'Got jewelry': Jury sees texts between Marcelle Waldon and another man at murder trial

Witnesses in the trial of Marcelle Jerrill Waldon, charged in the brutal 2020 killings of a prominent couple in their Lake Morton home, testified Wednesday about processing crime scenes, a burned-out Audi that belonged to one of the victims and text messages shared between Waldon and another man.

Waldon, 39, is facing multiple charges, including two first-degree murder charges, in connection with the killings of former Lakeland City Commissioner Edie Yates Henderson and her husband, David Henderson. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty if Waldon is convicted.

At the Hendersons’ picturesque home along Lake Morton Drive, police and prosecutors allege that Waldon brutally stabbed the couple and robbed them of their jewelry, took two bank checks and then drove off in the husband’s white Audi.

A grand jury had indicted Waldon with 10 crimes. Charges included two first-degree murder charges; burglary of a dwelling with assault or battery while armed with a firearm; kidnapping for holding Edie Yates Henderson against her will; attempted arson for trying to set the couple's home on fire after the crime; grand theft of David Henderson’s Audi A6; arson for setting the car on fire; and tampering with physical evidence.

He also faces a forgery, as prosecutors allege he attempted to cash a $5,000 check at an Amscot in Lakeland that he had forced Edie Yates Henderson to write at gunpoint.

"yeah, got jewelry"

During day three of the trial, witnesses included police officers, crime scene investigators, a fire investigator and a canine handler. Also called to the stand were an Amscot employee and a cell phone data investigator, who was the last witness on Wednesday.

As an expert on retrieving cell phone data, Detective Jason Leggett with the Lakeland Police Department’s technical services unit analyzed data retrieved from phones registered to Waldon and Jarvis Collins on the T-Mobile network and recovered after Waldon’s arrest at the Relax Inn.

The prosecution alleges photos, emails and text message data recovered from the phones were used by Waldon and Jarvis Collins on the day of the murders. 

On that day at 10:20 a.m., Leggett found a text conversation in data he collected from the LG K-40 mobile phone that was registered to Collins and a Samsung Galaxy A10e that was registered to Waldon.

It said, “Ya’ll alright,” Leggett read from a presentation to the jury.

From the Galaxy phone, a text in reply said, “yeah, got jewelry,” adding, “a whole lot.”

“huh?”

“frfr” (which meant: for real, for real) was the reply.

In his opening statement on Monday, Assistant State Attorney Mark Levine said the person who took photos of Edie Henderson’s driver license around her purse had inadvertently taken pictures of a pair of black shoes and the loaded silver revolver.

Further, the time of the text exchange matched a timeline presented by the prosecution through testimony of the Hendersons' neighbors and people who walk around Lake Morton or work nearby. They said David Henderson often took walks around the lake as early as 6:45 a.m. and then he often went to Fat Jack’s to get breakfast to share with his wife as part of their morning routine.

The day of the killings, a son of Edie Henderson, Todd Baylis, police and crime scene technicians saw the uneaten takeout order on a table.

The motel room

The morning proceedings in court on Wednesday started with crime-scene technicians who had processed the motel room and the torched Audi.

Tracy Grice, a technician with LPD said she took photos of the butcher block in the Hendersons’ kitchen with the missing knife, which was not recovered. The prosecution alleges it was the weapon used in the double homicides. She also documented scissors on a kitchen counter that were removed from one of two butcher blocks.

Defense attorney Debra Tuomey asked Grice about the integrity of the crime scene at the motel. Grice said she wears “booties” and blue latex gloves to collect evidence and while swabbing surfaces for DNA.

Tuomey also asked how she ensures cross-contamination does not occur at crime scenes. She specifically asked if a law enforcement officer could go from one crime scene to another crime scene wearing the same shoes.

“Typically, we don’t want to do that,” Grice said.

Further, she added as a crime scene technician she frequently changes her gloves for new ones. Often full body protection suits are worn so not even her dog’s hair can fall off her clothing at a crime scene.

Grice said items collected for evidence are not placed in the same bag.

“It’s very easy to transfer DNA,” she said, adding in earlier decades a blood sample the size of a quarter was needed to find DNA but today just a single human cell is all that is needed.

She also documented the motel room where Waldon was staying the day of the killings.

Grice processed the trunk of the Audi, which contained two hats – a baseball hat and a furry ball hat – and six condoms. She was able to find one fingerprint on the red Mercedes Benz parked in the Hendersons' driveway.

When asked by Tuomey, Grice said the LPD crime-scene unit did not process the room at the Lake Wire Inn, where Waldon stayed the night before the killings. Nor did they visit the house where Collins lived with his mother.

The defendant's movements that day

A receipt from a Plant City pawn shop had Collins’ fingerprints on it, Grice said, after a deputy sheriff checked them for her. Police allege he pawned jewelry there with Waldon, who at some point along U.S. 92, was asleep in the back seat of Collins' mother’s car and was photographed by Collins.

Anton Jefferson, with LPD’s street-crimes unit, explained how he worked with the SWAT team that arrested Waldon just outside Room 129 at the Relax Inn.

After ordering him to lie face down on the walkway in front of the room, he placed “flex cuffs,” or zip-tie plastic handcuffs, around Waldon’s wrists. Wearing latex gloves, he then found some credit cards, coins and a cell phone in the suspect’s pockets.

Waldon, who had just stepped out of the motel room door, was carrying a red Nike drawstring bag and inside it Jefferson said he found David Henderson’s bank card, a lighter and a firearm that was in a leather case that he could feel through the drawstring bag.

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The woman who worked at Amscot the day prosecutors say Waldon tried to cash the Hendersons' check appeared in court and testified that she could not identify Waldon because he was wearing sunglasses and a COVID mask. She did recall he had left a thumbprint on the check. Ultimately the check made out to Marcelle Waldon was denied.

A second crime-scene technician for LPD at the motel, Jennie DeWitt was also asked about the integrity of the collection, processing and preservation of evidence and listed the same safeguards to avoid cross contamination.

To avoid anyone stepping on items found during the arrest or inside the room, including the drawstring bag found in this case, she tells people not to step on anything.

DeWitt also photographed Waldon at the police station Nov. 11. Tuomey asked whether he had suffered any injuries to his body. He had not, DeWitt said.

The burned-out Audi

The prosecution maintains the stolen Audi was burned to conceal evidence and that Waldon tried to light the house on fire to cover up crimes.

Greg Bubb, a detective with the State Fire Marshal's Office, took the stand and said after carefully analysis of the Audi at the police impound lot that he ruled the fire was incendiary and was started in the car’s interior.

Canine handler Jeff Batz with the Florida Bureau of Fire Arson and Explosion Investigations said his highly trained odor-detecting dog Booker signaled an odor of ignitable liquids.

The trial will continue on Thursday and then resume on Monday.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Text messages revealed on third day of trial in Lake Morton killings