By Patti Dozier
THOMASVILLE — A 62-year-old man who asked a young woman about her hair color was convicted Thursday of aggravated stalking.
A jury — made up of five women and seven men — deliberated 10 minutes before convicting Francis Joseph Hennessey Jr. The Thomas County Superior Court trial lasted a little more than an hour Thursday morning.
Hennessey, 520 Taft St., Boston, has been held at the Thomas County Jail since his arrest in late June 2005. He returned to jail Thursday. Sentencing is Thursday, March 9.
The prosecution maintained that Hennessey violated conditions of a Brooks County bond when he approached the victim at Wal-Mart in Thomasville on June 23, 2005.
Testimony showed that on March 25, 2005, Hennessey was charged with criminal trespass after he went to the Dixie home of the Strickland family.
Walter Van Heiningen, the defendant’s legal counsel, told jurors his client approached Elizabeth Strickland, 21, in the produce section at Wal-Mart and asked her, “Did you change the color of your hair?”
“ ... That’s it,” Van Heiningen told jurors.
Scott Strickland, father of three daughters, testified he had told the defendant not to go on his property, but saw him arrive in a vehicle at the rear of his residence.
“He started yelling at me, ‘You’re crazy!’ “ Strickland said. Hennessey told Strickland he was “being rebellious to the Holy Spirit.”
“Was he coming on your property to see you?” prosecutor Jim Prine asked Strickland, who replied, “I have no idea.”
Elizabeth Strickland, who said she had known Hennessey for a long time, testified the defendant had once arrived at her house at night with his headlights off. Her father told him not to return.
On June 23, Strickland was walking into the Wal-Mart supermarket as Hennessey exited.
Strickland said Hennessey told her she was crazy, that she was in rebellion and needed to talk to him. Another time at Wal-Mart, he had told her she was pretty.
“Are you afraid of Mr. Hennessey?” Prine asked the young woman. “Yes, I am. He makes me feel like he knows where I am,” she responded.
Strickland said that because of Strickland, she is afraid to get out of her car at home if no one else is there.
“Do you know Mr. Hennessey’s intentions?” Prine asked. “ ... I think he wants to marry me or my sisters,” Strickland said.
In response to Van Heiningen’s questioning, she said Hennessey did not threaten her, but she felt threatened.
The Valdosta State University student said Hennessey told her God had awakened him in the middle of the night and told him to go to Wal-Mart, “that we would be there.”
Incidentally, Van Heiningen asked the victim, had she changed her hair color? No, she said.
“The little girl was shaking. She was scared to death,” Thomasville police officer Henry Williams testified about Strickland’s condition when he responded to Wal-Mart.
The officer said Hennessey was found in the store pushing a buggy filled with merchandise.
Williams testified the defendant told him “the two girls were born to be his wife.”
Hennessey told Williams he was not hurting anyone. “He was supposed to be there,” Williams told jurors. “God put him there.”
In a statement to police, Hennessey was supposed to move to another daughter when one became rebellious, police detective Wade Glover testified, adding that God told the defendant to marry the girls.
With the jury out of the courtroom, Hennessey told Judge Frank Horkan he did not wish to testify, but wanted to read something to the jury about fear and anxiety.
Prine, an assistant district attorney, objected. Horkan sustained the prosecution’s objection.
Hennessey again opted not to testify in the traditional manner.
Senior reporter Patti Dozier can be reached at (229) 226-2400, ext. 220.
