The man charged with robbing and killing a 25-year-old woman outside her Gaithersburg apartment had been released on parole after serving seven years of a 10-year sentence for armed robbery.
Court documents show Shawn Henderson, 25, of Landover, had a history of violent robberies long before he allegedly decided around 2 a.m. Sunday to kill Lindsay Harvey.
Henderson was 18 when he was arrested and slapped with charges including armed robbery and first-degree assault. In December 1999, he and Abdul Williams, then 20, of Germantown, robbed two separate victims by coming up behind them and putting a knife to their throats.
After a plea agreement, in which Henderson pleaded guilty to carrying a weapon with intent to injure, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Durke Thompson sentenced him to 20 years, with all but 10 years suspended.
Henderson was released from prison in November 2006 after getting his General Education Degree and studying auto mechanics, a spokeswoman for the department of corrections said.
On Monday, police interviewed witnesses who say they saw Henderson at the Grove Park Apartments where Harvey lived and was killed, and allegedly telling a group of people that he “had some things to handle,” according to court documents.
Another witness told police a woman yelled, “Get away from me. No!” and then a single gunshot was heard in the area of the trash bin where Harvey’s body was found.
Police said Wednesday that they believe the robbery was a stranger-on-stranger incident, a rarity for Montgomery County.
Court documents show that Henderson lived near the Gaithersburg apartments where Harvey’s body was found when he was arrested in 1999. Police believe he continued to have ties to the area, said spokeswoman Lucille Baur.
“This was a senseless act of violence, she did not have to lose her life in a robbery,” Baur said.
