Crime & Safety

Henderson Trial: Suspect Cross-Examines Women He's Charged with Raping

The jury also viewed a surveillance video investigators say implicates Arthur Henderson.

Final Victim

The last of of three women Arthur Henderson is charged with raping in January 2012 testified Wednesday afternoon that she was assaulted in front of her 4-month-old baby, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported .

The woman said she had just returned to her townhouse in the Cascade Apartments after walking her dog around 9 a.m. on Jan. 9, 2012.

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According to the newspaper, she entered a darkened bedroom and discovered her fiancé bound and gagged on the floor. She then noticed a dark figure in the corner of the room.

"I started screaming," she said. "I said, 'Please, don't do this.' He said, 'If you say anything, I'm going to go in that room and kill your fiancé.' "

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Henderson, 39, of the North Side, is representing himself at trial. He is cross-examining the witnesses, although Allegheny County President Judge Donna Jo McDaniel ordered that he remain seated while asking his questions.

WPXI-TV reported that Henderson asked one of the women if they, "had sex."

The woman tearfully responded, "No. You raped me in my infant's room."

Second Victim

On Tuesday, a second woman testified a man wearing a black ski mask forced his way into her home in the Woodhawk Apartments as she was returning around 9 a.m. on Jan. 7, the Post-Gazette reported

"In his right hand, he had a pistol. He pushed it in, pointed it at my stomach, and I immediately backed up into my apartment," she testified.

At first, her attacker demanded money and told her to lock up the dogs. He ordered her to undress and raped her, the newspaper reported.

Surveillance Video

Prosecutors also introduced surveillance video from inside the Rivers Casino on the morning of Jan. 7, 2012, WPXI-TV reported. Investigators said it shows Henderson circling the parking lot in his car, and eventually following another car out of the garage.

Police said Henderson followed the woman in the car to her Hopewell home where he raped and robbed her. 

First Victim

She was the first to testify Tuesday and told jurors she pleaded with Henderson not to rape her as he held a gun to her head.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported the woman testified with tears in her eyes.

“I kept telling him, 'Don't do this to me. Please don't to this to me,” she said. “I knew what my eyes were seeing, but my mind was not believing it.' ”

The woman, 50, was stoic when she took the stand and relayed to the jury what occurred, the Tribune-Review reported. She choked up when describing how Henderson raped her twice and barely winced when Henderson cross-examined her.

“This is the chair that I was raped on,” she told the jury, pointing at a photo.

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