Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: Cody Henderson Pleads Guilty in 2009 OH Slaying of Charles Zan, Sentenced to LWOP

  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217

    Cody Henderson Pleads Guilty in 2009 OH Slaying of Charles Zan, Sentenced to LWOP

    Death penalty for stepfather's murder

    MIAMISBURG, Ohio (WDTN) - The Montgomery County Prosecutor announced Thursday afternoon that a 20-year-old man accused of killing his stepfather would face the death penalty.

    Cody Henderson was indicted on three counts of aggravated murder. Prosecutors said Henderson was paid by his own mother to kill his stepfather, then rob him.

    The victim, Charles Zan, was a Warren County Corrections Officer. Police said he was stabbed 40 times while sleeping in his own bed.

    Prosecutors said Zan's wife, Pandora Zan, called 911 right after the murder in October, 2009, and said intruders had killed her husband.

    Prosecutors said the brutality of the crime and the motive, which would come out during the trial, would justify their reasons for seeking death.

    "If there's going to be the death penalty, than this is the kind of case that's going to qualify for the death penalty," said Montgomery County prosecutor, Mat Heck.

    The crime had pitted family against family.

    Cody's sister, Misty Henderson spoke to 2 News last October and said her brother needed to pay for his actions.

    "I saw my stepdad's body two days ago and I've completely changed my opinion. I think for what he did, he should get the death penalty. Family or not, I think that is the only punishment worthy of the damage he did," said Misty Henderson.

    "The number of fatal wounds delivered to this victim as he lay in bed, defenseless and the motive when it comes in trial for this crime, than this qualifies for the death penalty," said Heck.

    Cody Henderson's arraignment is set to take place on May 18th.

    http://www.wdtn.com/dpp/news/local/montgomery/Death-penalty-for-stepfather%27s-murder

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Related:



    Pandora Zan trial: Woman accused of planning husband’s killing with her son goes on trial

    Pandora Jean Zan helped plan her husband’s slaying, an assistant Montgomery County prosecutor said Monday, even moving his gun “so that he would not have access to it while he was being murdered.”

    Zan, 46, of Dayton, is charged with eight felonies, including three counts of complicity to commit murder, in connection with the Oct. 17, 2009 slaying of Charles Zan II. Her trial, before common pleas judge Mary Wiseman, started Monday and will continue throughout the week. Her son, Cody Henderson, who police said did the stabbing, is to go on trial in June and could face the death penalty if convicted.

    Assistant county prosecutor Erin Claypoole, who gave the opening statement, said that Zan had planned everything with her son so that they could get Charles Zan’s life insurance money.
    Pandora Zan.jpg
    Pandora Jean Zan

    But defense attorney Al Wilmes said that Zan was bi-polar, and “that causes her to make reckless statements.” She engaged in “fantasy talk” with her son about how things would be better if her husband was dead, but to her surprise, Henderson took it seriously, Wilmes said.

    “Cody did it,” Wilmes said. “Cody’s day in court will come. It isn’t today.”

    During testimony about Charles Zan’s autopsy, Pandora Zan wept openly as pictures of her husband’s body were shown.

    Charles Zan was pronounced dead at the couple’s apartment, 7123 Springboro Pike, in Miamisburg. When police arrived, they found his nude, bloodied body on the couple’s bed, Claypoole told the jury.

    “Charles Zan suffered at least 48 sharp force injuries to his body,” Claypoole said. “The victim suffered an agonizing death.”

    Pandora Zan made a 911 call, stating that two black men entered the apartment, knocked her out, then killed her husband. But she had no head injuries and a slash to a window screen wasn’t large enough for a person to get through, Claypoole said.

    An upstairs neighbor will testify that he heard cries for help, looked out his window, then saw Pandora Zan standing outside with her dog. So will some jail inmates who said Pandora Zan confessed to them, Claypoole said.

    The jury will also be shown video of Zan’s interviews with police and played an audio recording of a phone call she made to her parents after her arrest, Claypoole said.

    Wilmes said the Zans had a “very turbulent marriage,” with “some adultery, some violence.” Pandora Zan was contemplating suicide because “she didn’t see her way out” of the marriage, Wilmes said.

    She invented the story about the intruders because she was “caught in the impossible position” of having her son kill her husband. She lost one, and didn’t want to lose the other, Wilmes said.

