HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA — Sabrina Hendley could have spent the rest of her life behind bars for the fatal shooting of her husband back in 2018, but the State Attorney’s Office reviewed the case extensively, and has ultimately made the decision to drop the charges.
“I felt very grateful that the State Attorney and the lawyers who were assigned to the case took the time and put the energy in to look at the facts to consider the arguments that we raised and to consider them in-depth, not just for the sake of saying they considered them and reaching the decision that they did,” Hendley’s attorney said.
Years of abuse are said to have led up to that night, with her husband being verbally and physically violent with multiple people. Sabrina’s father told police he was punched multiple times by his daughter’s husband that night, and a witness noted that he slapped Sabrina at least once.
A female neighbor, who was also at the party, provided a statement to police about the events she experienced:
“He did put his arm around my neck and had me in the choke-hold. The water was above my nose and I sat there for at least 20 minutes. I’m freaking out. I sucked in tons of water.”
She went on to say, “He grabs me again, and he brought me in the same choke-hold right back to the deep-end, where I couldn’t reach and then I went right under again.”
That neighbor went on to say that the husband threatened Sabrina the same night with a “big military-looking knife” up to her face. “He puts it in front of her face and he’s waving it. That’s when she starts getting more scared. He just kept on having that knife right in her face and having her by her neck, like a choke-hold. And saying ‘What’s wrong little wife, you don’t like the knife? You don’t like the knife?'”
“It was the right move because she was acting in self-defense,” her attorney said. “She indeed was a battered spouse, and she was defending herself that night in our view, and that’s what was argued in the papers, that’s what was argued in the courtroom, and that’s what the experts were talking about, and Mr. Warren and his staff took another look at it and apparently agreed with us.”
