Stepha Henry 22 NY last seen FL 5/07-Man chgd w/ murder waiting for trial

[sharon]

I agree Sleeks.

And the information is so hard to come by. But I keep looking 

[sharon]

No real update on Stepha. I'll keep looking.

They mention Stepha in this article because last night, 2 were killed outside of the same club that Stepha disappeared from in Ft Lauderdale.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbdouble0923nbsep23,0,1397235.story?coll=sofla_tab01_layout


Two men shot, killed outside Sunrise nightclub Pepper's Cafe
Homicide rate on track to set a record


By Brian Haas South Florida Sun-Sentinel
September 23, 2007

SUNRISE - Two men were shot and killed Saturday morning after an argument outside the same Jamaican bar and nightclub thought to be the last place a missing Brooklyn woman was seen.

The homicides were the 88th and 89th reported this year in Broward County, where murders have been occurring at their fastest pace in more than a decade and a half.

Slain following a parking lot altercation were Jonas Joseph, 24, and Enold Antenor, 30, both of whom were last known to have lived in Fort Lauderdale. Police did not release information on possible suspects.

The trouble began inside of Pepper's Cafe, said Lt. Robert Voss, spokesman for the Sunrise Police Department.

He said an argument broke out about 4 a.m. inside the nightclub at 3828 N. University Drive, then spilled outdoors. There, at least one person pulled a gun, opened fire and shot Joseph and Antenor.

Joseph died in the parking lot, Antenor died after being rushed to Broward General Medical Center, in Fort Lauderdale.

Neither of the victims had a criminal record, according to records obtained from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

A woman at Pepper's Cafe, who claimed to be the owner, said the incident had nothing to do with her business.

"What happened, happened out there," she said, pointing to the parking lot.She declined to give her name.

In May, the nightclub was the last place that Stepha Henry, a 22-year-old Brooklyn woman staying with relatives in Miami-Dade County, was seen before she went missing.

Henry had just finished an undergraduate degree at New York's John Jay College and was planning to attend law school. Authorities said she left Pepper's Cafe with a man in a dark-colored Acura Integra and hasn't been seen since. There was no indication that Henry's disappearance had any link with the slayings.

Miami-Dade police suspect foul play in the Henry case, and have assigned homicide detectives to investigate it.

John Jay College has offered a $2,000 reward and Henry's family has put up an additional $15,000 for any information that helps crack the case.

The club sits in a strip mall between a check-cashing store and All Ages Preschool. Workers at another nearby nightclub, Sophia's Ballroom, were unable to leave work until about 8 a.m. Saturday because of the investigation intothe double homicide.

With Saturday's deaths, Broward County remains on track to experience its greatest number of homicides since 1990: 123 if the current rate continues.

Anyone with information about the double killing should call Sunrise police at 954-746-3559 or 954-746-3569.

Anyone with information about the disappearance of Henry should call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

[MuffyBee]

I agree Sleeks.

And the information is so hard to come by. But I keep looking 

I  too have been searching  for any updates.  If I find anything I will post it, and I know you all will do the same.  Sometimes it seems there is initial information, and then nothing for long periods.  It just drops off...this has to be so hard for the family and friends of the missing.  And there are so many more missing each day.

[MuffyBee]

This not an update, but it is a very touching article, and may contain a few more snippets of information about Stepha that could be of help. 

Brooklyn girl missing since May trip to Florida

BY VERONIKA BELENKAYA

Tuesday, September 18th 2007, 4:00 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/brooklyn/2007/09/18/2007-09-18_brooklyn_girl_missing_since_may_trip_to_.html
(snipped)
The John Jay graduate took the fateful trip to Miami Gardens, Fla., to visit relatives in May - a gift for her sister Shola's 16th birthday.

The night before her flight back to New York, an acquaintance picked her up in a black sedan to go to the Peppers Cafe in Sunrise, Fla.

He later told cops they parted ways inside the club. Stepha Henry checked her cell phone voice mail at 4:13 a.m. on May 29 and hasn't been been heard from since.

"Certainly we feel she's met with foul play," said Miami-Dade County Police Commander Linda O'Brien.

"This is totally out of the norm for her behavior. She's very close with her family, getting ready for law school," O'Brien said.

In Brooklyn, Stepha Henry's life awaits her. She will turn 23 later this month.
(snipped)

[Nut44x4]

Surely they have Sharon.  That has to be the obvious place to start.  Seems like they would have been able to get something on this person by now. 

