EVERETT — One of two defendants charged with killing an 82-year-old Marysville man in January 2013 has pleaded guilty.
Delaney R. Henry, 29, entered her plea to second-degree murder in Snohomish County Superior Court Friday.
Prosecutors alleged that Henry served as a lookout when Arthur Schroeder was fatally stabbed in his travel trailer at the Brookside Mobile Home Park off State Avenue on Jan. 24.
Robert Kennedy, 27, who’s accused of killing Schroeder during a robbery, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison if he’s convicted. Schroeder was believed to have a lot of money from his years as a business owner and later as an investor in stocks and bonds, according to court records.
Henry had no criminal history; Kennedy had an extensive one, including robbery and attempted robbery convictions.
Although she might not have been involved in the actual stabbing, Henry is guilty of second-degree murder under the state’s “accomplice liability” law, deputy prosecutor Andrew Alsdorf said.
She could face more than 20 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for March 13.
Schroeder was a convicted sex offender, but prosecutors don’t believe his killing was motivated by his criminal past.
Henry and Kennedy allegedly admitted to several people that they killed Schroeder inside his small trailer.
They also reportedly told people that they robbed Schroeder of about $200 and the key to a safety deposit box they believed held $20,000. It didn’t.
Henry, 28, allegedly told some people that she killed Schroeder because he raped her. She later told detectives that Schroeder propositioned her for sex in the past, but she denied that he ever sexually assaulted her, Alsdorf wrote in court papers.
Henry was Schroeder’s neighbor at the mobile home park. She allegedly told detectives that she visited his trailer every other weekend. Phone records indicate that Henry called Schroeder twice the day he was killed.
The records also show that she called Kennedy. Video surveillance shows the suspects together on a bus the afternoon before the slaying. Henry was wearing a scarf similar to the one detectives found at the crime scene.
Schroeder had been stabbed four times. His heart had been pierced and his throat had been slashed. His tidy trailer had been ransacked. His cellphone, wallet and a jewelry box were missing. Schroeder’s truck was gone. The pickup truck was discovered the next day abandoned in Arlington. Someone had torched it.
Witnesses told detectives that the defendants had blood on their clothes and were in possession of three bloodied knives when they went to a Marysville home the night Schroeder was killed.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446; stevick@heraldnet.com.
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