‘Lucky to be alive.’ Judge raises bail for 2-strike offender accused of brutal attack
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Judge raised bail from $500K to $750K. Is considering going higher.
- Prosecutor noted victim’s brain bleed; judge saw photos and heard about prior strikes.
- A new strike could mean mandatory life; release on bail would require GPS monitor.
A Spokane man accused of a domestic violence attack that left his wife hospitalized is looking at an even higher bail amount after a hearing Thursday.
The Kennewick Police Department began searching two weeks ago for Kyle Ian Henriksen, 35, after he allegedly attacked his wife at a Tri-Cities hotel.
He is considered a persistent offender with two or more prior serious offenses, which means a new “strike” conviction would carry a mandatory sentence of life without parole.
Kennewick police said Thursday that the department received more than 1,600 tips about Henriksen after a social media post.
Deputy prosecutor Holai Holbrook said his wife had to be treated at multiple hospitals due to a brain bleed caused by the attack. She is still having memory issues and trouble forming some words.
A friend of the victim has started a GoFundMe campaign to help raise money to find her a safe place to live once she has recovered.
Judge raises bail
Henriksen turned himself into the Benton County jail on Wednesday, Kennewick Police Commander Ryan Kelly told the Tri-City Herald.
Henriksen was wanted on felony warrants for second-degree assault causing substantial bodily harm, second-degree assault strangulation, harassment with threats to kill or cause bodily injury and a protection order violation. The charges also carry additional penalties for domestic violence against an intimate partner.
He was being held in lieu of $500,000 bail, but that was raised to $750,000 after new information about his prior crimes was presented to Benton County Superior Court Judge Jackie Shea-Brown Thursday, along with photos of his wife’s significant injuries.
“I actually think that $500,000 is too low for a third strike offense in this matter,” Holbrook said.
“The victim has some serious safety concerns, as well as her family, that he’ll get out and finish the job because in her mind there is no difference in a guilty verdict between this and a homicide.”
Shea-Brown said that she was considering raising the bail even further, to $1 million, based on the new evidence and photos she reviewed of the victim’s injuries.
“The brutality involved, as demonstrated by these photos, is hard to imagine … this woman is lucky to be alive,” Shea-Brown said.
He will also be required to wear a GPS ankle monitor if released on bail.
Henriksen is considered a “two strike” offender because of his significant criminal history including three convictions for second-degree assault with a deadly weapon in 2009, first-degree robbery in 2012 and attempting to elude police in 2013. He also has a dozen warrants from Spokane County from 2013 to 2019, according to court documents.
Henriksen turned himself in after hiring Spokane attorney David M. Miller, who represented him on his first strike. Miller said he drove Henriksen to the jail in Kennewick.
While Miller argued that Henriksen is his grandmother’s caretaker, Holbrook said that investigators don’t believe that is true and that his grandmother and brother may have actually been helping him while on the run.
Assault at Kennewick hotel
On Feb. 4, Kennewick police were called about 9 p.m. about domestic violence assault at the Comfort Suites hotel on Plaza Way. When officers arrived, they learned Henriksen had allegedly assaulted his wife and threatened to kill her, according to a social media post from the agency.
Hotel staff reported a woman was cowering in a corner, with bruising on her eyes so severe that they were almost swollen shut.
She told officers their trailer had broken down, and they made their way to the hotel. While having dinner nearby they started arguing. Henriksen called her “scum” and said “everything was her fault,” according to court documents.
Once they got back to the hotel he allegedly began hitting her, yelling, “You’re dead!”
She told investigators that Henriksen was hitting her with “anything and everything he could get his hands on” and she thought he was going to kill her.
At some point she was able to run out of the room and to the lobby where hotel staff helped her.
Henriksen fled before officers arrived.
His wife was taken to Trios Medical Center for treatment, where staff noticed red marks around her neck. She told officers she couldn’t remember if he had choked her that night, but had in the past. She later remembered that she was choked to the point of losing consciousness.
She also said he had assaulted her before and at one point shot a gun in her direction. That resulted in a no contact order in Spokane County Superior Court last year, according to court documents.
When officers told her they would continue the investigation, she told them she was afraid she would be dead if they did.
“She went on to tell law enforcement that if her husband didn’t kill her, his previous cellmates would,” court documents said.
Hospital staff determined that she suffered multiple facial bruises and a brain bleed that required her to be transferred to Kadlec Regional Medical Center for a neurological consultation.
When officers searched the hotel room they found a coffee table was out of place and there was vomit and blood.
The next day, officers noted that her face was so swollen that they couldn’t see the whites of her eyes or the pupils, and she had scratch marks on her neck.
Previous strikes
Holbrook detailed Henriksen’s previous strikes for the court Thursday.
Holbrook said that in 2009 Henriksen got into a disagreement over a purse and his response was to meet up with the man, pull a gun, pistol whip him and shoot another man in the face. The bullet went through the second man’s cheek and out his neck.
A month later, while out on bail, he was a passenger in a vehicle and began arguing with the woman driving. He pulled a gun out, and when she tried to get away from him, Henriksen pushed her out of the moving vehicle.
Holbrook said those crimes were prosecuted together as his first strike.
When he was released from prison about two years after the first conviction, he went into a nail salon, pulled a gun on a woman and took her purse. He later ran from police.
He served a little over seven years on his second strike.
