LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Wednesday morning, a Lake County Superior Court judge sentenced an Upper Lake man to prison for the June strangling death of his wife in a case that saw members of both sides of the couple’s family asking for leniency.
Judge J. David Markham sentenced 64-year-old William “Bill” Morton Henry, to six years in state prison for the killing of his wife, 51-year-old Cindi Henry, on June 11 in their Elliot Street home.
In December, Henry reached an agreement with the District Attorney’s Office in which he pleaded to manslaughter, as Lake County News has reported.
A probation report prepared for the case recommended the low term of three years in state prison, and that was the sentence family members had asked the court to hand down.
However, Judge Markham gave Henry the middle term of six years because he found the crime to have a high degree of cruelty.
Henry’s sentencing had stretched over several court appearances beginning late last month, with some of the delays due to attorneys being held up in other proceedings. That was the case on Jan. 28, when Sullivan was delayed on a matter out of county. That led to the sentencing being held over to Monday.
On Monday, the case was delayed initially because Deputy District Attorney Rachel Abelson was in another courtroom handling a preliminary hearing.
At that point, District Attorney Susan Krones – who had overseen the plea agreement before she took office, while she was still a senior deputy district attorney – told Markham she had familiarity with the case and could handle it in Abelson’s absence.
Markham said he had received and read the Jan. 16 probation report and, at that point, intended to follow the low-term recommendation. But before making a final decision, he took victim impact statements from members of the family.
The judge and other members of the court heard from the couple’s family members about the suffering that all of them had endured since Cindi Henry’s killing, as well as their love for both Bill and Cindi Henry. There also was a remarkable and almost unanimous offering of forgiveness and hope that Bill Henry wouldn’t be sent to prison for a long time.
Bill Henry did not look directly at any of his family members as they spoke, but sat quietly next to Sullivan at the defense table, wearing an orange and white jail jumpsuit and handcuffed with waist shackles.
“It’s still really difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that we’re here in this situation under these circumstances,” said Josh Henry, Bill Henry’s son. “My dad has always been the kind of guy people come to when they need help or a kind word.”
He said his father and stepmother’s home was a place of music and laughter, but a few months before the killing, he said a change occurred. While he never saw anything violent, he said Cindi Henry – who used to welcome him at the door – had begun to turn off the lights and not answer the door when people came by. At the same time, his father would seem confused and repeat stories over and over.
Josh Henry said he stopped going to visit them very often, even though he lived a few blocks away, which he said he’ll regret for the rest of his life. He said they were strong people and he didn’t think it could come to a point where they couldn’t handle things.
“There are a lot of horrible, evil people in this world. I know my dad's not one of them,” he said, adding that no good would be done by putting his father away for the rest of his life. Rather, he said, the family needed him home so they could heal.
Kellie Henry, Josh Henry’s wife, wept as she explained having to discuss the situation with her children and watching her husband cope and take on more family responsibilities. “I want to ask this court not to take away any more time from my family.”
She added, “We have all lost so much already.”
Jaemi Nunn, an advocate in the Lake County District Attorney’s Office Victim-Witness Division, then came forward to read three victim impact statements – from Cindi Henry’s mother Margaret Foutch, her brother Mark Foutch, and her oldest daughter, Annie Peters, all of them asking for leniency for Bill Henry while also acknowledging their love for Cindi Henry.
Margaret Foutch said she couldn’t have asked for a better son-in-law, and Peters said Henry had always been a caring and supportive father figure. “He has always been a good man in the lives of my sister and I,” she wrote, adding, “I still support and have much admiration for Bill himself.”
Mark Foutch said he watched the couple live in harmony and peace for 14 years, and said they were his second parents, with Bill Henry helping him turn his life around. However, he said alcohol took over and changed their lives.
He added that Bill Henry will forever be tormented by the killing, and his sister’s death has caused turmoil in both the Henry and Foutch families, which have been intertwined for more than 100 years.
Whitney Peters, another daughter of Cindi Henry, wept as she read her own statement. She called Bill Henry her dad, and started off by saying how much she loved him and that what he did was an accident.
She said she would always love and miss her mother. “She was my best friend.” However, she said she had forgiven her father for what he had done.
“I want him to know when he comes home we will all be waiting,” Peters said, asking for the least punishment possible. She said her mother is in a better place, “with no more pain and anger,” and Peters alleged that her biological father’s abuse of her mother left her in a condition in which nothing could have helped her.
Another private statement from Suzanne Henry was submitted to the judge for consideration but was not read aloud in court. He read it and marked it as Exhibit A.
Krones said that while BIll Henry had no prior record, she argued for a higher prison term, noting the cruelty of the killing.
“He could have left the house, he could have done a lot of things, but instead he stayed in the house and when it got to the point to where it became a very heated argument he could have left at that time, but he didn’t,” Krones said.
Krones didn’t consider an argument between a husband and wife an unusual circumstance in great provocation, adding there was no evidence that Cindi Henry attacked Bill Henry physically, but that she berated him.
She said strangulation takes several minutes and the Bill Henry could have stopped and asked himself what he was doing. Krones also noted that he did not give the Probation Department a statement for its sentencing recommendation report.
Abelson, who arrived in court while the victim impact statements were being read, joined Krones to offer information about the aggravating factors. As she and Krones were discussing the violence of Cindi Henry’s death, two women from the three rows of family members abruptly got up and left the courtroom, weeping.
Henry’s attorney, Andrea Sullivan, asked the court to take into consideration what Cindi Henry’s own children and family suggested about a sentence with the least time possible.
She said last year’s preliminary hearing in the case had addressed the issues the prosecution had raised, and she went on to explain that the killing occurred after Cindi Henry became intoxicated and angry, and began to berate her husband, calling him horrible names and criticizing him for his sexual performance.
He told investigators that the argument went on longer than usual so Bill Henry went to bed. His wife followed him into the room and continued to berate him and scream at him, and based on the evidence, Sullivan said he snapped.
Sullivan said that the strangulation could be considered accidental, and stated that Bill Henry had no prior domestic violence incident lodged against him.
She said he also took immediate responsibility for killing his wife. While he left the area for a few days, he left a note and has maintained good relations with both families.
“He is very, very remorseful,” and his not giving a statement to the Probation Department shouldn’t be held against him because it is very raw for him, too, Sullivan said.
Sullivan said the statement submitted to the court by Suzanne Henry should not be considered and is inflammatory, and if any of the allegations it contained were true – which were not outlined in court but which Sullivan said later included a claim that Bill Henry has a temper – that she should have contacted law enforcement. As such, Sullivan asked the court to disregard it.
“I'm going to take all the statements seriously,” Markham replied.
Krones argued that Suzanne Henry’s statement should be considered just like the others, and she said that an argument between a husband and wife didn’t rise to the level of great provocation. She said that Bill Henry could have taken responsibility sooner and called law enforcement immediately, not disappear for a few days.
Markham found Bill Henry’s lack of a prior record a mitigating circumstance, but didn’t find his wife’s berating of him to be another factor of mitigation. “Like Ms. Krones stated, those are only words.”
At that point, it was the end of the day and Markham said he wanted to hold the matter over until Wednesday morning to further consider the case.
On Wednesday morning, the sentencing went forward as planned, with Markham giving the six-year term rather than three years because he considered Cindi Henry’s killing more vicious than other manslaughter cases, while at the same time taking Bill Henry’s lack of criminal history into consideration.
Sullivan said Henry will get a significant amount of custody credits that are expected to reduce his time in state prison.
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Upper Lake man sentenced to prison for June 2018 killing of wife during argument
- Elizabeth Larson
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