How frustrating for her family.  I bet her dad would like to have a heart to heart talk with that guy.  KWIM.  I know my dad would.

Oh, I agree jennifer. They MUST have.

They're just not reporting anything about it. At least not here in Miami on the local news. There is a 'blurb' on the local news almost everyday about Stepha. But more about what the community can do and is doing to help her family get the word out.

NOTHING about the guy who picked her up -- and NOTHING about the car.

Other than what they reported in the first few days. Wasn't his car. He borrowed it. He doesn't know where the car is. He lost track of Stepha in the Ft Lauderdale club.

If you are hearing or reading anything else, please post it.

I am going to post this here...it is the only place I saw fit because of the 'missing car' info in Ft. Lauderdale.
Divers comb Southwest Ranches canal, search for clues in missing persons cases
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
December 9, 2007

Southwest Ranches - Jeanie Naylor has yet to mourn her father. It is impossible when there is no body or clues showing how he vanished two years ago.

"I think he was hallucinating on Parkinson's drugs and drove off into one of these canals," said Naylor, who works for the Broward County Schools' finance department and lives in Fort Lauderdale. "It would mean closure to find him."

Fourteen search and rescue divers worked to grant her wish Saturday, braving alligators and near black-out conditions to feel around for cars and missing people in an inky canal along Griffin Road in Southwest Ranches.

The so-called Dive Tournament, organized in part by the Missing Children International Ministries, a Pembroke Pines nonprofit group committed to finding missing people, found two vehicles, one with a Texas license plate, the other bearing a Florida plate. Organizers hoped to trace their license plates to missing persons cases.
Joining Saturday's dive effort was the Matthew Stirling Foundation, named for an 18-year-old who disappeared for six months before investigators retrieved his body in a pickup truck from a canal along U.S. 27 in May 2006.

"If we found Matt in there, who knows who else is down there," said Stirling's aunt, Alison McManus, 40, of Sunrise.

The diving group included retired police officers as well as aspiring ones.

"It will help give me experience in how to deal with crime scenes," said Shay Johnson, 23, a junior majoring in criminal investigations at Everest University in Pompano Beach. "It makes me feel good to help other people."

Sgt. John Barbuto, who oversees the Hollywood Police Department's dive team, said Florida's canals serve as a wasteland of submerged crime scenes.

"It's a dumping ground for stolen cars, and someone could have driven off the road," Barbuto said. "We can help to relieve someone's mind. If your daughter was missing, would you want them to be found? I know I would."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbdive1209sbdec09,0,7331147.story

[pdh3]

It seems as though Stepha's case has gone stone cold.  I feel terrible for her family, especially with the holidays being here. I know it must be very hard for them.
I'm praying that this family finds their daughter, and gets some answers.

[MumInOhio]

Nut44x4 On page 6, I think, of Missing Persons, Sharon started a thread about a body found. It was in Southwest Ranches. Is this related to the article you posted? TIA

[Nut44x4]

I do not know...I can't find the thread you are speaking of. The link in post above is recent.

 

[MumInOhio]

I do not know...I can't find the thread you are speaking of. The link in post above is recent.

 

Under Decomposed body found in Broward County. Not sure whether to put the article over there or not. Please see what you think. Have tried to follow up on that thread a few times and found nothing. TIA

[Nut44x4]

I found the link but I don't see a connection. That body was found along side of the road and the article mentioned above talks of canal searches.....
Am I missing something?? I do have NATALEE on the brain BIG TIME and could just be missing your point?

[MumInOhio]

I found the link but I don't see a connection. That body was found along side of the road and the article mentioned above talks of canal searches.....
Am I missing something?? I do have NATALEE on the brain BIG TIME and could just be missing your point?

No, you're not missing anything. That's why I wanted you to look at it. Not enough sleep or coffee here and a lot going on. Thanks Nut.

[Nut44x4]

The Miami Herald (Florida)
 
December 24, 2007 Monday 
 
Missing woman's family struggles
 
Dec. 24--In the seven months since Stepha Henry disappeared during a visit to South Florida, her family blanketed the area with fliers, made tearful pleas on national news shows and observed holidays with heavy hearts.

Christmas will be no exception.

"It hasn't been easy," said her mother, Sylvia Henry, in a phone interview Sunday from her home in Brooklyn. "All of the things that were fun, that Stepha made fun -- buying gifts, decorating the house, cooking -- have been very difficult this year."

