Department of Justice
United States Attorney Gregory G. Lockhart
Southern District of Ohio
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
CONTACT: Fred Alverson 614-469-5715 |
|
|
COLUMBUS -- Thomas A. Henderson, age 55, was sentenced in United States District Court here today to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment for killing two people who provided information that led to his conviction for robbing a bank in Macon, Georgia in 1981.
Gregory G. Lockhart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Keith L. Bennett, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cincinnati Field Division, and Columbus Police Chief James G. Jackson, in conjunction with Pickerington Police Chief Michael Taylor and Fairfield County Sheriff David Phelan, announced the sentence handed down today by United States District Judge Algenon L. Marbley.
A United States District Court jury convicted Henderson on June 26, 2007 of shooting and killing Robert Bass on November 4, 1996 in Pickerington, and Ecolia Washington on November 2, 1998 in Columbus. Washington testified against Henderson in his federal trial in 1981. Bass provided information to investigators regarding the robbery. Henderson was convicted and served nearly 15 years in federal prison.
The jury convicted Henderson of two counts of killing a federal witness, and two counts of using a firearm in a crime of violence.
Henderson is currently in federal prison serving a 20-year sentence for a 2000 conviction on firearm and drug trafficking charges.
Lockhart commended the cooperative investigation by agents and officers of the FBI, the Columbus Police Unsolved Case Review Unit and Pickerington Police, and Fairfield County Sheriff’s Deputies, as well as Assistant U.S. Attorneys David DeVillers and Kevin Kelley, who are prosecuting the case.