THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • Fall 2018 35 TheCoastalBend.com According to media reports, Lange said that Henry was screaming outside the house, demanding that she leave his property and ac- cusing her son of burglarized him. She claims that Henry said, “I’m going to kill your son. I am going to bond him out of jail and kill him,” and that her accusation is backed up with an audio recording. Lange told KSHB-TV News, “My biggest concern right now, because I’m safe, is my son C.J. I know this man, Jeff. If he says that he’s going to kill my son, take his word for it.” To date, no charges have been filed against Henry related to the incident. This summer Jeff Henry completely un- raveled, and both his actions and statements reveal a bedeviled soul at the point of collapse. In the August 2018 edition of Texas Monthly, Henry opened up to a persistent Skip Holland- sworth about the Verrückt incident and the al- legations against him—ignoring the strong ad- vice of his attorneys not to speak to the press. In Tragic Slide, Henry is quoted as saying, “If I really believed I was responsible for the death of that little boy, I’d kill myself right now,” and is described by Hollandsworth as “close to tears.” Henry revealed that he is depressed, that he stays in bed for as many as four days at a time, and that some of his family members want to commit him to a mental health facility. Hollandsworth wrote that he spoke to Henry four more times over the following two days, although his attorneys were demanding that he stop for his own good. While all crimi- nal defendants are protected from self-incrim- ination by the Fifth Amendment, public state- ments and those reported in the press are fair game and can be admitted in court by prosecu- tors. In the Texas Monthly piece, Henry claims that he knew nothing about the eleven inju- ries on Verrückt that occurred after the ride opened in 2014, and said, “If any raft had left the surface, that ride should have been shut down, and I would have gone straight there to figure out what was wrong…but nobody both- ered to tell me something was wrong with it.” He also denied any knowledge of maintenance problems with the ride, or failures of vital safety equipment including rider harnesses and braking systems. Henry claimed that all of his breathless worries about the danger of Verrückt caught on Travel Channel video, including his now- famous words, “I could die going down this ride,” was nothing more than acting. “The real Jeff Henry was not indicted. The actor Jeff Henry, who was trying to glamorize the ride, was indicted,” he told Hollandsworth. He add- ed, “[Travel Channel producers] wanted me to create suspense and danger, to make Verrückt look really scary to add drama to the show.” As the Texas Monthly interview unfolded, it become starkly clear why Henry’s attorneys did not want him to speak to the press, as he articulated the illogic and ridiculousness of his defense. “You know the [raft] that went air- borne on our 90-foot model in New Braunfels? It was faked. We added Rollerblade wheels to the boat to make it fly off.” Unfortunately for Jeff Henry, even if this easily-disprovable as- sertion were true, the video of rafts flying off Verrückt’s slide path were of the actual ride in Kansas City, not a model in New Braunfels— and, as anyone can clearly see, there were no wheels on the bottoms of the flying rafts. Skip Hollandsworth’s interviews with Jeff Henry took place from the 16th to the 18th of June, according to the story. Less than a month later, on the night of Friday July 13th, police were called to a disturbance at the Drury Inn hotel in Mirriam, Kansas, southwest of Kansas City. When police arrived, they detained known human trafficker, Ronnie Hargraves, who was later charged with assault and battery for beat- ing a trafficking victim, identified in court re- cords as “K. W.,” within an inch of her life. The beating was so severe that she “lost control of her bowels” after having her head slammed against a wall and being punched repeatedly. Hargraves told police that the occupant of the hotel room, Jeff Henry, had methamphet- amines in a metal tube inside the room. After answering the cops’ knock at the door, Henry allegedly ran to the bathroom and started emp- tying narcotics down the sink drain. Henry re- fused to allow police to search the room but was removed against his will at the request of the hotel manager. Police discovered 61 grams of methamphetamines, 16 Xanax pills, and 18 hypodermic needles. A woman who identified herself as Henry’s longtime girlfriend, called “K. M.” in court papers, was also in the room and appeared…twitchy. The sex trafficking victim, K. W., told police that Henry agreed to pay Hargraves $400 for sex with her, but only had $240 in cash on him and offered 10 all-day passes to Schlitterbahn Kansas City to make up the dif- ference. She also told police that immediate- ly upon entering the room at the Drury Inn, Henry instructed her to inject methamphet- amines into his and K. M.’s necks. According to her statement, the beating from Hargraves happened after she and Henry returned from an hours-long excursion to Schlitterbahn, and the trafficker thought they may have taken off to Texas. During their time together at the park, which was closed for the day, K. W. said that Henry angrily vented about the charges against him related to Caleb Schwab’s death, and that his girlfriend, K. M., was in fact a “sex slave under contract” for which she was to re- ceive $50,000 in cash and a condo on the beach in Texas. The arrest occurred the day after Henry appeared in court in Kansas City on the Schwab case, and he was released within hours from the Johnson County Jail after posting $100,000 bond. In October, after Henry was formally charged with felony drug possession with the intent to distribute, plus paying a human traf- ficker for sex, his $500,000 bond in Wyandotte County was revoked. Prosecutors asked for a new, $2 million bond, calling Henry a flight risk, but the judge settled on $1 million with the conditions that Henry wear an ankle moni- tor and return to the Menninger Clinic rehab facility in Houston. Henry posted bond and was soon on his way back to Texas. He is set to stand trial for second degree murder and over a dozen other charges in the death of Caleb Schwab, by the end of the year. If convicted, Jeff Henry faces a maximum sentence of 139 years in prison and fines of over $3 million. About the impact on Schlitterbahn as a company, resulting from the tragedy in Kansas City, Henry is quoted in Texas Monthly as say- ing, “It’s a tragedy. We were a Texas tradition, and now it’s over.” THE SEXTRAFFICKINGVICTIM, K.W.,TOLD POLICETHAT HENRY AGREEDTO PAY HARGRAVES $400 FOR SEX WITH HER, BUT ONLY HAD $240 IN CASH ON HIM AND OFFERED 10 ALL-DAY PASSESTO SCHLITTERBAHN KANSAS CITYTO MAKE UPTHE DIFFERENCE…UPON ENTERINGTHE ROOM ATTHE DRURY INN, HENRY INSTRUCTED HERTO INJECT METHAMPHETAMINES INTO HIS AND K. M.’S NECKS.