Schiever called Parker's slaying "another awful, tragic, needless, senseless death in our community" and noted his frustration that the only two witnesses to the crime were the victim's girlfriend and Henderson herself.

Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department detectives never interviewed any employees of the convenience store at 3401 Red Bridge Road. No detectives testified in Henderson's trial, which took just one day. Henderson and her attorney, Pat Peters, having waived the right to a jury trial, presented the case only to the judge, citing concerns with the media attention the case had received and the difficulty of finding an impartial jury.

Peters explained that Henderson and Parker were acquainted. They met when she was 15 years old and a resident of Charlie Parker Square and he was three years younger. On the stand, Henderson testified that she saw Parker every day until 2003, when her grandmother moved the family out of the neighborhood. Prior to the move, she said she and Parker got in one fight, when he was 17 and she was 20, over some go-carts left behind by security guards at a Juneteenth celebration. Neighborhood kids started up the abandoned go-carts after the festival and were joyriding through the streets. Henderson tried to stop Parker from getting in one, she said, and he punched her in her face when they scuffled. Henderson's male friends, angry that Parker had hit a girl, roughed up Parker. Six months later, Parker was shot, nonfatally, by an unidentified person. Peters told the judge that a neighborhood rumor had started that Henderson was behind the shooting. Even though she wasn't the shooter, Henderson testified, Parker's brother, Brandon, later fired a shotgun at a house she was staying at with friends one night.

In the summer of 2004, Henderson testified, she was at the Greyhound bus station on 12th Street, talking on her cell phone, when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a truck coming at her, driven by Parker. She jumped onto the curb, out of the way. She said that was the last she saw of Parker until they locked eyes at the convenience store on September 2, 2006.

Parker's girlfriend, Miea Bentley, testified against Henderson today. In her version of events, she and Parker were on their way to Bentley's mother's house to pick up their son and head to a family gathering when Parker stopped at a BP station to pick up blunt-rolling papers and cigarettes. Parker had just re-entered the truck with his purchases when he caught sight of Henderson headed toward the door of the store. His expression changed, Bentley said, and Parker and Henderson stared at each other. Parker turned the radio down and pulled Bentley down, toward the truck's center console. Bentley testified that she heard three shots. (Police say five were fired.) When the shooting stopped, according to Bentley, Parker sat up and said, "That bitch." Then, she testified, his eyes rolled back in his head and his foot revved the gas pedal of the truck. Bentley jumped out of the car, cut herself on broken glass from the driver's side window and went into the store, where she called her mother. Her mother beat MAST ambulance drivers to the scene. Parker was pronounced dead of one gunshot wound. The bullet entered through his left arm, pierced his side and went through his heart and left lung.

In Henderson's version of events, she locked eyes with Parker, whom she believed once tried to kill her by running her over. She said that when she was in front of his truck, Parker revved the engine while trying to switch the truck into gear, so she jumped onto the curb, where she was stuck between the truck and the wall of the store. When she saw Parker turn the wheel sharply in her direction, she testified, she believed he was going to ram her, so she pulled a .45 from her waistband and started shooting as she ran away from the truck, behind it and back to the car driven by her friend.

The judge believed Henderson's story, which was bolstered by the fact that the autopsy revealed glass shards lodged on the inside of Parker's right arm. That injury, the judge said, was more consistent with the action of turning the wheel sharply toward Henderson rather than ducking and shielding Bentley. Schieber said he believed Henderson could have "outmaneuvered" the truck and avoided killing Parker, which is why he did not find her not guilty by reason of self-defense, as argued by Peters.

Also, as reported in this story, Henderson testified she never crossed state lines while on the run for six months, was not a member of any gang and never shaved her head to change her appearance.

What was supposed to be the trial of Kansas City's premier girl gangster turned out to be a story not much different than most KC homicide cases: two young people with criminal histories who decide they must kill or be killed.

Sentencing will take place December 19.