Black Military Wife Shot and Spat On—It Still Wasn’t Enough for a Murder Conviction
Despite home security footage of a white man killing his wife and desecrating her body, a Kentucky jury downgraded the charge to manslaughter.
A Rineyville man who shot and killed his wife at her birthday party has been found guilty of first-degree manslaughter. On June 26, 2023, Jordan Henning, 34, shot his wife, Ashley Henning, 37, during a heated argument. Video footage shows Henning walking down the stairs of their home behind Ashley and following her behind a living room wall, when a gunshot rang out. Moments later, he was seen reloading his handgun before shooting her again. Afterward, he was shown spitting on her corpse. Their children were home at the time of the shooting.
During his testimony on the stand in late March, Henning claimed he suffered years of physical and mental abuse that included Ashley kicking him down the stairs and biting him.
Both Hennings were active-duty military members. Ashley Henning was a Sergeant First Class in the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Knox.
However, despite the footage presented, after rendering the guilty verdict, the jury recommended that Jordan Henning serve only 20 years, the maximum sentence for the Class B felony. Ashley Henning’s cousin, U.S. Marine Chief Warrant Officer John Williams, had pointed words for the all-white jury during the sentencing.
“Every single one of you,” Williams said. “Every single one of you is cowards.”
An Act of Disturbance or Just Rage?
In his closing, Henning’s defense attorney, Roger Rigney, cited his actions as an “extreme emotional disturbance.”
“How did he think reckless homicide would help his career?” Rigney asked the jurors. “It wasn’t. If he was in his right mind and in control of the situation that night and not suffering from extreme emotional disturbance, why would he do this in front of the cameras he helped install? Think about that.”
Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Eric Carr argued in his closing statements that Ashley was not a threat to him. Carr said he believes the evidence is clear, that the fatal moment between the couple was caught on camera, and he disagreed with the extreme emotional disturbance claim.
“If what you saw on that video is not evil and malicious, I don’t know what is,” Carr said. “This is one of the most cold-blooded acts of violence possible.”
Henning’s cousin and friend, Julie Grant, blamed race for the verdict.
“The whole court system failed her,” Grant said. “I feel like this is because Ashley was Black and had the tables been turned and she killed her white husband, she would have been held accountable and done more than just 20 years.”
In Defense of the Killer: A Systemic Problem
The details of Ashley’s killing are both horrifying and undeniable. There is no evidence that Jordan Henning’s motive was explicitly racial. But that doesn’t mean race wasn’t a factor. Consistent research shows the “extreme emotional disturbance” defense has been used disproportionately by male defendants in domestic violence cases.
A 2018 American University law journal explains that this defense has often been applied selectively, in ways that reflect gender and racial bias — frequently favoring white male perpetrators.
The reality that a white man could shoot his Black wife multiple times, reload, desecrate her body, and walk away with a manslaughter charge reflects a racially uneven legal system. One that asks, even in death, whether a Black woman might have somehow caused the violence inflicted upon her.
Black Women and Intimate Partner Violence
Ashley Henning’s death in itself — fits into a larger, troubling national pattern. According to a 2024 study in The Lancet, Black women in the United States are six times more likely to be murdered than white women. More than half of those deaths are related to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), and it is an overall key contributor to homicide in Black women.
“Many Black families have women as heads of the households. So, if you’re looking at that through that lens, what does that mean for our Black families?” Bernadine Waller, the paper’s lead author, said in 2024.
The South also consistently reports some of the highest IPV homicide rates in the country. Kentucky was ranked as one of the top 10 states in homicide rates among females murdered by men. According to the Violence Policy Center, Black women in the South face a compounded risk due to racial bias, lack of legal protections, and fewer culturally competent services.
Service Didn’t Equal Safety
Black women are overrepresented in the military, making up about 30% of all active-duty enlisted women, according to the Department of Defense’s 2022 Demographics Report. This is more than double their share of the general female population.
Yet service, for Black women, does not always translate to safety — or justice. A 2021 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that female service members, particularly those from minority backgrounds, often face serious obstacles when reporting intimate partner violence. These include fears of retaliation, stigma, and concerns about derailing their careers.
For white victims in uniform, institutional systems often rally—both legally and symbolically. The military community, public officials, and media outlets tend to respond with swift statements, ceremonial tributes, and an aggressive push for justice. Their stories are often framed as tragic losses of national heroes. Prosecutors pursue the highest charges. Military leadership publicly affirms the value of their lives, reinforcing the idea that their sacrifice demands accountability.
But for Ashley Henning — a Black woman, a senior enlisted Army leader, a wife and mother — what she received was not the institutional reverence of a fallen soldier.
Despite her rank, service, and the brutal way her life was taken — caught clearly on camera — there were no national headlines, no statements from Fort Knox command, and no widespread public outcry. Moreover, her killer was not charged with murder.
What Her Death Tells Us
Ashley Henning’s death is not an isolated incident. It is the consequence of interlocking failures — a justice system that often excuses white male violence, a military structure that undervalues Black women’s lives, and a Southern legacy that still resists reckoning with its hierarchies of race, gender, and worth.
Her story is about more than a verdict. It’s about the choices our systems often make about whose suffering matters and whose doesn’t. The footage showed the act. The court saw it. The jury heard every word.
And still decided it wasn’t murder.
13 & South is a new publication covering news, investigative stories, and insights on social justice, policy, and systemic inequities impacting Southern Black communities. I value your insights, and feedback and invite your perspectives to contribute to future issues. Please feel free to contact me here or follow me on my socials! LinkedIn, Twitter, IG, BlueSky, and Threads.
It was murder!! But I still say, if the January 6th terrorists had been black or brown, there would have been a LOT more dead and NO one would have been pardoned, that’s for sure.
I hadn’t heard about this. I appreciate you for sharing her story. It’s clear that this woman was a shining light.
White men are predators and murderers, that’s one of the hard truths I’ve learned in my life. Ashley should be alive, but this man was like so many other violent white men and stole her from the world.
And those poor kids he has forever — FOREVER — traumatized.