This article first appeared in the Sunday, Feb. 16 edition of the Traverse City Record-Eagle. Listen to McCord Henry's interview with IPR via the audio player above.
McCord Henry is picturing his mom, Linda Henry, on South Manitou Island in her park ranger’s uniform, greeting visitors just off the ferry, with a smile and a history lesson.
Sometimes, in his memories, he’s still a boy hiking in the woods as she tells him the names of wildflowers he can recite today — “trillium, lily of the valley or Dutchman’s breeches,” he says, “bloodroot and Indian pipeweed.”
On winter evenings, Linda Henry’s home on Cinder Road smelled like fresh popcorn as she sat by the fire, a bowl in her lap and a book in her hand.
“There’d be a cast iron skillet on the woodstove and the moon shining in,” McCord Henry said, his voice thick with emotion. “It’s surprising, but the space is still energetic and wholesome and alive.”
On Feb. 4, 2022, police say a neighbor named Jeffrey Duane Stratton, 60, broke into Henry’s home in the middle of the day and murdered her, during a grisly attack with no clear motive.
Three years later, McCord Henry is suing Benzie County and four current or former Benzie County Sheriff’s deputies, in a federal civil rights lawsuit over what the complaint states is a culture of misogyny that contributed to his mother’s murder.
“When this happened, it was so hard, but it also was a direct challenge to not letting the negative charge be the final word,” McCord Henry said. “So that’s our driving motivation. To crack the door open on this horrible tragedy.”
Benzie County Sheriff Kyle Rosa, who is not named in the lawsuit, said he couldn’t comment on the specifics of ongoing litigation, but cautioned against a rush to judgment before hearing all the facts.
“Our county intends to defend this case vigorously, I can tell you that,” Rosa said. “And the truth will definitely come out.”
Rosa also said he and his entire staff, in April 2023, attended specialized training at Camp Grayling on investigating non-stranger sexual assault.
Traverse City attorney Gregory Grant, of Cummings, McClorey, Davis & Acho, represents the county and the officers and said the lawsuit contains allegations that misrepresent the facts.
“The legal process allows anyone to file a lawsuit, but that does not mean the claims have merit,” Grant said. “This is a tragic situation involving a serious crime, and any suggestion that my clients were involved is unfounded.”
Named in the lawsuit are deputies Martin Blank, Troy Packard, James Kosiboski and Matthew Weaver.
Blank, Packard and Kosiboski, according to the county’s website, work at the sheriff’s office as a detective, a sergeant and a road patrol officer, respectively.
Weaver, according to a memo previously provided to the Record-Eagle, was fired by Rosa in 2021 (10 months before Henry was murdered) for conduct unbecoming. Weaver later disputed his termination and subsequently resigned.
Weaver, records show, is also on a list of officers or former officers with credibility issues — the “Brady and Giglio list” — named for two U.S. Supreme Court cases, in which justices ruled that police who are part of a prosecution team must disclose evidence that could be favorable to the defense.
Benzie County and Weaver were defendants in another federal lawsuit, filed in 2021 by Jeffrey Lasecki, who accused Weaver of unlawfully using a Taser on him during a traffic stop. Lasecki was charged with assaulting, resisting and/or obstructing a police officer after showing Weaver his driver’s license, but refusing to remove it from his wallet.
A Benzie County judge later watched Weaver’s dashcam video and dismissed the charges against Lasecki. Lasecki’s resulting civil lawsuit settled out of court in 2022 for $195,000.
A search for answers
McCord Henry hadn’t had a reason to interact with Benzie County law enforcement before the afternoon of Feb. 4, 2022, when he answered a call from his mom, who he said sounded frantic about a man on her property acting strangely.
Moments later, the call dropped, but not before McCord Henry heard terrifying noises in the background — breaking glass and a deranged-sounding man shouting, “Hello, Linda!” and “Because you’re evil!”
McCord, who lived 35 minutes away, sped toward Cinder Road, calling 911 on the way. By the time he arrived, responders were blocking the road and his mother’s home was a potential crime scene.
Stratton, who was later arrested after an hours-long standoff with police, had bludgeoned, stabbed and burned Linda Henry, 72, after smashing through her sliding glass door.
A judge accepted Stratton’s insanity plea, after hearing the results of a forensic psychologist’s criminal responsibility evaluation. Court records show Stratton is now involuntarily confined to an unnamed psychiatric facility.
As McCord Henry tried to make sense of what had happened, his mother’s neighbors shared with him a concerning timeline.
“In talking to people in the community, the neighbors had their version of what they had to deal with and now we need to find the light for everyone,” he said.
3 days in February 2022
Stratton on Feb. 2, 2022, was released from Benzie County’s jail, where he’d been held on a criminal sexual conduct charge, accused of assaulting a teenage neighbor by slapping her on the butt over her clothes.
A pretrial release order, signed by a judge and Stratton, compelled Stratton to appear for a Feb. 17, 2022, hearing and stated he could be subject to re-arrest without a warrant if he violated conditions of a $5,000 10-percent surety bond.
Stratton wasn’t to possess a dangerous weapon or to harass, intimidate or threaten the teenager or have any contact with her.
At 12:45 a.m. on Feb. 4, court records show the teen’s mother called 911.
“He’s violating his bond right now,” the teenager’s mother told dispatch about Stratton. “And now he’s slinking around our windows. We need someone here. This man is dangerous.”
