TUALATIN, Ore. — A mentally ill Oregon man who fatally beat his mother in 2018 before calling 911 and complaining about her to the dispatcher has been sentenced to life in prison for killing her.
Garth Patrick Beams, 52, of Tualatin, was found guilty Aug. 25 of the second-degree murder of 74-year-old Wendy Jane Henson. According to Washington County prosecutors, he was also found guilty of the unlawful use of a weapon.
Beams will be eligible for parole after serving 25 years.
“This was a cruel, unprovoked attack on a disabled, elderly woman,” Washington County Deputy District Attorney Rayney Meisel said in closing arguments.
Tualatin police officers responded the afternoon of July 19, 2018, to a 911 call from the Southwest 72nd Avenue home where Henson lived with her two sons, Garth Beams and Michael Beams. The caller was Garth Beams.
Beams told a dispatcher he had “clobbered his mama” with a baseball bat.
“He remained on the phone with dispatchers for the next 15 minutes detailing his many complaints about his mother,” prosecutors said in a statement.
When asked whether he would provide aid to the victim, Beams indicated he would not.
“I don’t know if she’s going to live, but I am not really concerned about her medical care,” Beams said, according to audio of the call obtained by the Oregonian.
Henson was rushed to Oregon Health & Science University Hospital, where she later died of multiple blunt force injuries to the head.
The newspaper reported that court records show Beams was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1995. He was the subject of a conservatorship, and his mother was tasked with overseeing his care and his finances.
The records indicate that tensions began escalating between mother and son in the months before Henson’s death. The tensions stemmed from Henson’s declining health and her increased need for care of her own.
Beams underwent a psychiatric evaluation in 2020 at the Oregon State Hospital, where he was declared fit to stand trial, the Oregonian reported.
At his brother’s sentencing, Michael Beams delivered a heart-wrenching victim’s impact statement.
“Garth’s crime shattered what was left of our family,” Michael Beams told the court. “There are only broken pieces to pick up. I feel stuck in a boxing match, fighting against bitterness and outrage.”
Memories of his mother’s brutal death are a daily nightmare.
“In addition to dealing with the grief, moving out of the house was economically implausible for me,” Beams said. “In a nasty twist of fate, every day, to this day, I have to walk past the location where (my brother) felled mom.”
Henson was a former college screenwriting instructor and a published author. According to prosecutors, her 2018 novella Honor Song was adapted from one of her award-winning screenplays.
Just days before her murder, Henson was celebrating the upcoming release of a second novella, Yonkheer.
“Ms. Henson had a passion for the arts,” authorities said in a statement. “She loved to talk about movies and the writing and actors that brought them to life. She had a reoccurring movie review column in Tualatin Life called, ‘Now Playing.’”
Jonathan Crane, the founder of Tualatin Life, wrote after the murder that Henson “defined local exceptionalism.”
“She was a local treasure who quietly contributed to her community by sharing her love, her intrigue, for the world of movies,” Crane wrote. “She willingly shared her insights, educating those willing to listen and frequently encouraged others to engage in writing screenplays and joining the literary scene to which she was so well connected.
“Wendy Jane Henson will be greatly missed.”
©2022 Cox Media Group
