I'm better, not bitter after years in jail

In 2017, Judy Henderson collapsed to her knees in a Missouri prison visiting room, tears streaming as then-Governor Eric Greitens delivered the words she’d waited over three decades to hear: clemency granted.

Her sentence – life without parole – commuted to time served. At 60, Henderson was finally free.

“I still get chills,” she told The Christian Post. “He said, ‘Judy, it’s good news. It’s good news for you.’”

Henderson’s nightmare began in 1981. A mother, business owner and the eldest of eight, she was sentenced to life for a murder she didn’t commit – caught in the crossfire of a fatal jewellery store robbery orchestrated by her then-boyfriend. He pulled the trigger. She took the fall.

To make matters worse, both shared the same lawyer. “I went to trial first,” Henderson explained. “I couldn’t take the stand and tell the truth because it would hurt his other client. You can’t give one a fair trial and not the other.”

Her conviction stood. Her future evaporated.

What followed was a slow-motion death sentence – half a century behind bars. 

Henderson described entering prison in a fog, reeling with disbelief and fury. “I was very, very angry to begin with,” she said. But then came a turning point: a Christian retreat for lifers.

“God speaks of love in the Bible. He loved us so much that he died for us. Whenever I saw the enormity of how much love was in this three-day retreat, and how these volunteers chose to do this because they had the love of God in them. That gave me hope.”

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