Tape paves way for trial in 1996 double killing
On the recording made in prison, Andre Henry allegedly brags about the Fern Rock assaults.
After hearing a recording in which a defendant bragged about killing two men inside a Fern Rock crack house, a Municipal Court judge yesterday found there was enough evidence to try Andre Henry in the decade-old case.
Judge David C. Shuter also denied the defendant's request to act as his own attorney.
"These proceedings are not going to be fair," Henry, wearing a white-knit skullcap, told the judge. "I'd like to proceed myself."
The recording, made in a prison in Somerset County this year by an inmate cooperating with authorities, was played in court yesterday by Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline Juliana Coelho. On it, Henry, 29, brags about the shootings.
Henry is accused of killing Jamillian Mallory, 21, and Sean Young, 23, both of West Oak Lane, in 1996 in a robbery. Mallory was found dead on the steps of the house in the 5700 block of Park Avenue and Young was found in the basement. Both were shot in the head.
Shuter set an arraignment date of Nov. 15.
Henry also faces charges in federal court of using young women with clean records to make straw purchases of firearms that he could not legally possess.
Federal authorities have called Henry's activities a brazen case of a felon using women to buy guns, then using the weapons in a crime spree in 2003. That year, according to federal authorities, Henry robbed two banks and seven fast-food restaurants, fired shots at a Philadelphia police officer, and solicited the murder of grand-jury witnesses.
