, the execution
37:00
Speaker 1: style murder of Ashley the sister, would I would think so,
37:04
Speaker 1: But I can't say they haven't charged They haven't charged
37:06
Speaker 1: him with her death. They haven't charged him with the
37:13
Speaker 1: death of Jones. They've only charged him with the arson
37:17
Speaker 1: of the trailer at this point. Any security cameras, Tom Dason,
37:22
Speaker 1: you know, I looked around and I didn't see any
37:26
Speaker 1: I looked for. And sometimes folks in the country woman
37:29
Speaker 1: and the folks may snicker at this, but they make
37:31
Speaker 1: one of the best security cameras ever. Sometimes people will
37:34
Speaker 1: put up deer cameras and people use for deer hunting
37:38
Speaker 1: the monitor rose going in and out of neighborhoods because
37:41
Speaker 1: they make great cameras. But I could not see where
37:45
Speaker 1: there are any security cameras on naming of the homes
37:48
Speaker 1: out there that would have caught this. If you know
37:53
Speaker 1: or even think you know information relating to the point
37:58
Speaker 1: blank execution style shooting. I'm not just a miss Mississippi
38:05
Speaker 1: State Rep. But a mother of a young boy, a
38:09
Speaker 1: wife Ashley Henley, or her sister in law, Christina Jones.
38:14
Speaker 1: Please dial eight eight eight eight crimes. That's eight eight
38:21
Speaker 1: eight eight two seven four six three seven Nancy Grace
38:29
Speaker 1: crime Story signing off, goodbye friend,