A little background on McKinney & Henderson
stew...@yahoo.com
By Jim Hughes and David Olinger
Denver Post Staff Writers
Oct. 18 - LARAMIE - The story of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson
contains all the portents those who chart the troubled histories of
killers might expect.
Broken homes. Problems at school. Experimentation with and possible
dependence on drugs and alcohol. Chronic resistance of authority.
Recurring displays of runaway tempers.
After a century in which violent crimes have been increasingly
well-documented, analyzed, novelized and broadcast as
made-for-television movies, the tale behind the two young roofers reads
like a familiar prelude to the kind of grotesque violence that was
visited upon University of Wyoming freshman Matthew Shepard.
But that kind of neat conclusion appears only through hindsight. The
people who knew Henderson and McKinney before they were arrested in
connection with Shepard's murder say they never could have guessed at
the violence apparently sleeping within the two young friends.
McKinney, 22, may have drunk too much and smoked too much pot and driven
badly and committed petty crimes, friends and family say. But no one
could have predicated that one day he would stand accused of murder.
Henderson, 21, may also have partied a lot, carried himself like he
didn't have to follow the rules and had his own problems with the law,
but he was never considered dangerous, those who know him say.
"That old saying, truth is stranger than fiction? It really holds
true,'' said Carson Aanenson, who with his wife, Sherry, rents a trailer
home in south Laramie to Henderson and his girlfriend, Chasity Pasley,
20, who is charged as an after-the-fact accomplice to Shepard's murder.
"We were shocked'' to hear of Henderson's arrest, Sherry Aanenson said.
"We obviously didn't know what went on in Russell's head.''
Kristen Price, 18, the fourth suspect in the case and McKinney's
girlfriend and mother of his 4-month-old son, has admitted to most of
the things of which she and her three friends are accused. She told The
Denver Post last week that McKinney and Henderson lured the 21-year-old
Shepard out of the Fireside bar in Laramie sometime the night of Oct. 6.
They drove him out to a lonely spot by a subdivision just outside of
town, where they tied him to a fence, pistol-whipped him until he was
unconscious, robbed h im and took off to burglarize his house, she said.
Later, she, Pasley and Henderson concocted an alibi for the two and hid
some of Henderson's blood-soaked clothing, she said. Like Pasley, Price
has been accused as an accessory after-the-fact to first-degree murder.
Both men face first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery
charges. Prosecutors have not yet said whether or not they will pursue a
sentence of death for the murder charge. All four suspects are next
scheduled to appear in Albany Count y Court for a preliminary hearing
Wednesday.
After retelling the story she says McKinney told her when he came home
covered in blood at about 1:30 a.m. Oct. 7, Price said she still loved
the father of her son but that she was struggling to understand how she
failed to recognize the potential for violence hidden within him and his
co-worker and best friend.
McKinney, as described by Price and his father, Denver-based
truck-driver Bill McKinney, can't stand to be embarrassed in front of
other people. He initiated the scheme that culminated in Shepard's death
after Shepard, who was gay, tried to pick him up at the Fireside bar,
embarrassing him, Price said. Employees at the bar have said they don't
think that happened, but that is the story Price has told, and one not
inconsistent with her description of McKinney.
"Aaron likes to be accepted,'' she said. "He loves to be accepted, and
if some guy has a crazy idea or whatever, he listens, just to be
accepted. Aaron hates to be embarrassed more than anything.''
She and Bill McKinney both said Aaron McKinney's temper could be severe,
a symptom of a life that was troubled since he was young.
When he was 8, McKinney and a friend were hospitalized after they got
into some beer and cigars while in the custody of his late mother, Bill
McKinney said. His son was often left alone unwatched when he was young,
he said. By the time he was in sixth grade, Aaron McKinney was having
problems at school. He flunked the seventh grade, his father said, and
started getting into fights in the eighth grade.
"He started running pretty wild'' in junior high school, Bill McKinney
said. "He was trying to run with the wrong crowd and we were trying to
keep him from it.''
But neither the efforts of his parents nor the family counseling ordered
by state social workers seemed to straighten McKinney out, his father
said. He kept getting into minor trouble, eventually spending three
months in a youth detention center in Laramie at 14 for stealing a cash
register from a local sports-card store.
When McKinney got custody of his son after his exwife died in 1993, he
took him to Cheyenne, where he was working in construction. His son
quickly started hanging out with "wanna-be gangs'' there, he said.
Within a couple years, as Aaron McKinney struggled through the 10th and
11th grades, Bill McKinney lost his job and sent his son to live with
his late ex-wife's husband back in Laramie.
"Aaron was pretty much on his own at 17,'' he said.
That's about the time he met Russell Henderson, the brother of an
elementary school friend, Price said.
Before long, both McKinney and Henderson quit school. McKinney enrolled
in a night-school program to get his diploma, but still hasn't received
it because of outstanding library fines, Price said. Henderson got him a
job with a roofing outfit he worked for in town.
McKinney and Price started dating about two years ago, she said. They
moved in together in June 1997, and began what quickly became a close
friendship with Henderson and his girlfriend, Pasley. The four liked to
see each other every day, Price said, often sleeping over at each
others' homes.
"These are all three my very, very best friends,'' she said.
When Price got pregnant last year, she and McKinney moved to Florida to
live with her mother. Last April, though, McKinney was extradited back
to Laramie to be tried for allegedly robbing a Kentucky Fried Chicken
restaurant. He was in jail when his son was born in May and recently
pleaded no contest to stealing $2,500 in cash and checks from the
restaurant, Bill McKinney said.
The details of Henderson's life are not yet as well known as those of
McKinney's, but people who know him say they are stunned that he could
have taken part in Shepard's murder.
"It kind of blew my mind'' to hear that Henderson had been arrested,
said Clay Shields, a friend who once lived with Henderson.
Before Henderson quit school, he had been "at least a 3.5 student or
better,'' Shields said. Henderson then started hanging out with "guys
that quit school and worked,'' he said.
He said Henderson had been a quiet, studious loner. He was raised by his
grandmother, "a real religious woman,'' Shields said, and never talked
about his mother or his father.
"He was the kind of guy who didn't do anything wrong,'' he said. "(He)
didn't even swear.''
Although most of the people claiming to know Henderson said they were
surprised he could have been responsible for Shepard's slaying, others
said they knew a less-wholesome young man. They described him as
arrogant and as having a volatile temper. But they, too, said they never
expected him to commit such a violent act.
"He was a smart (aleck), but I didn't think he'd do something like
that,'' said Cheryl McKinney - no relation to Aaron McKinney -
Henderson's next-door neighbor. She said Henderson had for a while
worked at a local Taco Bell with two of her children. When he moved in
next door, she said he was a problem neighbor, often firing bottle
rockets into her yard, throwing beer bottles and once starting a brush
fire.
Since their arrest, McKinney, Henderson and Pasley have kept in touch
with their family and friends, calling them at night and seeing them
during visiting hours at the Albany County Jail.
Price said McKinney is now haunted by the events of that night and his
jailers have him on suicide watch.
"He has asked for the death penalty,'' she said. "He thinks he deserves
to die.''
Albany County Sheriff's Department spokesmen this week refused to
comment on speculation that McKinney was suicidal.
In the meantime, friends and relatives of the suspects continue to
wonder how any of this could have happened.
"It sickens me to think that he was capable of it,'' said Bill McKinney.
"We all had good morals, as far as what is right and wrong.''
*** ***
"You have made society the victim" - Judge William F. Chinnock