The Landover man convicted by a jury of shooting a 25-year-old Gaithersburg woman to death and then leaving her body behind a trash bin has been sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus 20 years.
Shawn Henderson, 25, was supposed to be in prison serving out a 10-year sentence for a 1999 armed robbery when he killed Lindsay Harvey in April 2008 for the $40 in her wallet, court documents said. Instead, he was released three years early in November 2006 and was in the midst of a three-year parole when Harvey was murdered, the Department of Corrections said.
Harvey’s murder made national news when her body was found behind a trash container less than 100 yards from her apartment on the 700 block of Quince Orchard Boulevard. She grew up in western New York and worked for the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory identifying the remains of fallen troops from past wars.
Harvey had been spending time with friends earlier in the evening and was walking from her parked car to her apartment when Henderson approached her, pulled out a gun and demanded cash, court documents said. Minutes earlier, Henderson was with a group of acquaintances when he said he “had some things to handle,” and walked off with a gun in his hand.
A witness told police a woman yelled, “Get away from me. No!” and then a single shot was heard near where Harvey’s body was found the following morning.
“The facts in this case are simple, senseless and brutal,” said Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy. “It is hard to imagine anyone being more of a predator in our community than Shawn Henderson.”
McCarthy added, “our only solace is that he will die in jail.”
