{"id":60687,"date":"2026-01-05T19:31:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T00:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=60687"},"modified":"2026-01-05T19:31:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T00:31:47","slug":"marcelle-waldon-sentenced-to-death-for-murders-of-lakeland-city-commissioner-her-husband-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/01\/05\/marcelle-waldon-sentenced-to-death-for-murders-of-lakeland-city-commissioner-her-husband-in-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Marcelle Waldon sentenced to death for murders of Lakeland city commissioner, her husband in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Polk County court gave Marcelle Waldon the death penalty for the 2020 murders of Edith and David Henderson.<\/p>\n\n\n

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 The man convicted of killing a former Lakeland city commissioner and her husband was sentenced to death Monday in a Polk County courtroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marcelle Waldon was convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of Edith “Edie” Henderson and her husband, David, in February 2024. At the time, 11 out of 12 jurors recommended the death penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A judge has denied the defense’s claim that Waldon was intellectually disabled, which would have made him ineligible for a death sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors first filed a motion to seek the death penalty back in January 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The murder of Edith and David Henderson<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Hendersons were murdered on the morning of Nov. 10, 2020, in their home near Lake Morton. Police said at the time they believed David had gone out to get breakfast and was setting it up downstairs. Unbeknownst to him, his wife had been killed upstairs in their bedroom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point, police said, David went upstairs and found Edie stabbed to death. Waldon was reportedly still in the room; the two struggled before David was also killed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police said Waldon then stole one of the Hendersons’ cars. That car was later found on fire in a field off Oregon Avenue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The couple was found dead the next morning when Lakeland police were called to do a welfare check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waldon was later arrested at the Relax Inn on Lakeland Hills Boulevard. He is also accused of stealing jewelry that belonged to the couple and giving it to someone who later tried to pawn it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a news conference at the time, police suggested Waldon might have tried to burn down the Hendersons’ house because officers found the gas stove with all the burners on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edie Henderson served as city commissioner for Lakeland from 2006 until the beginning of 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Polk County court gave Marcelle Waldon the death penalty for the 2020 murders of Edith and David Henderson.  The man convicted of killing a former Lakeland city commissioner and her… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDFcL01hcmNlbGxlLVdhbGRvbi53ZWJwP2ZpdD0yNTklMkMxOTQmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJNYXJjZWxsZSBXYWxkb24gc2VudGVuY2VkIHRvIGRlYXRoIGZvciBtdXJkZXJzIG9mIExha2VsYW5kIGNpdHkgY29tbWlzc2lvbmVyLCBoZXIgaHVzYmFuZCBpbiAyMDIwIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.d0xmbVPg_Fx7Pibs4RS8nYt6irL3nnj6NUwfFFxag5MMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":60689,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Marcelle-Waldon.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[13106,13105],"class_list":["post-60687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-her-husband-in-2020","tag-marcelle-waldon-sentenced-to-death-for-murders-of-lakeland-city-commissioner"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60690,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60687\/revisions\/60690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}