The John Jay College honors graduate went missing Memorial Day weekend. She was last seen at Peppers Cafe, a nightclub in Sunrise.

Stepha Henry, 22, born in Trinidad and Tobago, but raised in New York, had flown with her 16-year-old sister Shola to Florida just before the holiday to celebrate Shola's birthday. They stayed with relatives in Miami Gardens.

The sisters, who their mother said were more like best friends, spent their time visiting relatives, shopping and going to the beach.

On May 29, the night before Henry was scheduled to return home, she spoke to her mother and told her she was going to a nightclub.

Hours later, she left her aunt's place with a male acquaintance in a black Acura Integra, headed to Peppers.

VIDEOTAPE

A camera crew taping a promotional video at the club that night captured footage of Henry inside the club.

The male acquaintance left without her, police said. At 4:13 a.m., Henry checked her voice-mail on her cellphone. The next morning, her aunt and sister noticed she had not come home.

She was reported missing, and her parents, mother Sylvia and father Steve, flew down to Miami.

After very publicly setting up camp in South Florida -- urging the local media to cover her daughter's disappearance -- Sylvia Henry eventually returned to New York in November. She calls Miami-Dade police officers every morning, every afternoon and every night, she said.

While investigators continue following leads, the family has had to resume their daily routines.

Sylvia Henry and her other daughter, Shola, have been in counseling.

Shola's grades have dropped and she has become withdrawn, said her mother.

"She doesn't talk to us," Sylvia Henry said. "They were very close. She blames herself because they had gone down there for her birthday."

Stepha's name has slowly faded from news broadcasts.

Youtube videos about the young woman have cropped up on the site. One called "Stepha Henry -- Who is She?" accuses the media of incessantly playing up the disappearances of young white women like Natalee Holloway and the antics of Paris Hilton and mostly ignoring Stepha.

Another one plays P. Diddy's remake of The Police's Every Breath You Take over still photographs of the missing woman. Her case is also on America's Most Wanted's website.

SAD BIRTHDAY

When Stepha's 23rd birthday came in late September, the family celebrated with a Mass at their home.

John Jay College, where she had excelled in criminal justice courses and aspired to be an attorney, also held a birthday celebration for her. Candles were lit and students read poems, her mother said.

Thanksgiving was also a somber event.

"Normally, we have music, we have lots of friends coming over, but this year, we cooked the food and we just ate together. There was no celebration," Henry said.

Christmas will be the same.

"Stepha always got us in the mood," said Henry. "She was the first one to buy gifts, she was always the one that got us excited. It's sad. I can't even be happy. I'm trying to do some laughing. It's not easy."
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100020825&docId=l:720445778&start=1

[bleachedblack]

Thanks for the update Nut44X4. How difficult this Holiday season is for the family of this missing young woman can only be understood fully by the many other families missing their loved ones. My prayers ........

[klaasend]

http://www.nbc6.net/news/15051937/detail.html?dl=mainclick

Man Arrested, Charged In Disappearance Of Stepha Henry

POSTED: 9:23 am EST January 15, 2008
UPDATED: 10:13 am EST January 15, 2008




Miami-Dade police have arrested a man in connection with the disappearance of Stepha Henry.

Police said that 32-year-old Kendrick Williams was arrested in Brooklyn, N.Y. He is charged with second-degree murder.

Henry, 22, has been missing since May 29, 2007. The New Yorker was on vacation in South Florida when she disappeared.

She was last seen at Pepper's nightclub in Sunrise. Miami-Dade police said that Williams took Henry to the club. After her disappearance, Williams told police that he left the club without Williams.

In a news release, Miami-Dade police said that investigators conducted a forensic analysis of Williams' Acura Integra and found substantial evidence linking Williams to Henry.

No body has been found, and no details were being released on the exact nature of the evidence found in the car, Miami-Dade police spokesman Robert Williams said. It was not immediately clear when Kendrick Williams would be transferred to Florida.

Henry's family came to Florida after her disappearance, but returned to New York in November. Henry would have turned 23 in September

[2NJSons_Mom]

Wow, this is something....though still sad for her family that Stepha has not been found.  Again, this guy was the last seen with her, at least at the time she left for that nightclub.

[bleachedblack]

I hope they keep the creep in NYC. I have faith the cops here will make him talk. That family deserves to know where Stepha's remains are.

[Nut44x4]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I check all the time on news of this and FINALLY!!

