He asked for sex from girls walking in Wichita neighborhood. Now, he’s going to prison
A Sedgwick County judge on Monday ordered a 45-year-old man to serve nearly three years in prison for soliciting sex from three underage girls walking in southeast Wichita’s Planeview neighborhood last year.
Wichita police have said Damien R. Henderson approached the girls, ages 7 to 13, on Jan. 11, 2023, and asked them to have sex. At least one of the girls told police Henderson tried to grab her during the encounter, which left her “shaking very badly” and feeling uneasy, a probable cause affidavit released in the case says. She told police “she thought she was going to be kidnapped,” according to the affidavit.
The girls ran to a home in the neighborhood and told their parents. A family member flagged down officers at the intersection of Yale and Dunham around 7:35 p.m., police said previously. None of the girls were harmed.
The affidavit says Henderson saw the girls go into the home “and ran away on foot.” Officers checking the area found Henderson at a nearby QuikTrip, near 31st South and K-15, and detained him.
The girls were able to identify Henderson from a photo lineup. At least one of relative of Henderson told authorities he “had been on a two-day bender” where he smoked Phencyclidine, an illegal street drug known as PCP or angel dust, after his uncle’s death and “had not been himself,” the affidavit says.
It’s unclear from the affidavit whether or how Henderson explained the situation. Much of the document is redacted and the only visible reference to a possible interview is one sentence that says he laid on the floor of an interview room and committed a sex act on himself before taking a nap.
Henderson, of Wichita, pleaded guilty on Nov. 8 to three counts of aggravated indecent solicitation of a child and one count of attempted kidnapping, court records show.
Henderson’s lawyer asked Sedgwick County District Judge Tyler Roush to impose probation instead of a prison sentence, saying Henderson “accepts responsibility for harm caused,” has “significant familial and community support” and is willing to participate in community-based treatment programs, court filings show.
But the judge sided with the prosecution’s recommendation for prison and imposed a 34-month sentence. Henderson will be subject to post-release supervision for life, according to court documents.
