Eugene Henderson Jr. Succumbs to Gunshot Injury 2 Months Later

Eugene Henderson Jr.

He was shot two months ago and ever since then, Eugene Henderson Junior has been fighting for his life.  Henderson Junior was given a fifty percent chance of survival; he and his family kept that hope for two months, but on Friday, it fizzled out when the twenty-two-year-old died. News Five’s Andrea Polanco spoke with Henderson Junior’s mother today; she shared that her son never recovered from the single gunshot wound to the face. She believes her son’s murder may have been committed by persons responsible for her nephew’s disappearance.

Andrea Polanco, Reporting

Two months after he was shot in the head, twenty-two-year-old Eugene Henderson Junior has succumbed to complications related to his injury. Since he was shot on June ninth, Henderson never fully recovered. He spent a long time in a hospital, half of his body was paralyzed and he wasn’t able to talk again. In the days before his death, Henderson was placed on a feeding tube – and just prior to passing away, he complained of pain and weakness. His mother, Sherilee Twist, recounts his painful attempt at recovery – that ended on Friday night around nine-forty.

Voice of: Sherilee Twist, Mother of Deceased

“The only way he was responding was if we give him a pen to write and then he will tell us how he feels and what he wants. He couldn’t talk any at all. He couldn’t walk and the left side of him was already paralyzed. But during those times he responded to us. We brought him and it was a back and forth thing. We did take him back and the doctor told us that he wouldn’t be the same and that it was a fifty-fifty chance with the situation he was in. So, that was it until that day he passed. I spent the whole day with and he was still responding and everything because I didn’t even think that that day he would pass away. He was complaining that he was getting weak and everything but he put up a good fight because he was so strong, so strong.”

Sometime around ten p.m., on Saturday, June ninth, Henderson was asleep on a couch inside the lower flat of his aunt’s house in Roaring Creek Village when someone ran inside and fired a shot that caught him in the side of the head. Twist shares more about the terrifying moment.

Voice of: Sherilee Twist

“He was the first one out of everyone to go and fall asleep. That night it was – I can’t even say exactly what happened that night because it hurt so much. He did no-one nothing. I was sitting on the verandah and my gentleman and others were downstairs. During that time sitting on the verandah, I just hear a big bang but I didn’t even – I thought it was dynamite or something when I hear all the screaming and I run downstairs. Then I saw my son there and they said, ‘Bunk get shot.’ That is his nickname, Bunk. They said, “Bunk get shot.”

Henderson was shot once in the right side of the head. But why was he targeted in Roaring Creek? The Burrell Boom resident was in the village for a memorial for his missing cousin Oswald Arnold. It is alleged that a group of boys took Arnold fishing – and when he never returned home his family suspected that he had been killed. Twist believes there is a connection between her nephew’s disappearance and the deadly attack on her son.

Andrea Polanco

“Miss Sherilee, do you think this shooting has anything to do with your nephew’s disappearance?”

Voice of: Sherilee Twist

“Well, I think it has something to do with it. They think that when we went up there to help with the search that the people responsible for my son, because I am saying it is the same people responsible for my son’s shooting are the same ones responsible for my nephew. So, I said they were so scared thinking that we come up there for some revenge, but no.”

The man who allegedly did it is eighteen-year-old Rudolph Welcome. He was charged with attempted murder and released on bail back in June. Police say that he is now in custody and the charge will be upgraded to murder. Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.

The Henderson family is asking for the public’s assistance to bury Eugene Henderson. If you’d like to assist, you can call Sherilee Twist at 632-2341.