By
Scott Sandlin Journal Staff Writer
Linda Henning could be put to death for the 1999 murder of her
ex-lover's wife, despite a plea deal that let the admitted murder
mastermind off the hook. A "death
qualified" Bernalillo County District Court jury on Friday found
Henning, 49, guilty of the two critical charges in a 20-count
indictment felony murder and
kidnapping required for the death
penalty. Henning
was accused of participating with her former lover Diazien
Hossencofft, 37, in the murder of his Malaysian-born wife, Girly
Chew Hossencofft, a 36-year-old Albuquerque bank teller. Henning
had met Hossencofft seven weeks
earlier. The mixed
verdict, which included acquittal on 10 counts, means that the
jury will return on Tuesday to begin hearing evidence in her
sentencing. They will determine whether the New Age aficionado of
UFO theories should be put to death by lethal injection or
permitted to serve a life
sentence. It was a
trial that featured no body but abundant circumstantial evidence
and mammoth doses of pure
weirdness. The
jury heard three weeks of testimony about trace evidence and DNA
along with statements about anti-aging serum scams and government
conspiracy theorists. Deliberations began Oct. 18. Jurors
submitted several questions to Bernalillo County Chief District
Judge W. John Brennan, including one asking about a defense
mention of paranoid schizophrenia in closing arguments. By the
time the verdict was read just before 5 p.m. Friday, the courtroom
was packed. Lead
defense attorney Gary Mitchell voiced outrage at what he said was
the most bizarre and inconsistent verdict he'd seen in his legal
career. He also condemned the state death penalty statute, which
he said stacks the deck against the defense by ensuring that a
juror is able to vote to kill a defendant before a single piece of
evidence is presented. "I've
had outrageous verdicts, but when you look at this, the jury had
to believe she was in four or five different places at once," he
said after court adjourned. He said
that for jurors to make the findings they did, they would have had
to believe she acted alone in the
crime. Lead
prosecutor Paul Spiers called the prosecution victory "indeed a
solemn and serious moment." But Spiers also said that in all his
years as an assistant district attorney and as a Navy JAG officer,
he'd never seen a jury work harder or return a more consistent
verdict. Henning
now faces what Hossencofft, the admitted major player in the case,
avoided. In January, Hossencofft pleaded guilty to first-degree
murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit the murder of Girly on
Sept. 9, 1999. In
exchange, he got a life sentence at a Wyoming prison and agreed to
give statements to the prosecution, including the whereabouts of
Girly's body. In post-conviction statements, he said he'd
masterminded the murder but did not know where the body was and that he'd planned it that
way. Mitchell said
he will file a motion for a new trial based upon the
inconsistencies in the verdict. The jury
was presented with two alternate counts of first-degree murder.
They rejected one, willful and deliberate murder, but found her
guilty of felony murder basically,
killing Girly during the commission of an underlying crime, in
this case kidnapping. She
was also convicted of kidnapping, which required the jury to
answer two separate questions: Did Henning fail to free Girly? And
did she inflict great bodily harm? The jury answered yes to
both. They found
her guilty of soliciting a friend to lie to the grand jury and of
tampering with evidence by hiding a ninja sword in her home. But she was
acquitted of conspiracy to commit murder and of a perjury charge
stemming from testimony to a 1999 grand jury investigating Girly's
disappearance. The indictment charged that she was lying when she
denied having been injured within the previous two weeks,
presumably while grappling with Girly during the alleged
abduction. They
also acquitted her of evidence-tampering counts that dealt with
hiding Girly's body, hiding a bloody tarp and Girly's clothing,
discarding Girly's wallet and putting bleach on the carpet at
Girly's apartment, and of separate conspiracy charges attached to
each of those counts. The trial
began Sept. 23 before Brennan. Four alternates were sent home
before the case was submitted to the jury at noon Oct. 18, but
they will be called back for the penalty phase next week. That segment
is expected to offer testimony from witnesses, including the
psychologist who evaluated Henning for mental competency.
Questions about Henning's competency led her to disputes with a
succession of defense attorneys so severe that she parted ways
with three prior legal teams before Mitchell came into the case.
Henning underwent a competency evaluation, but a scheduled
competency hearing was aborted just before trial on a defense
motion.
