Last year, 2014, the Parole Board voted unanimously to recommend that the governor commute Mr. Henderson’s sentence from life without the possibility of parole to credit for the nearly forty-two years he’s spent in prison for a botched 1973 robbery in which his mentally ill co-defendant, and older cousin, shot and killed two people (i.e. Mr. Henderson was not the trigger man).  Mr. Henderson is suffered from a laundry list of medical conditions including HIV, hepatitis C and internal bleeding.  He worked in the Chaplain’s Office for ten years and taught numerous life-skills classes before being placed in the hospital wing of the prison in which he is housed.  The Parole Board was convinced that Mr. Henderson turned his life around and would be a great asset to his community.  However, Governor Beebe refused to commute Mr. Henderson’s sentence contrary to the Parole Board’s unanimous recommendation.  Governor Beebe condemned Mr Henderson to die in prison.  Since then people from around the nation asked for the Governor to release Mr. Henderson.  Tragically, Mr. Henderson passed 2:00am, June 12th, 2015 in Ouachita River Correctional Unit---alone.  

Please don't let Mr. Henderson death be in vain.  Call your state representative and senator and demand the policy reforms needed to ensure that elderly women and men like Mr. Henderson aren't unnecessarily condemned to die in prison.

We were able to sit down and talk to Mr. Henderson shortly before his death.  He expressed his desire to help others and the need for Arkansans to "Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering" (Hebrews 13:2.)  You can hear our entire conversation with Mr. Henderson below.