Details emerge in 2004 gas station slaying
The Palm Beach Post
Saturday, July 15, 2006
By ANDREW MARRA
LAKE WORTH, Fla. – The murder at the Texaco gas station started as a whim, a haphazard Plan B for three cash-hungry hoodlums, police say. It was what they did when they had run out of ideas.
But when it was over, when the Korean gas station owner was dead behind his counter and the suspects’ white Chevrolet Cavalier had fled Lake Worth, police say Jermaine Henderson, the ringleader, suddenly became meticulous.
He removed his blood-spattered shirt. He tore off the getaway car’s rear spoiler. He used a razor blade to peel the words “Sexy B” from the window. And then, to cleanse himself of gunpowder, he urinated on his hands.
The trail Henderson and his accomplices are accused of leaving was so cold they just might have gotten away with it.
Except Henderson did not ditch the gun.
It’s been nearly two years now, and two men have been indicted on murder charges in the October 2004 killing of Bong Soo Chon, the 52-year-old owner of a Texaco gas station in Lake Worth.
But documents released this week show police believe Henderson, a 25-year-old convict who has not been officially charged, was the one who ordered Chon to bend forward and fired a bullet into the top of his skull.
The newly released court documents, including confessions from the two men charged so far in the murder, reveal for the first time why police believe Chon was killed - and how those accused of the killing were tracked down.
Authorities say Henderson and his accomplices were looking for fast cash on Oct. 11, the day they ended up at the Texaco on 10th Avenue North and Dixie Highway. But finding it at a gas station was never their plan.
The two accomplices - Derek Deon Glinton, 25, of Lantana and Shane Farley, 24, of West Palm Beach - told police their original plan was to rob a Wendy’s restaurant at the intersection of Hypoluxo and Jog roads. Henderson’s younger brother worked there and had told them what time the manager would take money from the safe and bring it to the bank.
The three men in the white Cavalier saw an employee leave the restaurant with the money and began to follow. But Farley told police he intentionally made a wrong turn and lost him.
Their plan was foiled, but Henderson soon began hatching another. As they drove north on Jog Road, he told Glinton and Farley that he wanted to rob a bank.
Because they had no plan for doing so, they talked him out of it. With Farley behind the wheel, they drove into Lake Worth. When they passed the Texaco, Henderson told him to pull in.
The Cavalier parked between the gas pumps and the front door. Henderson, in a black T-shirt, pulled a black bandana over his face. But as Henderson stepped inside, Farley saw it slip off.
Waiting in the car, Farley said, he and Glinton heard a gunshot a moment later. Then, according to court records, they saw Henderson emerge holding a wad of cash.
He stepped back into the car with his shirt covered in blood, records show. He told them he shot Chon because the man had seen his face.
After the murder, Lake Worth police ran down lead after lead with no success. But they knew one thing: The bullet that killed Chon was a .38-caliber Winchester.
That turned out to be the big break.
Just two days after the murder, Henderson’s girlfriend was pulled over in front of their Boynton Beach motel room for a traffic violation. When Henderson came outside, a Boynton Beach police officer checked his record and learned there was a warrant out for his arrest for failing to appear for a mandatory court date.
Before arresting him, the officer searched the motel room. Inside he found a rusty .38-caliber revolver - and two boxes of Winchester bullets.
Police confiscated the weapon and charged Henderson with illegal possession of a weapon by a felon. He was taken to jail to await trial and was later sentenced to an 18-year prison term for the weapon charge and an earlier charge of armed robbery.
His gun was sent away for testing. Meanwhile, detectives continued tracking down other leads. Eight months passed before Lake Worth police got a call from the sheriff’s office’s crime lab that broke the case: DNA taken from the barrel of Henderson’s gun belonged to Chon, the murder victim.
Detectives put pressure first on Henderson’s girlfriend. They tapped his mother’s phone. They listened in on his collect calls from prison. Then they tracked down his two accomplices, Farley and Glinton. Both eventually confessed to taking part in the Texaco heist.
The two men were indicted by a grand jury in May on first-degree murder charges for their role in the deadly robbery. Both are now in the Palm Beach County Jail.
It is not clear whether Henderson has already been charged in a sealed indictment or if authorities are finalizing their investigation before pursuing charges. Because he is already serving a long-term prison sentence, he is not considered a flight risk.
Lake Worth police and the state attorney’s office both declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
Kevin Butkier, Chon’s brother-in-law, said the family did not realize until Friday that police had been eyeing a third suspect, nor did they know any of the details of the case.
But Butkier said he was saddened to learn Chon was killed over cash.
“My brother-in-law had always said a life is more important than money,” he said.