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Family hoping for new clues in 1965 murder outside Fridley bar

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Updated  October 10, 2024 10:29am CDT
Fridley
FOX 9

Family hopes for new clues in 1965 Fridley murder

A woman is still hoping for new clues in the case of her father's murder almost 59 years later. FOX 9's Corin Hoggard has the full story.

The Brief

    • Scrip Troy Henderson's family wants a new investigation into his 1965 murder outside a Fridley bar.
    • "Serious flaws" doomed the initial investigation. A woman was arrested, but she escaped, and later died. Henderson's family doesn't believe she's the killer.
    • Anoka County recently got funding for cold case investigations. The detective says he’s aware of Henderson’s case, but has nothing new to add.

FRIDLEY, Minn. (FOX 9) - A murder victim’s daughter is looking to shake loose new clues in the case almost 59 years later. Scrip Troy Henderson's family always held out hope for a resolution and a new development at the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office brought those hopes back into focus.

Halloween horror

Joanne Henderson’s horror story started when she was just 3 years old, before she really registered her father in any memories.

"I don't remember much, but through the years, no Father's Day," she told FOX 9.

When someone murdered the 27-year-old at Red’s Bar in Fridley on Halloween night in 1965, word spread fast to family halfway across the country.

"We were all shocked and disappointed," said Jeanne H. Simmons, his niece. "Hurt like a family does when you lose a family member."

‘Serious flaws’ in murder investigation

The disappointment only got worse as the investigation floundered.

Thirty-one years later, in 1996, the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training pointed out in a letter that, "it would not take a rocket scientist to see that some serious flaws exist."

Margaret Thomas, 30, was arrested in Minneapolis two weeks after the murder, but she escaped custody.

"Never heard from, never seen again," said Joanne Henderson. "But she escaped, no warrants. How many times does that happen?"

Thomas died from a drug overdose in Michigan ten years after the murder.

Did the killer already die?

But Henderson’s family doesn’t believe she’s the person who shot him at least six times at close range.

They suspect the fact that he was Black may have led investigators to take the case less seriously. They know a couple of white men moved Henderson's car, and they think witnesses had to have seen or heard something.

So they’ve asked detectives to give the case a new look a few times.

"Why should we let it go while we suffered all these years?" said Henderson's widow, Donna Carter, in a 2006 interview with FOX 9.

Carter has died since talking to us about the case 18 years ago. Her son also died believing his father's murder was unsolved.

New cold case unit: Nothing new to add

Joanne Henderson was hoping Anoka County would pick up the trail under a new cold case grant, and the cold case detective tells us he’s aware of Henderson’s case, but has nothing new to add.

As the decades pass, the case grows colder, and the memory bank empties.

"I kind of missed him for a while, you know?" said Simmons. "But after that, it just seemed to fade away."

In fact, Joanne and Jeanne wanted to pay a visit to the scene of the crime on Wednesday, but they couldn’t quite remember where Red’s Bar was. It used to be at University Avenue Northeast and 61st, but like a lot of the other details from Scrip Henderson’s story, it’s now gone.