[sharon]

First time I'm near the news all day! And I came here to post it

Thanks Nut and klaasend.

I'll keep an ear to the local news to see if I hear anything interesting.

[sharon]

http://www.miamiherald.com/459/story/380013.html


Police: Henry's blood found in suspect's car

Posted on Tue, Jan. 15, 2008
By ERIKA BERAS, DAVID OVALLE AND EVAN S. BENN
eberas@MiamiHerald.com

MIAMI DADE COUNTY
Stepha Henry, an aspiring attorney and a recent John Jay College honors graduate, had been in South Florida over the Memorial Day weekend to celebrate her 16-year-old sister Shola's birthday.

JAN. 15

Police announce the arrest of Kendrick Williams, 32, who will be charged with second-degree murder. He is picked up in New York and will be extradited to South Florida.

Miami-Dade police on Tuesday afternoon explained what led them to arrest a New York man on charges of killing 22-year-old Stepha Henry almost eight months after she was last seen at a Sunrise nightclub: Blood.

Investigators said they found a large amount of Henry's blood in an Acura Integra driven by suspect Kendrick Lincoln Williams, 32. The volume of evidence pointed to a homicide, police said.

''No one could survive with that loss of blood,'' Miami-Dade Assistant Police Director Jim Loftus said at a 4 p.m. news conference.

Williams and Henry were seen together in a video taken inside Peppers Café in Sunrise early on May 29 -- the last time she was seen alive.

Her family expressed mild relief upon hearing news of Williams' arrest Tuesday, but they remain hopeful Henry will be found alive.

''We've been looking for Stepha for so long,'' her father, Steve Henry, said. ``They say they have this guy. We are sad but we are happy. Maybe he will lead us to her.''

Miami-Dade detectives and New York authorities arrested Williams as he slept in a car at Brooklyn's Canarsie Pier early Tuesday.

He was charged with second-degree murder and tampering with evidence. Police did not explain the evidence-tampering charge.

Henry, an aspiring attorney and a recent John Jay College honors graduate, had been in South Florida over the Memorial Day weekend to celebrate her 16-year-old sister Shola's birthday. They were staying with relatives in Miami Gardens.

Henry spent several days shopping and going to the beach. On the night of May 28, a few hours before she was heading out, she called her mother and said she was going to a nightclub.

Williams picked her up in a dark-colored Acura Integra at her aunt's home. He had purchased the car in New York and driven it down to Florida, Miami-Dade police said.

The pair -- described by police as acquaintances who also hung out at a barbecue on May 28 in Miami Gardnes -- went to Peppers.

A camera crew taping a promotional video at the club that night captured footage of Henry inside the club, wearing a black dress with a white tank top underneath.

Williams initially told investigators he had left the club early and that Henry had decided to stay behind.

At 4:13 a.m., Henry checked her voice mail on her cellphone.

The next morning, her aunt and sister noticed she had not come home. Her mother, Sylvia Henry, flew down from New York and set up camp for five months. She returned to New York in September when Shola started struggling with her classes at school and was having personal problems.

Detectives had said for months that Williams was not a suspect.

In September, detectives located the Acura Integra driven by Williams on the night Henry was last seen. They found the car in South Florida.

''Once they found the vehicle, they were able to determine that she had been in that vehicle,'' said Detective Mario Rachid of the Miami-Dade Police Department. ``They were able to get a warrant and arrest Williams.''

Investigators said they have other evidence in addition to what their forensic analysis determined.

Williams, who splits his time between New York City and South Florida, has no permanent address.

Williams was arrested at 8 a.m. without incident by members of the New York Police Department Intelligence Division Fugitive Task Force and Miami-Dade detectives.

He spent the day being questioned by detectives in New York.

Williams has a short criminal record. In October 2006, he was spared a trespassing conviction but was required to pay $26 in court fees, Florida state records show.

It is unknown how Williams and Henry knew each other. Police initially said they were acquaintances. Sylvia Henry told The Miami Herald several weeks ago that the two were not a couple.

Detectives have not yet located Henry's body.

The John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan issued a statement late Tuesday morning, offering its condolences to Henry's family.

``As a student, an alumna and a staff member, Stepha embodied the values we hope to impart to all of our students -- a thirst for knowledge, a commitment to excellence and a desire to ensure fairness in the pursuit of justice. She was full of hope and promise. We mourn the fact that she was unable to fulfill her dreams.''

Henry would have turned 23 in September.

