Trial in October 2018 murder underway

That alleged action didn’t sit well with Henderson, Freeman said, and when they returned to Thompson’s home that night he privately told her that she “deserved better.” DeFilippo went to sleep in the home while the three men fell asleep in the car in the early morning hours of Oct. 28.

DeFilippo told Thompson what Henderson had said, Freeman told the court. When they woke the next morning around 10:30 a.m., Freeman said, DeFilippo got in the car with the three men with Henderson still asleep in the front seat. While they were out getting food, gas and cigarettes, Thompson told DeFilippo, who was driving, to make a left turn on Livingston Road. That’s when Thompson allegedly shot Henderson in the back of the head, Freeman said.

“She looked to her right and sees the defendant holding a firearm to the head of Ronaj Henderson,” Freeman said, adding that it was immediately apparent he was dead from the gunshot. They picked up another individual, 50-year-old Eric Nolan Washington, who helped dispose of Henderson’s body about 200 feet into the woods in Nanjemoy, taking his shoes off his dead body before leaving.

Henderson was missing for eight days before the Charles County Sheriff’s Office was even aware something had transpired, Freeman said. His family had been searching for him to no avail before DeFilippo hit what Freeman called “a breaking point” and told her mother and sister what happened. DeFilippo’s aunt, a sheriff’s office corrections officer, talked to detectives and an investigation was soon underway.

Freeman said DeFilippo and Thompson were “together nonstop” between the time of the shooting and their apprehension in Arlington, Va., on Nov. 2. Police found them there through DeFilippo’s phone, and while she was being interviewed in custody offered to lead officers to the location of Henderson’s body in Nanjemoy, where the body was found behind a log.

“A gunshot to the head of a man who’s sleeping. That’s first-degree murder,” Freeman said.

Thompson’s defense attorney William Porter painted a starkly different picture of that night. For the purpose of simplicity, Porter said, he’d elected to refer to Henderson by his nickname “Psycho” throughout the course of the trial. The “cleaned up” version of events given by the prosecution wasn’t the full and accurate story, Porter contended, asking the jury to “not believe a word out of Sarah DeFilippo’s mouth.”

“She will sit and lie to you,” Porter said.

Porter said while Thompson is “not an angel,” he was not responsible for Henderson’s death. The night before his death, Porter said, all three men and DeFilippo were doing drugs together when a “heated exchange” took place between Henderson and DeFilippo over her not paying for any of the drugs they were using. Danielson also had a problem with Henderson, Porter told the court: In fact, he said, his client was the only one there that night who didn’t have some sort of issue with the man.

DeFilippo, Porter said, “is very manipulative and will tell anyone what they want to hear.”