Published Oct. 2
When a 13-year-old boy was accused of brutally stabbing his grandmother to death in 2019 in St. Petersburg, police and prosecutors were baffled.
Javarick Henderson had never been in trouble and came across as polite and intelligent, though traumatized, as he struggled to explain what he’d done.
A half-decade later, answers lay buried in voluminous court records. They tell a story of a young man scarred by a chaotic upbringing, who some experts said was temporarily insane when the crime occurred.
On Monday, the case came to an abrupt end as Henderson, now 18, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder. In a deal with state prosecutors, he agreed to a sentence of 22 years in prison, to be followed by 13 years of probation.
Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bruce Bartlett said he felt the sentence was a reasonable resolution. Though he called it a “vicious murder,” the psychological aspect and Henderson’s difficult childhood factored into the state’s decision to resolve the case.
“He’s going to continue being seen by doctors,” Bartlett said. “Until they figure this out, I don’t want this guy on the streets. No way.”
Transcripts of deposition testimony recently made public offer the clearest picture yet of what led up to the killing.
A brutal attack
St. Petersburg police were called about 3:40 a.m. Nov. 25, 2019, to a home on 60th Avenue South, in Greater Pinellas Point. Inside, they found Gloria Davis, 56, lying dead near her kitchen. She’d been stabbed 26 times. In a kitchen sink, police found an 8-inch butcher-style knife. A blood trail marked a hallway, a doorway, the kitchen floor.
Henderson, then 13, was there with his 12-year-old brother. The older boy was bleeding from cuts to his palms. Doctors stitched his wounds later that morning in a hospital. While he was being treated, a detective heard him mutter that he’d hurt himself “because he couldn’t help Grandma,” according to court records.
The 12-year-old told police that he and his brother spent most of the weekend with Davis. She made them dinner Sunday night and went to bed about 10 p.m. The boys stayed up late playing video games and watching Netflix. The 12-year-old fell asleep on a couch a little after midnight.
Hours later, the boy told a detective, he heard arguing, yelling, things “being banged around.” He heard his grandmother yelling his brother’s name, saying she couldn’t breathe and to call 911. He heard someone say: “Hurry up and just die.”
Henderson later got him up, his brother told detectives, and told him to “go see.”
The boys talked about what to do. The younger boy called their father. He told them to call 911.
Later that morning, Henderson sat in a police interrogation room. Detective Paul Etcheson noticed Henderson sometimes struggled to find words. At one point he began to cry.
He recalled his grandmother telling him not to stay up too late as she set an alarm and went to bed. He’d gotten up about 2 a.m. to go to the bathroom. The house was dark, but he saw dark spots that he assumed were blood. His grandmother’s bedroom door was slightly open and he could see her phone on a dresser.
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Explore all your optionsHe couldn’t remember much else.
Investigators would note there was no sign of forced entry to Davis’ home. Police noticed “sweep marks” in the blood on the floor, and bare footprints, as if someone had tried to clean the crime scene. Henderson’s bed, the detective said, didn’t appear as though anyone had slept in it.
Etcheson asked if Henderson hurt his grandmother.
“I don’t think I hurt her,” the detective recalled him saying.
Experts offer a diagnosis
In the years after he was jailed, Henderson met repeatedly with three mental health experts, two hired by his defense, one by the state.
Wade Myers, a forensic psychiatrist from Brown University, and Robert Shaffer, a clinical and neuropsychologist, offered the same diagnosis: brief psychotic disorder.
Myers described it as a rare stress-related condition, typically seen in children or young adults, marked by a temporary state of psychosis.
In Henderson’s case, he was described as becoming increasingly depressed for weeks before the stabbing. He withdrew from people. He began to hear voices calling his name.
His condition improved in the weeks after he was jailed, Myers testified. He no longer heard voices.
Henderson struck the doctor as polite, cooperative and intelligent, though he was shy and had difficulty expressing himself. He was a boy who longed to be with his family and have healthy relationships, they said.
Some of Henderson’s problems, Myers testified, may have stemmed from exposure to drugs while his mother was pregnant with him. In his 13 years of life, he’d also suffered physical abuse. One report the doctor referenced described a 2009 incident, when Henderson was a toddler, in which he was beaten severely after wetting his pants. He was said to have had bruises on his legs and buttocks. Henderson also reported an incident of sexual abuse, the doctor said.
He kept his troubles inside, trying to “plow through life,” the doctor said.
Weeks before his arrest, Henderson became overcome with the delusion that he had to get a knife and kill his grandmother, Myers testified.
The thought was “foreign,” “intrusive” and “powerful,” Myers said. It made no sense to him. He wasn’t angry with his grandmother. He told the doctor he feared he was going crazy.
“He was trying to fight it,” Myers testified. “And he was trying to snap himself out of this. And it just kept coming back and back no matter how hard he tried to push it out of his mind.”
Another expert, hired by the state, offered a different opinion. Emily Lazarou, a forensic psychiatrist, testified that the stabbing was indicative of antisocial behavior, but she found no pattern of bad conduct in Henderson’s life. She also opined that Henderson was malingering, or trying to feign symptoms of a mental disorder. But she didn’t pinpoint a specific diagnosis.
Lazarou, whose work has been criticized by defense attorneys in other cases, endured scrutiny over her methods from Henderson’s public defenders. But she acknowledged that a chaotic upbringing, with parents who were in and out of jail, affected his psyche.
“This is a sad case all around,” Lazarou testified. “And the one person that was a good person, that loved him, showed him love and was a good model, he killed.”
The plea and sentence
In the years that Henderson’s case wound through court, his defense attorneys sought to highlight his age. Early in the case, the defense unsuccessfully sought to move the matter back to juvenile court.
Ahead of trial, they were prepared to argue that Henderson’s mental state was such that he didn’t understand what he was doing or that it was wrong. It would have been a gamble. If he’d been convicted as charged, Henderson faced a minimum of 40 years and up to life in prison.
Now, with credit for time he’s already spent in jail, and a possible early release once he’s served 85% of his sentence, Henderson could leave prison in about 14 years. He will be required to undergo mental health treatment.
No matter the outcome, Henderson’s life and family are forever altered. At 18, he’s missed the end of middle school and all of high school. He’s never had a first job or learned to drive. His family lost their matriarch. Earlier this year, they suffered another tragedy. Jacques Ford, one of Henderson’s other brothers, was shot and killed in January.
In court, family members asked for mercy.
“This plea agreement closed the chapter of a family tragedy without the need for a long and painful trial,” the Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender’s Office said in a statement. “We are grateful to have reached a resolution where the parties were able to address the gravity and seriousness of the crime while taking into account Mr. Henderson’s youth and capability for rehabilitation.”
