Jamaican charged with killing Ankeny missionary gets life, another awaits trial
One of two men charged in Jamaica with the killings of an Ankeny missionary and another from New York has pleaded guilty and received a life sentence, but the other remains to be tried, according to The Gleaner, Jamaica's main national newspaper.
Dwight Henry, 32, a farmer in Jamaica's St. Mary's Parish, had been scheduled to go on trial on Jan. 9. The Gleaner reported he pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and was sentenced Jan. 20.
Henry was arrested along with Andre Thomas, 34, in the murders of Ankeny resident Randy Hentzel, 48, and Harold Nichols, 53. Thomas continues to maintain his innocence, the Gleaner said.
It said Henry will be eligible for parole in 28 years.
Hentzel and Nichols were killed April 30, 2016, while riding motorcycles through mountainous St. Mary on their way to investigate a site where their group, Teams for Medical Mission, planned to build a house for an impoverished family.
More:More than 6 years later, trial in slaying of Ankeny missionary to Jamaica set to begin
Both Hentzel and Nichols were shot, and Nichols also suffered machete wounds, according to Jamaican police. The police, who were aided in their investigation by the FBI, have described the killings as gang-related, but did not say why they believe the missionaries were targeted.
"I know very, very little," Hentzel's widow, Sara Hentzel, told the Register in early January as she prepared to travel to Jamaica for the trial. She could not be reached for comment, and Tanesha Mundle, a reporter with the Gleaner, said the judge in the case has ordered information about what Henry confessed to doing be withheld pending Thomas' trial.
Mundle also said the judge ordered relatives of the victims not to comment on the matter in order to avoid prejudicing Thomas' jury.
Teams for Medical Missions, conducted medical clinics, built homes and held educational events four times a year in St. Mary, long one of the country's poorest parishes. Randy Hentzel and his wife, both graduates of Iowa State University, had lived there from 2010 to early 2016, when they returned to Ankeny for a year, and had planned to move back. Hentzel was in Jamaica on a trip to aid Teams for Medical Missions at the time of his death.
The 6 1/2-year span between the June 2016 arrests of Henry and Thomas and the trial date apparently is routine in Jamaica, The date had been on the docket since 2018 for the Kingston-based court, where according to local reports, as many as a dozen cases are often scheduled for the same courtroom and time. It was not clear when Thomas will be tried.
Noelle Alviz-Gransee is a breaking news reporter at the Des Moines Register. Follow her on Twitter @NoelleHannika or email her at NAlvizGransee@registermedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Jamaican charged in killing of Iowa missionary gets life sentence
