An aspiring lawyer hasn’t been seen since 2007. Broward jury says she was murdered
It took less than an hour for a Broward jury to convict a man of killing a 22-year-old aspiring lawyer who vanished on a trip to South Florida 17 years ago.
Kendrick Williams, now 49, was arrested in connection to Stepha Henry’s murder in 2008, though it took almost two decades for the case to reach trial. Henry and her sister were visiting their aunt in Miami Gardens when Henry, a graduate of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, disappeared.
The trial — in which prosecutors proved that Henry was killed despite her body never being found — began on Sept. 19, days before what would have been Henry’s 40th birthday.
“I hope this verdict has finally given the family of Stepha Henry some sense of justice after a long and painful wait,” Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, whose prosecutors tried the case, said in a statement Friday. “I know that nothing, even this verdict, can ever replace the senseless loss of a young daughter whose life was so full of promise.”
READ MORE: 17 years ago, an aspiring lawyer vanished. A Broward jury will decide if she was murdered
During the short trial, Williams’ defense attorney, Paul Donnelly, called no witnesses. In a brief opening statement, he told the jury that prosecutors had no direct evidence — and that his client was an easy target for police.
Williams will be sentenced on Nov. 8 and faces the possibility of life behind bars.
Stepha Henry’s disappearance
In 2007, Henry traveled to South Florida hoping to surprise her 16-year-old sister for her birthday — she gifted her a dream trip to Miami for Memorial Day weekend. Henry was in the midst of a gap year after graduating from college with plans to attend law school.
During their trip, a friend invited Henry to a barbecue hosted by Williams’ wife. The couple shared two children but had been separated. Williams offered to take Henry and her friend to a nightclub at Peppers Cafe, 3828 N. University Dr. in Sunrise.
Around 1 a.m. on May 29, 2007, Williams picked Henry up in an Acura Integra. Henry promised her aunt that she 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, prosecutor Abbe Rifkin said during opening arguments, 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 6 hours on one and 3 hours on the another, Rifkin said, indicating that the phones might have been turned off.
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.
“Whatever happened in that car was violent, and it led to her death... at the hands of the defendant,” Rifkin said.
Rundle, in her statement, stressed that the blood found inside the Acura was pivotal to the successful prosecution of Williams.
“Although Williams, charged with 2nd-Degree Murder in December 2007, denied having killed Ms. Henry, the DNA blood evidence found in the car he originally purchased in Brooklyn and later denied ever owning or driving, played an important role in the prosecution of this case. This was particularly true, since Stepha Henry’s body has never been recovered,” Rundle said.
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