CHICAGO — Update 4/15/2021: The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed Tre Henderson's conviction for first degree murder.
"The Court of Appeals determined prosecutors presented significant circumstantial evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt Henderson caused the injuries and death to the child," Scott County Attorney Michael Walton said in a statement Thursday, April 15, 2021.
Original story:
A Chicago man convicted of killing his girlfriend's five-year-old son will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Tre Henderson, 28, was taking care of his girlfriend's five-year-old son, JaShawn Bussell, on Sunday, April 22 of 2017. Henderson "knowingly acted in a manner which caused substantial risk to the child's safety and failed to seek medical treatment" after the child suffered a head injury, according to the Davenport Police Department.
They say the child "vomited multiple times over a four-day period" after sustaining the head injury. He was airlifted to the hospital.
"He was pronounced dead Tuesday. He had broken ribs, he had a fractured spine, he had the brain injury, bleeding on the brain," the boy's aunt, Esha Malone, who lives in Wisconsin, said.
"From what we know, they say he was beaten to death," Malone said, who is the sister of the boy's father.
Prosecutors say Henderson beat Jashawn to death. The child's mother Jacqueline Rambert was also charged in the case.
The U.S. Marshal's Great Lakes Fugitive Task Force arrested Henderson in Gary, Indiana on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2018.
JaShawn's mother, Jacqueline Majanise Rambert, was arrested in Chicago and charged with first-degree murder and child endangerment. She pleaded guilty to two counts of child endangerment.
Rambert was sentenced Friday, March 20 in Davenport to 50 years in prison.
Henderson and Rambert are both from Chicago and were living in a Davenport apartment when the boy was beaten.
Henderson was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in early April 2020. A Scott County jury had convicted him in March 2020.