Larry Camp, the pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Brooklyn, where the Henry family worships, was processing the news Tuesday afternoon.

``Ms. Henry always believed she would see her daughter again. She has always had that hope.''

Miami Herald staff writers Jennifer Mooney Piedra, Roberto Santiago and Trenton Daniel contributed to this report.

[sharon]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/local/sfl-flbstepha0117sbjan17,0,725585.story

Miramar mother on disappearance of Stepha Henry: 'I blame myself'

She says she would not have let girl ride with slaying suspect

By Macollvie Jean-François | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
January 17, 2008

Miramar - One of Angela Bodie's daughters was close friends with Stepha Henry. An older daughter had a long relationship, and two children, with Kendrick Williams.

Bodie said that's how Henry met Williams. And after Henry disappeared last May, Bodie bought the younger daughter a plane ticket to New York so she would be far away from whoever was responsible.

On Tuesday, Williams, 32, was arrested in New York and charged with second-degree murder and tampering with evidence. He is accused of killing Henry, who was reported missing after attending a barbecue at Bodie's house in Miramar and a party at a Sunrise nightclub last Memorial Day weekend.

Henry's body has not been found, but police say blood found in Williams' car confirms she is dead.

"It's like a nightmare," Bodie said from her Miramar home Wednesday, tears flowing down her face. "It's heart-wrenching. A lot of lives have been torn apart."

Bodie's oldest daughter, Kamesha Kallia Roye, 29, has two children with Williams. Another daughter, Tamara Williams (no relation to Kendrick Williams) is 23. Neither could be reached for comment Wednesday.

Henry and Tamara Williams met at Metropolitan Corporate Academy High School in Brooklyn in the late 1990s. The two both had charismatic, ambitious personalities, Bodie said. They became inseparable, and met each other's relatives and friends. They kept in touch throughout college.

About the same time that Tamara Williams and Stepha Henry's friendship solidified, Kendrick Williams and Roye were dating in Brooklyn. The couple had a child.

When Bodie's family moved to Florida years later, Henry and Tamara Williams stayed in touch. Pictures of the two and a third friend have lined the walls of Bodie's home for years.

When Henry flew to Miami last year, it was only natural for her to attend the May 28 barbecue at Bodie's house in the 8800 block of Southampton Drive. That's where the decision was made for Henry to ride to the nightclub with Kendrick Williams. Bodie was out of town at the time.

"I blame myself," Bodie said. "I feel like if I was here, I wouldn't have let her go to the club with him."

Bodie said although Kendrick Williams and her older daughter eventually married, she had issues with him. He used her address, where Roye lives now, but Kendrick Williams was not allowed at her home. Not even the driveway, she said.

"I don't approve of him. As a mother, I have my reservations. But that doesn't make him a killer," Bodie said.

In May 2005, after Kendrick Williams was accused of breaking into Roye's home in Miramar, Roye, a nurse, told investigators that Kendrick Williams stalked her because he refused to accept that their relationship was over. She said she woke to find he'd broken into her house about 5 a.m. that morning, although she had a temporary restraining order against him, and told him to leave. According to police records, he asked her for money. The burglary came after various acts Williams had done that scared Roye because they were not "normal," she said.

"'I'm afraid that he wants to harm me,'" Roye said then, according to police records. She added Kendrick Williams had "a pattern... [of] showing up and doing these erratic things."

Arrested on simple stalking, burglary and resisting arrest, Williams pleaded the charges down to trespassing and was fined $26, court records show.

Earlier this month, Miami-Dade police traveled to New York and worked with authorities there to find Kendrick Williams. Police sources in New York told Newsday they tracked him down using cell phone technology, and he remains there while fighting extradition to Florida. He is being held without bail until a Feb. 15 hearing.

In the meantime, he is still being questioned. Miami-Dade police said the car Kendrick Williams used to drive Henry to the club was recovered in September, but they would not say where. Agency spokeswoman Detective Nelda Fonticella said the department's forensic lab processed it and got a lot of evidence out of it, though Kendrick Williams "did try to clean up the vehicle."

"We're hoping he'll lead us to a body," said Fonticella.

To Bodie and others who loved Stepha Henry, that's what matters now.

"To think that somebody close to us would do this is very hurtful," Bodie said. "It's not about him. It's really about her."

Staff Writer Mike Clary, Newsday Staff Writer Rocco Parascandola and Sun-Sentinel Staff Researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.

Macollvie Jean-François can be reached at mjfrancois@ sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7922.