Jury hears Marcelle Waldon's voice in video of arrest interview after Lake Morton killings

The jurors heard the voice of Marcelle Jerrill Waldon for the first time Monday in a nearly hourlong video of an interview with detectives at the Lakeland Police Department in November 2020.

Waldon is on trial in Bartow on two first-degree murder charges and nine other charges. He is accused of stabbing to death former City Commissioner Edie Yates Henderson and David Henderson in their Lake Morton home.

He is also accused of taking the prominent couple’s jewelry, credit cards and bank checks, then attempting to burn down the house and driving away in the husband’s Audi A6.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty if Waldon is convicted.

Waldon is interviewed by police

By the fifth day of the trial on Monday, Waldon, 39, had not testified, and as of last week he was not expected to take the witness stand.

The police interview video was edited and shown to the jury Monday as they followed along with a transcript, showing what transpired at the police station Nov. 11, 2020 – the day of Waldon’s arrest.

Sgt. Tammy Hatchcock and Russell Hurley, Lakeland police detectives, also testified on the witness stand about their work that led to suspects in the case, including Waldon and initially Jarvis Collins. Collins testified last week that he drove around Plant City and Lakeland attempting to pawn jewelry with Waldon in the day after the killings.

Waldon told the detectives he was paid for sex to explain where he got a $5,000 check. It had been backdated to Nov. 1, 2020, and Waldon had tried to cash it at a Lakeland area Amscot.

“How did you get that check?” Hathcock asked.

“Sex,” Waldon said. “Just regular sex.”

He had allegedly met the woman as he was walking around town, he told them. He said they had sex in a car at a local park. The woman drove a red Mercedes Benz, he said, describing a car that matches the vehicle parked in the Hendersons' driveway.

When the check was refused by Amscot because they could not contact the person who wrote it, Hurley asked why he did not go to the person to get his money? Waldon said he couldn’t because he had no way to drive there. He had flushed another check down the toilet, he said.

Waldon also told them he had bought the silver revolver three days earlier but would not tell them who he bought it from. He said he needed a firearm because he had been “robbed too many times in Lakeland.”

When asked if he reported the robberies, he said the robber in one incident was “masked up” so he could not identify the person and police told him they could not do much to help in the case. 

Waldon told them he was working odd jobs to make money but would not say what the jobs were, adding he was “not comfortable talking about it.”

He told them he had paid cash for his room at the Lake Wire Inn where he had stayed for four days by himself. He added he had been hanging out with “JP” when asked about the friends with whom he hung out.

Waldon explained his role in burning the white Audi by saying he had been approached by some men near Lake Morton who wanted the car gone so they paid him $300 to burn the car.

DNA evidence

For the first time in the trial, the quality of the DNA evidence was examined during questioning of FDLE crime lab analyst Elyssa Trautmann. Prosecutors have said the red and black trimmed Nike bag contained Waldon’s and Edie Henderson’s DNA on its drawstrings.

Assistant state attorney Mark Levine asked her how the lab kept the sample from cross contamination. Trautmann said gloves, hairnets and full body suits were among the protective gear used to avoid cross contamination at the crime lab.

The analyst said Waldon’s cheek had been swabbed but that other DNA samples were identified in a sample she referred to as a mixture, which included DNA matching Edie Henderson and Todd Baylis, Edie’s son.

It was the victim’s son who called police when he suspected something was not right at the Hendersons' home during a check on his parents later in the day of the killings.

Edie Henderson’s positive match from the drawstring was one in 17 billion, Trautmann said.

Defense attorney Debra Tuomey questioned the quality of the samples, especially the mixture, which could only contain biological traces from four people.

Tuomey also raised the possibility that law enforcement officers had visited at least two of the crime scenes and that could have the potential for cross contamination. She also asked what happened to David Henderson’s blood.

It had spilled on evidence for another case the FDLE crime lab was processing and it was not able to be used at the Waldon trial, Trautmann said.

Connecting the scenes and the timeline

Earlier in the day, Hurley, the police detective, identified several key locations on a map for the jury, including the Hendersons' home, Collins' home in Chestnut Woods Apartments and the field along Oregon Avenue where the Audi was found burned.

He confirmed that David Henderson had been seen between 6:40 a.m. and 8:04 a.m. in locations around the Lake Morton area. He also said Waldon had checked out of the Lake Wire Inn before the 11 a.m. checkout time.

He also gave details about motel surveillance videos, which the jury also viewed. Both Levine and then Tuomey questioned the detective about them. Hurley gave the jury information on the locations of two dumpsters at the Lake Wire Inn.

He then described Waldon as walking toward a dumpster at the south end of the property at 10:37 a.m. the day of the killings, but the cameras were not aimed directly at a dumpster down a nearby dirt alleyway.

He said, Waldon also had changed his clothing and was wearing shorts and slides on his feet by 10:48 a.m. At the time of his checkout, the video captures the defendant removing a glove from a hoodie pocket and moving it to another pocket.

A minute later, Waldon was seen carrying the red and black trim Nike drawstring bag, a crucial piece of evidence that the prosecution has mentioned several times during the trial to tie Waldon to the crime scene at the Hendersons' home with DNA evidence.

Prosecutors said Waldon had disposed of items in the dumpsters at the Lake Wire Inn. Items such as the knife used to stab the victims has never been recovered by police investigating the case. The clothes the alleged killer wore the morning of the killings also have not been recovered.

Hurley also noted that in one video Waldon carried a pair of black shoes, which were the shoes the prosecution said the killer was wearing as seen in other video evidence showing him near the Hendersons home.

Hurley said the dumpsters at the motel had been removed and taken to the landfill by the time they suspected Waldon may have discarded potential evidence there.

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Hurley said Collins and Waldon were seen in the motel video on Nov. 9 together, getting out of Roderick Burgess’ car.

He added that Collins’ home was four miles from the crime scene at the Hendersons' home.

Tuomey asked why police did not look for DNA evidence at the checkout at the Lake Wire Inn. She also questioned why more of Collins' interviews were not recorded and why the detective did not wear a body camera.

Hurley said he could wear a body cam but chose not to wear one.

Jury shrinks because of illness

Before testimony began Monday, the jury shrank by another two jurors after they reported to the court that they were too sick to attend the remainder of the trial. On Friday, a juror had reported that they tested positive for COVID. All three were “stricken for cause” Circuit Judge J. Kevin Abdoney said.

The jury once had four alternates for a total of 16 men and woman, but as of Monday, only one juror remained as an alternate.

Testimony is expected to wrap up for the prosecution on Tuesday with testimony from the medical examiner. The defense is expected to call witnesses by 11 a.m. Tuesday.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Prosecution presents Marcelle Waldon's arrest interview, DNA evidence