Henry Dexter Greene, accused of manslaughter in the death of his stepson, was due to stand trial in Leflore County Circuit Court earlier this week.
But that will never happen. Greene, 52, took his own life outside his South Boulevard home Tuesday morning after potential jurors already were assembled in the courthouse.
His attorney, Patricia Rodgers of Greenwood, said she spoke with Greene by phone at 8:15 that morning. They arranged for him to meet her at the courthouse at 8:30. But he didn’t show.
Eventually, Greenwood police officers went to his house and discovered that Greene had shot himself with a .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol inside a truck parked behind the house.
“Once we had seated the jury, he still hadn’t come in,” Circuit Clerk Elmus Stockstill said. After a while, he found out why.
“It definitely was a sad moment up there,” he said.
Greene, charged in the death of his 30-year-old stepson, Trevose Stansberry of Greenwood, was a retired corrections officer. Rodgers said he had worked at Delta Correctional Facility and on death row at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. He was a former security officer for The Alluvian.
Assistant Police Chief Marvin Hammond said he and Greene attended Wesley United Methodist Church when they were boys. “We kind of grew up in the church together,” he said.
Rodgers said testimony would have revealed that Greene and his wife, Louise, were living on Madison Avenue on Aug. 25, 2017, when his wife and her son, Stansberry, had an altercation in the yard and she called upon her husband “to come to her aid — and he did.”
According to Rodgers, Stansberry, who had a gun inside a car on the property, had become irate and had threatened Greene. “He was attempting to subdue his stepson,” Rodgers said. “He was trying only to hold him down.”
She said, however, it was undisputed that Stansberry died from oxygen deprivation caused by a chokehold his stepfather administered. Police arrived at the Madison Avenue address, and Stansberry was taken to Greenwood Leflore Hospital. Two days later, he was taken off life support, Rodgers said.
Still, Rodgers said she had expected Greene to be found not guilty. “He was really a sweet guy,” she said.
“He was so remorseful about what happened. He was just devastated, and he never got over it.”
• Contact Susan Montgomery at 581-7241 or smontgomery@gwcommonwealth.com.
