Sarabeth's in Manhattan. (Facebook/Sarabeth's Upper West Side)
BOSTON (WBZ-AM/AP) -- A man who faced charges in a pair of Boston murders from three decades ago is dead after a bizarre incident at a popular brunch spot in New York City, just days after he was granted bail.
The NYPD says Carlton Henderson jumped out of a freezer at Sarabeth's restaurant in Manhattan's Upper West Side on Sunday, threatening workers with a knife while screaming "Away from me, Satan!" Henderson later went into cardiac arrest and died. Restaurant-goers were stunned.
"It's the most bizarre story I've ever heard," one customer said.
"It's definitely the place to go around here, so that's why it's so scary," said another.
Henderson, 54, of Cave Creek, Arizona, was indicted last year on two counts of first-degree murder in the 1988 killings of 26-year-old William Medina and 22-year-old Antonio Dos Reyes in Boston. He was arrested in St. Louis in June 2017, based on statements the Suffolk County District Attorney's office said Henderson was alleged to have made in the 1990s that he and others took part in the murders.
But Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders said those statements were inadmissible, because Henderson and investigators had an understanding that they couldn't be used against him. Henderson was looking to trade the information for a reduction in a 15-year prison sentence on drug and gun charges, Sanders wrote, and investigators treated him as a cooperating witness--not a target or a suspect--in his 55 hours of questioning.
Prosecutors from the Suffolk DA's office argued such an informal immunity agreement, known as a proffer, would have been made in writing and no corroborating paperwork has been found, and opposed Henderson's motion to suppress--but Sanders granted the motion on July 31, and reduced Henderson's bail to personal recognizance.
The incident in New York with the knife happened just three days after his release. It wasn't yet known what he was doing in New York City, or how he got into the restaurant's freezer.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report)
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Ben Parker (@radiobenparker) reports