Attorneys gave their opening statements on Monday in the murder trial of Marcelle Jerill Waldon, who is accused of stabbing to death former Lakeland City Commissioner Edie Yates Henderson and her husband, real estate developer David Henderson, and then robbing their Lake Morton Drive home on Nov. 10, 2020.
The murder shook the historic neighborhood.
Assistant State Attorney Mark Levine took an hour to lay out the timeline of events and the evidence the state will present during trial, which is expected to take a month, including sentencing if Waldon, 39, is found guilty.
Levine talked about evidence not revealed before, including cellphone photographs and DNA evidence.
The prosecutor’s opening statement
“It was Nov. 9, 2020, and life was good and life was blessed for David Henderson and his wife Edith Henderson,” Levine told a jury of 12 people and three alternates, including five men and 10 women. “But lurking close by was the defendant, Marcelle Waldon, who would shatter and take their lives and leave them butchered in their own house.”
Read about the early investigation here.
Levine said Waldon had been watching the Hendersons’ home for many days. Security camera footage shows Waldon around Lake Morton leading up to the murder and witnesses have given statements to investigators that they saw Waldon there on the day of the killing. One woman told investigators that Waldon startled her at 7:17 a.m. in her office’s empty parking lot and asked her what time it was.
Waldon, Levine said, knew the Henderson’s routine like clockwork: David Henderson would walk around Lake Morton at about 6:45 a.m. while Edie would stay home and leisurely get ready for a day at her CPA office. The couple would leave the house at about 8 a.m. each morning to eat breakfast, or David would pick up breakfast, including at Fat Jack’s Deli where he got their to-go order that morning, stopping to chat with a friend while he waited.
As David was waiting at Fat Jack’s, Levine said, a receptionist at a business saw Waldon walk past her window, noting that he had an empty red or maroon colored drawstring bag on his back. He was wearing black shoes and dark-colored jeans. And, she told investigators, he was walking in the direction of the Hendersons’ home.
That day, Edie had slept in. She was in the shower when Levine says Waldon “stealthily entered” an unlocked back door just after 8 a.m., a silver revolver in his pocket, and grabbed a knife from the butcher block on the kitchen counter. She was blow-drying her hair when Waldon began climbing to the third floor master bedroom and so didn’t hear him approaching.
“There … (she) comes face to face with that man,” Levine said, pointing at Waldon a few feet away, sitting at the defense table.
Levine said Waldon tied up Edie Yates Henderson and had her lie down in the master bedroom closet.
“David comes home, thinking he’s going to have breakfast with the lady that he loves, the lady he’s happily married to,” Levine said. “As David drove his car home, he could not imagine what he was walking into.”
David Henderson put the bag of food and two newspapers down and began setting the table, calling up to his wife to come down. When she didn’t respond, he climbed the stairs to check on her.
“Unbeknownst to him, Marcelle Waldon is holding his wife at knifepoint … holding a 67-year-old lady hostage in her own house,” Levin said. “He, too, is now face to face with the defendant.”
Levine said that Waldon then tied up David Henderson and placed him on the closet floor alongside his wife.
And then, Levine said, Waldon took out his own cellphone and snapped a picture of the still-alive Hendersons. While he was taking pictures, he inadvertently captured his black sneakers in a frame, the knife in another, and his silver revolver in a third picture.
“He could’ve taken what he wanted and walked out the door and the Hendersons would still be alive,” Levine said. “The defendant was wanting to kill them to get away with his crime.”
The couple were still side by side when, Levine said, Waldon stabbed David Henderson in the back 11 times. Then he ordered Edie to write him a check for $5,000 – made out to him – before he moved her to the bed and stabbed her a dozen times.
Waldon stuffed jewelry and David’s bank card into the drawstring bag and went downstairs to the kitchen. He rummaged through all the drawers and turned on all the burners to the Hendersons’ gas stove. He put the Henderson’s cellphones in the microwave and turned it on, grabbed the key fob to David Henderson’s white Audi G6, climbed into the car and pulled out of the driveway at about 10 a.m.
The car, but not the driver, was seen by the Hendersons’ longtime neighbor, Linda Boyington, from the second floor of her home. It was her husband, Steve, who designed the twin homes with a shared courtyard — a courtyard in which David and Edie were married.
Waldon is charged with:
- Two counts of first-degree murder.
- Armed burglary with assault or battery.
- Two counts of kidnapping for holding the couple against their will.
- Robbery with a firearm for taking jewelry, credit cards, checks and cellphones.
- Attempted arson for leaving on all of the gas burners in the kitchen.
- Arson for starting a fire in David Henderson’s Audi.
- Theft of the Audi.
- Tampering with evidence for trying to destroy the Audi.
- Forgery for trying to cash a check with intent to defraud.
- Possession of a firearm by a convicted felon
A separate indictment charged Waldon with four counts related to a Nov. 8 burglary at the home of Publix heiress Julie Jenkins Fancelli — burglary; dealing in stolen silver goods; false verification of ownership to a second-hand dealer, Lloyds of Lakeland; and grand theft of silver goods.
Levine said Waldon took one more thing from the Hendersons’ home that he didn’t realize. When he was arrested the next day after an acquaintance turned him in to police, the drawstring bag had a splash of Edie Yates Henderson’s DNA.
Levine pointed out several ways in which Waldon tried to cover up his crime — which the prosecutor said shows he knew what he had done was wrong:
- He tried to blow up the house.
- He disposed of his bloody clothes and the murder weapon, which has never been found.
- Later that night, he set fire to the stolen car.
- He deleted the photos he had taken, but Lakeland Police investigators found them in the trash folder on his phone.
The defense attorney’s opening statement
Then it was defense attorney Debra Tuomey’s turn to make her opening statement, defending her client. She spoke for only five minutes.
“Marcelle Waldon is a simple man … a member of the homeless community in Lakeland. He lived day by day,” said Tuomey. “The state of Florida wants you to believe that Mr. Waldon orchestrated and was the mastermind behind the allegations against him … The state of Florida will not be able to reach its burden beyond a reasonable doubt … The state is not going to meet that utmost burden.”
Tuomey, who specializes in death penalty cases, finished and sat down beside her client, who took notes and talked with Tuomey throughout the morning, at one point covering a laugh with his hand as a police officer testified.
The first witnesses
The state then called its first witness — Will Henderson, David’s son from a previous marriage.
Will called his dad an “early bird” who liked to rise at dawn and get in a walk before breakfast. He was asked to identify his father in still shots of security camera video, taken at the red brick Florida Southern College apartments just a few blocks from the Hendersons’ home. They are some of the last images ever taken of him as he enjoyed his morning exercise.
Will said at about 3 p.m. that day, his step-brother Todd Baylis called to see if he had heard from his father. No one was able to reach David or Edie.
Will Henderson was in Atlanta having dinner when Baylis called again that evening to tell him his father had been murdered.
Duke Chadwell, a friend who spoke to David Henderson at Fat Jack’s Deli, testified, as did longtime Fat Jack’s waitress Tammy Barnes — both of whom established a timeline of events.
Architect Steve Boyington, the Henderson’s next-door neighbor, took the stand.
Toumey asked, “You were considered almost family?”
To which Boyington replied, “Absolutely.”
Boyington testified that he had seen David arrive home from Fat Jack’s that morning, carrying in the white plastic bag containing two white styrofoam containers with their usual breakfast order — a breakfast sandwich for himself and a child’s omelet for Edie.
Toumey then asked: “Is it fair to say there are a number of homeless that frequent in and around the area.”
Boyington answered: “There are some.”
Susan Starr, office manager of Baylis & Company — the accounting firm founded by Edie Yates Henderson — took the stand and testified that she became increasingly worried when a doctor’s office called to say that Edie hadn’t shown up that morning for an MRI on her shoulder, which had been giving her trouble, and then she couldn’t reach Edie herself.
Sarah Baylis, the Hendersons’ daughter-in-law, testified that her husband, Todd, had texted her at about 5 p.m., asking if she had heard from his parents. She had not, she told him. She called the hospital to see if one of them had been admitted.
Todd Baylis was worried and went to their house, which was next door to his and Sarah’s home, to check on them.
Edie’s son describes calling 9-1-1
Todd Baylis testified that the last time he saw his mother was at lunch at Silver Ring Café, which used to overlook Munn Park, the afternoon of Nov. 9, 2020. As he testified, he occasionally took and let out deep breaths.
Baylis, the son of Edie and Steve Baylis, who died of cancer in 2010, said he had been contacted by the office manager between 11 a.m. and noon to see if he had heard from his mother because she had missed her MRI appointment. He said he wasn’t overly worried because she would occasionally not be reachable.
At 4:30 p.m., he began getting more text messages and when he got home, he decided to head next door. He walked through the unlocked back door and went up to the first floor, which houses the kitchen and living rooms.
“I opened the door and immediately, something felt wrong,” Bayliss said. “Breakfast was still laid out on the table, kitchen drawers were pulled out and disheveled, the burners were on. I immediately called 9-1-1.”
A six-minute audio was played in court of that 9-1-1 call. On it, you can hear Baylis talking to the operator who was asking questions at first about any medical issues his parents might have, but then she asked if they had any enemies. He answered no.
One other thing was amiss — the door from the house into the garage was open, which he called unusual, and a duffelbag lay on the floor of the garage.
Within minutes, three Lakeland Police officers arrived: Officer Benjamin Blommel, Officer Eric Nickels, and Sgt. James Henry. All three testified Monday about what they found in the house.
Blommel said “there were some weird things going on at the house, so we proceeded to enter the house.” They performed a sweep of the home, going from room to room to check for any intruders, with all three winding up on the third floor. There they found the Hendersons, who all three said were clearly dead and had been for quite some time.
At one point in his testimony, Blommel glanced over at Waldon.
There was minor discrepancy in some testimony Monday. Baylis said he had turned off the gas stove, while Sgt. Henry said he thought he had turned it off. Nickels said Edie Henderson’s feet were bound by a leather belt, while Henry said it looked like a brown extension cord.
Henry has more than 20 years of law enforcement experience. He described the crime scene in the master bedroom as “surreal.”
The trial continues on Tuesday.
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of defense attorney Debra Tuomey’s name.
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