The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of John Patrick Henretta for the rape, murder, robbery and kidnapping of Frances Rose Crabtree, a 32-year-old Bradley County thrift store employee.
Henretta and his accomplice, Michael Goodhart, were on the run for crimes committed in Pennsylvania. On November 30, 1988, Henretta and Goodhart stopped in Cleveland, Tenn., and decided to rob the Salvation Army Thrift Store after it closed. During the robbery, both Henretta and Goodhart raped the victim. Before leaving the store, Henretta stabbed the victim in the neck, leaving her to bleed to death on the storeroom floor.
The murder remained unsolved until 1994, when the Cleveland Police Department learned of a letter Goodhart wrote to a Pennsylvania federal judge providing details of the crime. Henretta was indicted in 1997 and later convicted of first degree premeditated murder in 2002.
In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Sharon G. Lee, the Supreme Court rejected all of the issues raised in Henretta’s automatic appeal and concluded that none of the issues presented entitled Henretta to relief. The Court affirmed the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals and held that the sentence was not imposed arbitrarily, nor was the sentence excessive or disproportionate. The Supreme Court set Henretta’s execution date at October 4, 2011.