17 years ago, an aspiring lawyer vanished. A Broward jury will decide if she was murdered
In 2007, Stepha Henry had her life planned out. The 22-year-old had just graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and was taking a gap year to prepare for law school.
Hoping to surprise her 16-year-old sister for her birthday, Henry gifted her a trip to Miami for Memorial Day weekend. It was the first time they had traveled alone. The sisters shopped, pampered themselves and attended a reggae concert.
But their dream trip to South Florida would soon become a nightmare: After spending a night out at a Broward club, Henry disappeared. She never made it onto her flight back to New York.
For 17 years, Henry hasn’t been seen. Her phone and bank account have gone unused. Her body has never been found. But police say they believe she was killed after discovering large amounts of her blood inside a 1995 Acura Integra.
That vehicle led them to Kendrick Williams, now 49, who was arrested in 2008 in connection to Henry’s death. He was charged with second-degree murder and tampering with evidence.
Williams’ trial began Thursday before Broward Circuit Court Judge Hunter Davis — almost two decades after Henry vanished.
Over the years, the case has had several twists, which have delayed Williams’ trial. In 2016, Williams sought to be tried in Broward, saying that investigators haven’t found Henry’s body and can’t prove where the killing allegedly occurred.
‘I will never see my son again’
Turning to the jury, prosecutor Abbe Rifkin uttered the words that Williams told police when they questioned him in connection with Henry’s disappearance: “If I tell you what happened, I will never see my son again.”
Rifkin, who has been assigned to the case since 2007, flipped through pages of a timeline, pointing out and detailing major events in Henry’s life. The document began with Henry’s birth in Trinidad and childhood in New York. It ended with Henry’s presumed death.
“Stepha Henry is dead,” Rifkin told the jury. “She’s dead because the defendant killed her.”
During their trip, Henry and her sister Shola were staying with their aunt at her Miami Gardens home, Rifkin said. On that Memorial Day, a friend invited Henry to a barbecue hosted by Williams’ wife. The couple shared two children but had been separated.
At the barbecue, Williams offered to take Henry and her friend to the nightclub at Peppers Cafe, 3828 N. University Drive in Sunrise. Around 1 a.m. on May 29, 2007, Williams picked up Henry in an Acura Integra, Rifkin said. Henry promised her aunt that Henry would make it back in time to get on her flight to New York.
A camera crew taping a promotional video at the club captured footage of Henry and Williams together. But Williams, Rifkin said, initially denied ever being at the club. He later told investigators that he left the club, but Henry had decided to stay.
That night, there was no activity on Williams’ phones for a period of six hours on one and three hours on the other, Rifkin said, indicating that the phones might have been turned off.
“There have been no sightings. There have been no birthdays. There have been no Christmases,” Rifkin said, facing the eight jurors. “She has not contacted her family or her friends.”
The evidence that Henry was killed, Rifkin said, is in the Acura.
While the car had been thoroughly cleaned and reeked of chemicals, forensic tests revealed that there had been large amounts of blood inside. DNA samples from Henry’s parents and sister matched the blood in the Acura. The headrests in the car, Rifkin said, were also missing.
“Whatever happened in that car was violent, and it led to her death ... at the hands of the defendant,” Rifkin said.
‘Rife with reasonable doubt’
In a brief opening argument, attorney Paul Donnelly addressed the jury, emphasizing that the case was “rife with reasonable doubt” because prosecutors “don’t have any direct evidence.”
Officers, he said, arrested the “wrong guy” and used “every trick in the room to get him to talk.” Williams, he noted, never confessed. During a recorded interview, detectives even referenced religion — and Henry’s tattoo of a cross — in an attempt to get Williams to confess, the attorney said.
Donnelly, attempting to cast doubt on the police’s theory, pointed out that Henry’s aunt, who is from Trinidad, reported that the man who took Henry to the club had a Jamaican accent. Williams, however, is from Grenada.
“There’s a reason Mr. Williams pleaded not guilty,” Donnelly said. “He is not guilty. Kendrick was the easy target, so [police] took him into custody and said ‘case solved.’”
This story was originally published September 19, 2024 at 6:57 PM.
