house on the evening of November 23. The YCSO, along with members of the GCPD Detective Unit (DU) and CSI, continued a search now focused specifically on a closet inside Nicole’s bedroom.
With the cause and manner of Heather’s death classified as undetermined throughout the time period before Randi’s body had been found, the YCSO didn’t know if Heather had been murdered. It had always been a pressing question: Had Heather been walking down the road, for example, had a seizure and suffocated to death? Had she tripped and fallen and couldn’t breathe?
“They certainly felt like she had been pushed down into that culvert or dumped there,” one law enforcement official explained. “But there was just no clear sign of murder.”
After Randi’s body was recovered, however, it was the beginning of what looked to be a pattern, and the course of the investigation into Heather’s death changed. Heather’s injuries and death were looked at now under different circumstances. Her death had context.
Hensley assisted another detective in writing up a property list invoice for Nick, noting all the items they had confiscated from his house, along with the jewelry taken from Nicole’s possession and inside her bedroom. The one item on Hensley’s mind as they concluded the search inside the house (there was still Danny Hembree’s vehicle in the driveway to go through) was that electrical cord. Or, rather, cut electrical cord.
Hensley couldn’t shake a feeling he had of why a person would hold on to an electrical cord that has been cut from a lamp or some other appliance. It didn’t make sense to save it. The item had no practical use. In his short career as a detective, Hensley prided himself on his instincts. He listened to his gut.
Hensley’s dad was transferred to Gaston County from Tennessee when Hensley was in high school. The family has lived there ever since.
“Look, I bleed orange,” Hensley said of his Tennessee roots.
It was 2004 when, Hensley said, “I decided to try the police thing out.” Hensley wanted to be one of the good guys, chasing all those bad guys he had heard so much about as a kid. He had law enforcement and public service coursing through his veins. Hensley’s uncle was the chief of police in a small Southern town and also fire chief, and his cousin made assistant chief of the Chattanooga Police Department. So serving the public had been in him all his life, Hensley felt while growing up.
The thing that had actually turned Hensley off from a career in law enforcement early on, and as he entered college, was his mother telling him, “You’re not going to be a police officer.”
“She had grown up around it, and was always right there with the family as they went through it. She tried to engrain it within me that I was going to do something else.”
The GCPD had jurisdiction over the county—responsibilities beyond the Gastonia Police Department (GPD)—serving the communities outside the bounds of the city. The GCPD DU focuses on major crimes: murder, organized crime, missing persons, sexual and serious assaults.
Hensley felt comfortable within the DU, having joined the team on July 16, 2008, after four years of patrol. And wouldn’t you know it, on that same day he was sworn in as a detective, he found himself working on the Lucy Johnson case.
“It’s really not anything like the glamour that you see on TV,” Hensley said with a respectful laugh. Asked if the DU was what he had expected, Hensley said, “I guess the answer’s ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ It’s what I expected, to a certain extent. I wanted to be involved in cases like [the Lucy Johnson case] and there I was. I had input. My opinions mattered. That’s where I wanted to be. That’s what I wanted to do and there I was doing it.”
Johnson, thirty-one at the time of her death, was pregnant. She had been shot in the head twice—that is, before the home in which she lived was set on fire. Her fiancé was
With the cause and manner of Heather’s death classified as undetermined throughout the time period before Randi’s body had been found, the YCSO didn’t know if Heather had been murdered. It had always been a pressing question: Had Heather been walking down the road, for example, had a seizure and suffocated to death? Had she tripped and fallen and couldn’t breathe?
“They certainly felt like she had been pushed down into that culvert or dumped there,” one law enforcement official explained. “But there was just no clear sign of murder.”
After Randi’s body was recovered, however, it was the beginning of what looked to be a pattern, and the course of the investigation into Heather’s death changed. Heather’s injuries and death were looked at now under different circumstances. Her death had context.
Hensley assisted another detective in writing up a property list invoice for Nick, noting all the items they had confiscated from his house, along with the jewelry taken from Nicole’s possession and inside her bedroom. The one item on Hensley’s mind as they concluded the search inside the house (there was still Danny Hembree’s vehicle in the driveway to go through) was that electrical cord. Or, rather, cut electrical cord.
Hensley couldn’t shake a feeling he had of why a person would hold on to an electrical cord that has been cut from a lamp or some other appliance. It didn’t make sense to save it. The item had no practical use. In his short career as a detective, Hensley prided himself on his instincts. He listened to his gut.
Hensley’s dad was transferred to Gaston County from Tennessee when Hensley was in high school. The family has lived there ever since.
“Look, I bleed orange,” Hensley said of his Tennessee roots.
It was 2004 when, Hensley said, “I decided to try the police thing out.” Hensley wanted to be one of the good guys, chasing all those bad guys he had heard so much about as a kid. He had law enforcement and public service coursing through his veins. Hensley’s uncle was the chief of police in a small Southern town and also fire chief, and his cousin made assistant chief of the Chattanooga Police Department. So serving the public had been in him all his life, Hensley felt while growing up.
The thing that had actually turned Hensley off from a career in law enforcement early on, and as he entered college, was his mother telling him, “You’re not going to be a police officer.”
“She had grown up around it, and was always right there with the family as they went through it. She tried to engrain it within me that I was going to do something else.”
The GCPD had jurisdiction over the county—responsibilities beyond the Gastonia Police Department (GPD)—serving the communities outside the bounds of the city. The GCPD DU focuses on major crimes: murder, organized crime, missing persons, sexual and serious assaults.
Hensley felt comfortable within the DU, having joined the team on July 16, 2008, after four years of patrol. And wouldn’t you know it, on that same day he was sworn in as a detective, he found himself working on the Lucy Johnson case.
“It’s really not anything like the glamour that you see on TV,” Hensley said with a respectful laugh. Asked if the DU was what he had expected, Hensley said, “I guess the answer’s ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ It’s what I expected, to a certain extent. I wanted to be involved in cases like [the Lucy Johnson case] and there I was. I had input. My opinions mattered. That’s where I wanted to be. That’s what I wanted to do and there I was doing it.”
Johnson, thirty-one at the time of her death, was pregnant. She had been shot in the head twice—that is, before the home in which she lived was set on fire. Her fiancé was
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