    “Pandora was overwrought with guilt,” Wilmes said.

    http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs...an_accuse.html

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Pandora Zan convicted of all charges

    Pandora Zan, the woman accused of plotting with her son to kill her husband, was convicted Friday of all indicted counts, including three counts of complicity to commit aggravated murder.

    The jury, which deliberated from 9:30 a.m. to just before 2:30 p.m., also convicted Zan of two counts of complicity to commit aggravated robbery, two counts of tampering with evidence, and one count of obstructing justice

    Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Wiseman set sentencing for April 14 and ordered a pre-sentencing investigation. She also ordered Zan’s bond revoked, though Zan has been in the county jail since her arrest.

    Zan stayed calm, but began to weep as the verdicts were read.

    Wiseman turned the case over to the jury just before 5 p.m. Thursday. The jury picked a foreperson, then went home.

    Zan, 46, has been on trial the past two weeks. All counts concern the Oct. 17, 2009 stabbing death of Charles Zan. Her son, Cody Henderson, goes on trial in June and could face the death penalty if convicted.

    Charles Zan died from 48 stab wounds during an early morning attack at the Zans’ Miamisburg apartment.

    “What more harm could they have caused him?” asked assistant county prosecutor Erin Claypoole during her closing argument, given earlier Thursday afternoon.

    Zan and Henderson planned the murder to collect the $424,000 Charles Zan had in life insurance, and the two talked about it, Claypoole said.

    “They were spending it before they even had their hands on it,” Claypoole said.

    Claypoole ridiculed Zan’s assertion that her discussion with Henderson about planning Charles Zan’s death was “fantasy talk,” and said that Zan helped Henderson in a number of ways before and after the slaying, including: renting Henderson a car; moving Charles Zan’s gun so he would not have access to it; letting Henderson into the apartment; directing Henderson as to what items to steal; and lying to police repeatedly.

    “They made a plan,” Claypoole said. “They carried out that plan, and Chuck is dead because of that plan.”

    She also said the defense “muddied” Charles Zan, as Pandora Zan and her daughter both testified that Charles Zan beat them and Henderson. Misty Henderson admitted that she praised her late stepfather during an interview with a WHIO-TV reporter, Claypoole said.

    Defense attorney Al Wilmes placed all of the blame on Henderson during his closing argument. Wilmes admitted that Zan had committed two of the lesser indicted crimes: obstructing justice, by lying to police, and tampering with evidence, by wiping down bloody fingerprints at the crime scene.

    “She asks that you find her guilty of those crimes,” Wilmes said.

    Wilmes described a guilt-ridden woman who did not plan the slaying, but unwittingly set it off by complaining about her husband to her son days before. Because of the abuse, “Cody had his own independent reasons not to like Chuck,” Wilmes said.

    He said Zan was a “passive” and “weak-willed” woman who suffered from bipolar disorder, which caused her to blurt out statements she did not mean. He said the jury should keep that in mind when watching the videotapes of her interviews with police, particularly when she admitted to planning the killing with Henderson.

    “The person who did this savage act is Cody,” Wilmes said.

    Assistant county prosecutor Dan Brandt described a different woman: a manipulative woman who got caught up in her lies.

    “The defendant wants you to believe that she’s a grieving widow,” Brandt said, adding that she was a “black widow” who “planned, encouraged, incited, and assisted in her son’s murdering her husband for insurance money.”

    Brandt noted that Zan told police she never used the word “daddy” when talking to other people. They asked her that because her neighbor, who testified, said he heard her say “I’m mad at you, daddy.”

    But Brandt said that a Warren Correctional Institution officer intercepted a sexually graphic letter Zan wrote to Chamare Mays, in which she called Mays, who is in his early 20s, “daddy.”

    Mays is serving a 22-year prison term for a 2010 felonious assault conviction related to an ambush shooting on a Dayton basketball court that left Thomas “Tom-Tom” Watson dead. Mays was convicted of shooting another man in the leg. It was not clear from courtroom testimony how Mays and Zan knew each other.

    But Zan did admit writing the letter and said she called Mays “daddy” because he wanted her to, Brandt said.

    Brandt also read from Zan’s website, words that she wrote weeks before the slaying, in which she praised her husband and said “He has stood by me through so much.”