Deputies Kosiboski and Packard responded, according to the complaint, followed footsteps in the snow to Stratton’s front door, knocked but received no answer, then walked back to the caller’s home and told her that she and her daughter were “all set for the night.”
The complaint states the deputies “left them and their neighbors including Ms. Henry in the path of imminent danger.”
A law enforcement source who declined to speak publicly told the Record-Eagle that Deputy Packard waited in the woods for an hour, planning to arrest Stratton if he left his house. Later that same morning, the source said, deputies met with staff at the prosecutor’s office to seek a warrant for Stratton.
When asked about this, Sheriff Rosa said deputies’ actions in the Stratton case could be considered part of the ongoing lawsuit and declined to comment.
But court records confirm some of this information: Benzie County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Amanda Craig on Feb. 4, 2022, asked the court to review Stratton’s bond, stating he posed an “increased risk to the safety of the public.”
And 85th District Court Judge John D. Mead responded that day by revoking Stratton’s bond, effective immediately, while a register of actions shows the court issued a bench warrant for Stratton’s arrest.
These actions, dated the day Linda Henry was murdered, still came too late to save her from Stratton.
Bailor Bell, an attorney with The Fierberg National Law Group, who represents McCord Henry and his mom’s estate, said that, after the teen’s mother called 911, deputies should have entered Stratton’s home and arrested him then.
The fact that they didn’t, coupled with other information gathered by Bell and others, is indicative of systemic bias against women and girls, Bell said.
“What started out as seeking answers as to how this occurred, became shocking as to the dimensions of the explicit bias against women and general mistreatment of women and girls in the county,” Bell said.
‘suck it women, lol’
Bell said he and other members of the Fierberg firm, along with McCord Henry, began asking questions, interviewing neighbors and filing Freedom of Information requests.
Among documents the group asked for and received were computer-aided dispatch communications of some Benzie County Sheriff’s deputies chatting with one another while on the job.
The CAD records included in the lawsuit are from April 19, 2020, and Sept. 28, 2020, court records show, nearly two years before the murder.
“It’s one of those things that’s just jaw-dropping.”
Bailor Bell
Attorney representing McCord Henry
Deputies on those dates, complained about paperwork, discussed college football, derided Michigan State Police troopers and joked good-naturedly about volunteering with the fire department.
But certain deputies, identified by number, also referred to a man who’d assaulted a woman as a “nuts guy” — the complaint says this was Stratton — yet acknowledged returning guns that law enforcement had confiscated.
Their conversation went:
“tisk tisk the woman’s resource center is gonna complain again”
“suck it women lol”
“eat a bag of dicks?”
“yup”
“nom nom nom”
Deputies also derided a report by a young female government employee who said she’d been harassed by a man wearing a black ski mask, and expressed scorn for a senior officer who’d looked into the claim.
Bell said the fact that these officers felt free to share misogynistic communications openly, with no apparent fear of reprisal, coupled with other incidents the group had uncovered even before receiving discovery evidence, are proof of a culture of bias. That culture of bias negatively affected their response in the Henry case, he said.
On Jan. 30, he filed the lawsuit, on behalf of McCord Henry as representative of his mother’s estate, in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, citing Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.
Read the complaint here. (Editor's note: Reader discretion is advised.)
‘Women deserve better’
Juliette Schultz, Women’s Resource Center executive director, said Doug Fierberg of The Fierberg National Law Group, is on the WRC’s board of directors, so she was aware of the CAD communications, but declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing its pending nature.
Schultz said having a good working relationship with law enforcement, judges, prosecutors and medical personnel was crucial for the organization’s work.
“They’re a bridge to helping our survivors being able to heal and recover in the long term,” Schultz said. “We can’t do the work that we’re doing without them.”
On Tuesday, Benzie County Board of Commissioners met for its regular monthly meeting. The Henry lawsuit was not on the agenda, but a Gilmore Township woman spoke about it during public comment.
“I would suggest that someone needs to make an apology, a public apology to the Women’s Resource Center,” Rebecca Hubbard said. “Who are we if we cannot find it in our hearts to support and to celebrate such an organization rather than to mock and disparage it?”
“The women of this county deserve better than what happened here in February of 2022,” she said.
Commissioners, as a rule, listen silently during public comment, though Chair Art Jeannot addressed Hubbard directly.
“I don’t want you to take our silence as uncaring,” Jeannot said. “It’s an opportunity for you to speak. You represented yourself very well.”
Schultz declined to comment on whether the organization received an apology.
‘My mom’s last project’
Linda Henry, before her death, had secured a license from the state to operate a daycare in her home for up to 17 children.
The daycare was going to be called Cinderpines, and would have offered nutritional and organic food, a reverence for nature, educational activities that focused on equality and positive reinforcement and, her son said, aimed to be affordable for working parents.
“There was a call on her machine, in the weeks following,” McCord Henry said, “from someone hoping to enter their child in the daycare and I had to call them and say —"
Henry stopped before finishing the sentence.
He has, however, re-imagined Cinderpines daycare as The Cinder Pines Reciprocity Project, a non-profit aimed at responding to crisis with positive growth.
“It is carrying on my mom’s last project,” McCord said. “I would hope that the day will come when we could move beyond this and enable people to bring the best of what they have to unify people.”
There’s more information at cinderpines.org.
“It’s a cycle,” he said. “Tragedy, devastation, hope.”
Summons were issued Jan. 31 for Benzie County and the four named defendants, court records show, with an answer from the defense required within 21 days.
