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Marlene Henderson sentenced to jail for aggravated assault

May 18, 2011 | 10:10 AM

About a dozen of Marlene Henderson’s family members hugged her goodbye after she was sentenced to 18 months in jail Wednesday morning at the Court of Queen’s Bench in Prince Albert.

Marlene was originally charged with second-degree murder in relation to the death of her cousin, Helen Henderson, on Apr. 4, 2008.

However, she ended up pleading guilty to a lesser charge of aggravated assault because the prosecution was unable to prove Marlene’s actions caused Helen’s death.

The court heard that Marlene and Helen were partying with two other family relatives, and at about 1:00 a.m., Marlene began to kick Helen in the stomach because of a jealousy over a man.

When the party ended, Helen went to sleep, and in the morning Marlene found her dead and called the police.

The autopsy showed Helen suffered from a torn intestine and some loss of blood. However, it also revealed that Helen’s blood-alcohol level was at 0.410, which is about five times above the legal limit.

Therefore, it could not be determined if Helen died from the injury or from consuming too much alcohol.

Crown prosecutor Jeff Lubyk and defence lawyer Greg Chovin entered a joint submission of 18 months in jail, followed by two years of probation, which the judge accepted.

“Both the Crown and defence took the position that given all the evidence, that we anticipated could realistically be produced at the trial, that this was the reasonable outcome,” said Chovin.

“As far as the sentence, this was the reasonable sentence when all the circumstances were taken into account.”

Marlene was also sentenced to three months, to be served concurrently, for attempting to influence a witness to not testify.

rpilon@panow.com