    Brandt also played a phone call Zan made from the county jail to her daughter, in which Zan discussed her motivations “for agreeing to let Cody do what he did.” During that call the mother and daughter agree that the plan was “stupid” and discuss alternative ways that Charles Zan could have been killed.

    “There’s no ‘stupid-plan defense,’” Brandt said. “We know from her own words that she’s not the grieving widow she pretends to be.”

    http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs..._of_all_c.html

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Related:

    Pandora Zan, convicted of conspiring to kill husband, gets life sentence

    Pandora Zan, convicted of plotting with her son to kill her husband, will spend the rest of her life in prison.

    Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Wiseman sentenced Zan to life without the possibility of parole for her complicity to commit aggravated murder convictions, then added 25 years for her other convictions.

    “This defendant was most certainly the principal instigator,” Wiseman said.

    Wiseman also declined a defense request: that Zan be granted a contact visit with her son, Cody Henderson, who is awaiting trial.

    “There is absolutely no way that that will be granted,” Wiseman told Zan’s attorney Al Wilmes.

    Zan was convicted March 25, after a two-week trial, of three counts of complicity to commit murder, two counts of complicity to commit aggravated robbery, two counts of tampering with evidence, and one count of obstructing justice. Some of those counts merged for the purpose of sentencing, but Wiseman gave the maximum sentence possible.

    Zan, 46, was quiet, but began crying after Wiseman told her she would get life without parole for the complicity to commit murder counts.

    All counts concern the Oct. 17, 2009, stabbing death of Charles Zan. Her son, Cody Henderson, goes on trial in June and could face the death penalty if convicted.

    Charles Zan died from 48 stab wounds during an early morning attack at the Zans’ Miamisburg apartment.

    During the trial, Wilmes placed all of the blame on Henderson during his closing argument. Wilmes admitted that Zan had committed two of the lesser indicted crimes: obstructing justice, by lying to police, and tampering with evidence, by wiping down bloody fingerprints at the crime scene. But he described a guilt-ridden woman who did not plan the slaying, but unwittingly set it off by complaining about her husband to her son days before.

    Before Wiseman issued the sentence, Pandora Zan told Wiseman “I’m sorry that this happened and wish it hadn’t.”

    Wiseman told her that she showed no remorse for her actions.

    Zan’s brother Michael described the agonizing effect of the homicide on his family during a victim-impact statement.

    “Two people were needed to complete their crime,” Michael Zan said. “There were no passive bystanders.”

    Zan and Henderson planned the murder to collect the $424,000 Charles Zan had in life insurance, according to assistant county prosecutors Dan Brandt and Erin Claypoole.

    “They did this out of greed,” Brandt said after the sentencing. “This is one of the worst crimes that I’ve seen: the deviousness, the planning, the cover-up.”

    http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs...ndora_zan.html

  5. #5
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Cody Henderson pleads guilty to killing his stepfather

    Cody Henderson, accused of killing his stepfather, pleaded guilty to all indicted charges Friday, sparing himself the death penalty.

    Under the plea agreement reached with the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s office, Henderson, 21, will spend the rest of his life in prison. Henderson also forfeited his right to appeal on most issues.

    Henderson pleaded before a three-judge panel of Wiseman, Dennis J. Langer and Frances E. McGee to aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, felonious assault and tampering with evidence. He also pleaded guilty to the death penalty specifications: that he committed the murder for hire, and that he committed the murder while committing, attempting to commit or fleeing after committing aggravated robbery.

    Henderson was to go on trial June 20. After he signed the plea forms, prosecutors called a forensic pathologist to testify for the judges about the wounds of Charles Zan.

    All counts concern the Oct. 17, 2009, slaying of Zan, 45, who died from 48 stab wounds during an early morning attack at the Zans’ Miamisburg apartment. Prosecutors said Henderson plotted the attack with his mother, Pandora Zan, and Henderson committed stabbings while his mother waited outside.

    Pandora Zan, 46, was convicted March 25, after a two-week trial, of complicity to commit murder, complicity to commit aggravated robbery, two counts of tampering with evidence and one count of obstruction of justice. Wiseman sentenced Zan April 21 to life without the possibility of parole plus 25 years.

    Zan and Henderson planned the murder to collect the $424,000 Charles Zan had in life insurance, according to assistant county prosecutors.

    http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs..._guilty_t.html

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •