Anonymous
Source: Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office
On Wednesday, August 7th, at about 4:45 p.m., Deputies responded to the Albertsons grocery store in Buellton to investigate a report of an incident involving a 2-year-old child.
Deputies learned an adult male, later identified as 56-year-old William “Bill” Henderson, had removed a 2-year-old child from inside a shopping cart and started walking toward the exit. The parent of the 2-year-old child stopped the suspect and the suspect released the child before leaving the store. The 2-year-old child and parent were clearly distraught over the incident.
On Tuesday, August 13th, at about 7:15 p.m. Deputies arrested Henderson, the owner of a local transportation business. He was booked into the Santa Barbara County Jail for violations of 207 PC – Kidnapping and 273a(b) PC – Misdemeanor Child Endangerment. Henderson’s bail is set at $100,000.
Deputies are looking for additional witnesses to the incident on August 7th and they are concerned there might be other incidents involving Henderson that have not been reported to law enforcement. If you are a witness to the incident on August 7th, or have information related to the investigation, you are asked to please call the City of Buellton Sheriff’s Station at 805-686-8150. To leave an anonymous tip, please call 805-681-4171 or go to our website at https://www.sbsheriff.org/home/anonymous-tip/.
The City of Buellton contracts with the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office for law enforcement services.
His new posting priority will be bail rather than FaceBook now. I wonder if he has the $10K to make bail or else he’ll need to give the bondsman some cases of vino and free tastings for awhile.
I wasn’t referring to his wife’s death but I’m sure the Edhat detectives here will figure it all out.
Horrifying. It’s so wonderful that things turned out well. Let’s hope the child has no memory of this. I hope the parents and everyone else know enough not to make a big drama out of it in front of him/her. And I bet the mother won’t make this same mistake again, not keeping a good eye on her toddler. It only takes a few moments of being distracted to give a monster or monsters the opportunity to steal a child.
He owns Compass Wine Tours & Transportation. Looks like he was still posting on his Facebook page like normal after this happened on Aug 7 https://www.facebook.com/bill.henderson.75470316
It is possible that he thought the child was unattended and wanted to help. Isn’t it so that you have to leave the store with the item before being guilty of theft? To accuse someone of pedophilia is much more serious and should be said only when there is some evidence.
Ryan93105 – The toddler was NOT wandering around in the store. The toddler was inside a grocery cart next to his mother who was at the register. Bill Henderson picked the child out of the cart and walked towards the exit. The mother (who was right there) saw it and ran after them.