Inset left: Savanah Wilson (Hamilton County Sheriff”s Office). Inset Right: Luke Macke (Mihovk-Rosenacker Funeral Home). Background: Christian Henderson appears in Hamilton County court (WLWT/YouTube).
The Ohio case of two people who set a “trap” for a man so they could rob him — ultimately leading to his death — appears to be closed after both of them learned their fates.
Christian Henderson was sentenced last month to 44 years to life in prison for the killing of 23-year-old Luke Macke in June 2021. He was convicted over the summer of charges including aggravated murder and aggravated robbery.
Savanah Wilson’s sentencing in Macke’s death came later. Court records show she was sentenced after pleading guilty this week to the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, as well as other charges such as aggravated robbery. Wilson will spend 14 years behind bars, with credit for four years already served, as part of a plea agreement that called for her to testify against Henderson.
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Despite being just 16 at the time of the killing, Wilson was accused of being the mastermind behind the robbery plot, local NBC affiliate WLWT reported. She is said to have lured Macke to a location in Westwood, a Cincinnati neighborhood, where Henderson, then 19 years old, was lying in wait.
“You knew him. You talked to him, and you set a trap for him. I know you said that you are sorry. Can you understand the pain that they feel?” Hamilton County Judge Melba Marsh asked Wilson — referring to Macke’s family — on Wednesday, per WLWT.
“You started catfishing for money, and because of you, Luke is dead,” Macke’s aunt, Leslie Ann Carr, reportedly said. “You are just as much to blame as the shooter is. You have no regard for human life. No regard for the fact that Luke worked hard for his money. The worst part is that you were only 16 at the time.”
It is unclear whether Macke thought he was meeting Wilson alone or whether she misrepresented herself in some way.
Prosecutors said it took four years for them to get to Wilson’s case because they wanted to see a conviction for Henderson first, WLWT reported. And his case saw frequent delays — due to him firing defense attorneys, then representing himself, and seeing an initial mistrial after a corrections officer reportedly found him unconscious and bleeding in his cell in what authorities said were self-inflicted wounds.
“Are you a monster?” Macke’s younger brother, Mitchell Macke, asked Henderson, accusing him of mocking the legal process, per the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Luke Macke’s mother, Nicole Coffin, spoke from the stand in both trials, describing a final voicemail her son left her before he died.
“It was him saying ‘I love you mom,’ between him gagging on his blood and snoring sounds,” she told the courtroom in August. Later, she expressed relief after “four years of hell.”
“We’re elated,” she said after Henderson’s sentencing. “It’s been four years of hell, and we got all five crimes … found guilty for what he’s done to our son. Our son didn’t deserve to die. … And we got our justice.”
Henderson, like Wilson, will receive credit for the time he has already served in jail. He reportedly apologized to the judge — but not to Luke Macke’s family — the day his sentence was read aloud.
“I do not stand here without remorse,” he said, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. “I’m not a terrible person.”
“Rot in hell,” Macke’s younger sister, McKenna Macke, said in court.
“Society is better off without you,” Macke’s father, Craig Macke, added.
