Prison Escapee Kidnaps, Kills Warden’s Daughter

Deltra Henderson, 39, died after standoff with police
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jul 29, 2017 6:30 AM CDT
Prison Escapee Kidnaps, Kills Warden’s Daughter
Deltra Henderson was serving a 30-year sentence at a prison in Homer, La.   (Getty Images/ josefkubes)

A prisoner abducted and killed an assistant warden's teenage stepdaughter after he escaped from a Louisiana prison, the AP reports. Deltra Henderson, 39, walked away from his prison assignment at David Wade Correctional Center on Thursday afternoon, stole a car, and kidnapped Amanda Carney, per the Claiborne Parish Sheriff's Office. The 18-year-old's body was found in a wooded area near the prison where Henderson crashed the car. Sheriff Ken Bailey tells People Carney and her parents lived in a home across from the prison. Henderson "was a trustee and he worked cleaning flower beds and mowing grass. ... They have trustees that go over there and work in the flower beds. He abducted her and got in her car and left."

Bailey says Henderson stabbed Carney repeatedly in the neck and covered her in pine needles. Henderson stole a second vehicle and crashed it before he entered a nearby home on prison property and found a gun. He barricaded himself inside after a gunfight with prison guards. Police found his body inside the home after the standoff ended. Investigators suspect Henderson was fatally wounded while he traded gunfire with prison guards, before police arrived. Carney recently graduated from a local high school and was enrolling at Southern Arkansas University in the fall to study nursing. "Everybody knows everybody (here)," the sheriff says. "It's just tragic." Henderson, who arrived at the prison in June 2001, was serving a 30-year sentence for cocaine distribution, attempted armed robbery, and aggravated burglary. (More prison escape stories.)

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