Even after a courtroom in Montreal Lake heard the graphic details of a stabbing and kidnapping last summer, the victims of Kevin Henderson’s violence hugged him.
Henderson’s sentencing was in Montreal Lake, with presiding Judge Loewen saying “these things should be dealt with in the community they occurred.”
Last summer, Henderson, now 31, was arrested two days after a van ride that landed his mother and aunt in hospital.
Police had sought help finding Henderson’s aunt after her van disappeared on June 30, 2014.
Henderson pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, kidnapping, theft of a motor vehicle, and several breaches, earlier this year.
Last summer his aunt, Marina Henderson, had been driving her sister (Kevin’s mother Louisa Henderson), Kevin, and a young woman named Shantal Mike in her van in Montreal Lake.
Marina had dropped someone off at home when Kevin’s attack with a fileting knife began. While the motive was hazy as the Crown prosecutor read out the facts as it knew them in court, afterwards, Kevin provided his reason as he spoke to the judge.
“I stabbed out of rage,” he said.
Based on the Crown’s facts from witnesses and evidence, Kevin stabbed his mother in the arm and shoulder five times. She managed to get out of the van, but Marina did not. Today still, Louisa has bandages around her arm.
Kevin had stabbed Marina seven times: two of those were in the head, and her left lung collapsed as a result of the stab wounds.
According to the Crown’s facts from an interview with Mike, she’d been doing cocaine and crystal meth beforehand. Her only advance notice of what would happen was when Kevin whispered “I’m going to do it,” the facts stated.
Mike didn’t know if Marina was dead or alive because she was too afraid to look, the Crown read out in court.
They had traveled from Montreal Lake to Christopher Lake.
There, Henderson tried to take money out of his aunt’s bank account with her card.
After that, they drove to Little Red River First Nation, where Mike and Kevin drank and got high in a home on the reserve.
Before that, they used yellow rope and a tensor bandage to tie Marina up as she bled in the van – out of sight of others.
Henderson’s aunt was found by someone who lived on Little Red River First Nation more than 24 hours after her kidnapping.
Kevin and Mike had returned to Prince Albert in a separate vehicle, and Kevin was arrested on July 2 of last year.
His mother read a victim impact statement in court.
Louisa told her son “I forgive you as long as I live.”
Forgiveness came not only from Louisa but from Marina as well.
Kevin took his chance to speak to the judge before he rendered his sentence.
Kevin said he spent time in 25 foster homes before he was 12 years old.
“Half of them, I was abused in,” he said, breaking down sobbing at that point.
The court heard that Kevin endured sexual abuse not only in foster care, but also within the family.
Kevin, who himself has a son, said he’s wondered “how could you do something like that to a kid?”
“You can’t treat your kid like that and expect them to be an angel when they grow up,” he told the court.
It’s the childhood abuse, cruelty, abandonment, and the feeling that “I just needed love and stuff” like that, that led to the violence last summer, Kevin said.
The Crown asked for a 15-year sentence for Kevin, while defence sought a range of five to six years in addition to Henderson’s time served over the past year.
After the sentencing was adjourned until September 3, Louisa, Marina, his common-law wife and other family members went to hug Kevin.
Afterwards, Marina said she forgave Kevin, and is happy that he told the court he found Jesus.
However, she said what happened has taken an emotional toll on her. She’s now afraid of people who have been drinking, Marina said.
Mike spent 171 days in custody at Pine Grove Correctional Centre for her role in the incident.