Opelika, Al.
A jury heard testimony Thursday from the partner of a slain Lee County sheriff’s deputy during the accused killer’s capital murder trial.
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| Katie Bonham |
Gregory Lance Henderson, 39, of Columbus, Ga., faces capital murder charges for allegedly running over Lee County Sheriff’s Deputy James Anderson during a routine traffic stop in rural Smiths Station in 2009.
Investigator Katie Bonham took the stand to describe how Henderson attempted to flee from the officers and in the process ran over Anderson.
Henderson’s intent as he tried to flee the deputies was the focus of opening statements by prosecutors and defense attorneys. The prosecution argues Henderson deliberately ran over Anderson in his attempt to escape. The defense countered, saying Henderson, who had used methamphetamine and marijuana in the hours before the traffic stop, accidentally killed the deputy.
On Sept. 24, 2009, Bonham said she and Anderson, her training supervisor, followed Henderson after observing him turn around to possibly avoid them. Once the tag on the 1991 Honda Civic driven by Henderson came back to a 1980s-model Ford Thunderbird, Bonham said the deputies decided to pull him over. Bonham said they pulled in behind the white Honda in a residential driveway in Smiths Station along Lee Road 240.
Anderson exited out of the passenger side, drew his gun and ordered Henderson to stop as the white Honda began to reverse. Bonham said she maneuvered the patrol car to block the escape.
“He pressed the accelerator as fast as it would go and plowed over Deputy Anderson,” she said.
Bonham was joined on the witness stand on Thursday by a Lee County Sheriff’s Office dispatcher, a volunteer firefighter who responded to the calls for help and an Alabama Bureau of Investigation officer who examined the scene afterward.
Bonham began to cry as the jury was shown the dashboard tape from her patrol car. The incident is recorded in the audio of the camera.
Henderson’s car is seen pulling in front of a small house before reversing quickly and accelerating off to the right, out of view of the camera. In a muffled voice off camera, Anderson is heard commanding him to stop. Soon after, Bonham begins to shout.
“He just ran over 46 (Anderson),” Bonham said. “ … The car is laying on top of 46. Shots fired.”
In the background, the engine of Henderson’s car continues to rev. On the tape, Bonham says she fired two shots at Henderson in his car before subduing him. One missed his head, striking the car frame, and the other struck the front panel of the car, she said.
Bonham commands Henderson repeatedly “not to move.” Henderson is seen briefly in front of the patrol car as Bonham searches and questions him before putting him in the back seat.
Bonham’s voice grows frantic as she asks the homeowner for help and continues to shout at Henderson.
“Do not move. I am not kidding you. I will put a bullet in your head,” she says in the video. “You just ran over my deputy … You better not move an inch.”
Henderson is heard crying in the background and saying he will not move.
“Anderson stay with us, Anderson stay with us,” Bonham says on the tape.
The tape records the rush to find car jacks to lift the car off Anderson, and Bonham repeating the story of what happened to Anderson, who, at one point in the video, she describes as a father figure.
Volunteer firefighter Clint Knox said he arrived on the scene along Lee Road 240 to find Bonham holding Henderson at gunpoint on the ground. Knox testified he helped handcuff Henderson and assisted in the efforts to free Anderson from under the car.
“He was laying on his left side, about center of the vehicle, and he wasn’t breathing,” Knox said. “That’s when we tried to jack the vehicle.”
Knox said the car jacks kept sinking into the soft ground.
Eventually, a passing wrecker was flagged down and the edge of its hydraulic flatbed was used to free the deputy, who remained unresponsive. Knox said an ambulance had arrived by that time and CPR was performed on Anderson.
Anderson was taken to the Columbus Regional Medical Center in Columbus, Ga., where he was pronounced dead.
On the tape, which lasted for more than an hour, an unnamed man is heard advising the responding deputies to act as professionals and not lash out at the man who ran over their friend.
“I know it is hard for you, it is hard for me because he is one of our family,” the man says.
The state said it expects to finish its side of the case Friday, when the trial will resume at 9 a.m.
Cousin I am sorry that you had to witness your partner get run over I love you
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