ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – A radio call about shots fired 43 years ago still haunts a veteran officer who answered the call. That rookie officer responded to a fellow cop—who he’d just spoken to—dead in the street.
FOX 2’s interview with this officer took us down a road of mystery as well as hope, as one police department found a unique way to uphold the fallen officer’s legacy.
The murder occurred in October 1981, when veteran Wellston Sgt. Jesse Henderson was gunned down. Archive video from that time indicated the only clue left behind was a brown hat that police believed belonged to one of the suspects.
St. Louis County Police detectives searched for evidence in manholes and focused on a liquor store, where Henderson responded to an alarm call. We tracked down one of the homicide detectives seen in the video—now-retired Sgt. Ken Dye, who now lives in Florida.
“I’ve gotta tell you, I think about it every day,” Dye said via Zoom. “We shouldn’t forget this case because Jesse Henderson was a good, solid man. He was a Wellston police officer for 23 years. He was shot down by a heartless, soulless thug. I just wish to hell I could’ve done a little more.”
We also caught up with an active-duty officer, who was the first to respond. He was a rookie cop back then for Hillsdale when he said he bumped into Henderson at 7/11 that tragic night.
“It’s something I’ll never forget,” Lt. Mark Brown said, now with the North County Police Cooperative. “It was very shortly thereafter—maybe ten minutes at the most, or less. The call came out, ‘Shots fired, officer down.’”
We met Brown at the very spot on Plymouth Avenue near Stephen Jones Avenue.
Brownadded, “he was laying down, his head was like underneath the passenger wheel of the vehicle and I was asking him what was going on. He didn’t answer. Then I heard shots being fired, so I crawled a little bit under the vehicle with him trying to figure out what was going on.”
He later learned it was other officers firing in response to three suspects who were arrested and charged under then prosecutor Buzz Westphal. Those charges were later dropped with no explanation, leaving Henderson’s 11 children forever wondering.
“I mean you know, c’mon, they do it on TV all the time. They catch the criminal,” Phil Henderson said.
Phil was 21 when his dad died. The wound seems just as fresh after 43 years.
“I just hope that it comes out that he was a good cop, and he should be honored for his service,” he said.
That’s where Steven James comes in. He’s paralyzed from the waist down. He paints, often with the motive of healing.
“I kinda understand how you feel when you lose someone. You want them back so bad,” James said.
We caught up with James while he was working on a portrait of Henderson. The painter has his own emotional story after being shot in the back by masked robbers while walking in Wellston on Christmas Eve 2021. He was with a friend who died.
“(The robbers) had this saying: ‘No matter what man, y’all still going to die tonight!’ and that’s when a chill went up my spine,” he added.
His work attracted the attention of the North County Police Cooperative, which works with James to paint for crime victims. The Coop’s Major Ron Martin has arranged about a dozen portraits, including the latest for Henderson’s family.
During a ceremony to unveil the painting, Major Martin said, “There might be a misnomer out there that because the police department’s gone, so is the memory of your father.”
Wellston is now patrolled by the cooperative, a department determined to remember Henderson. The painting was unveiled to the family for the first time, and the moment was met with tears.
“Oh, my goodness. That is fabulous. My daddy,” Phil said. “It means that he’s never going to be forgotten. I’m feeling emotional right now just talking about it. It’s a good feeling—a very good feeling. I love it.”
If you have information about the 1981 murder of Sgt. Jesse Henderson, call Crimestoppers at 866-371-TIPS (8477). You can remain anonymous.
