She grew up in the Charlie Parker Square housing project in Kansas City, Mo.--a place she referred to as 'Killa City' on her MySpace page. She attended five different schools in the span of three years, according to local news reports, shunning the classroom for a harder education on the streets. By the time she caught the FBI's attention, Shauntay Henderson had become a feared leader of Kansas City's 12th Street Gang, authorities say--wanted for one murder, and suspected in as many as five more, not to mention a series of shootings in which police believe she may have played a role.
The G-men got their girl on March 31, 2007, when Henderson was apprehended less than 24 hours after being placed on the bureau's vaunted Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. (A judge entered a not-guilty plea on her behalf, and assigned her to a public defender.) She was the only woman on the list--and one of only eight ever to enter that elite club of fugitives since the FBI began keeping its tally back in 1950. (The list, which today includes Osama bin Laden and notorious Boston mobster James 'Whitey' Bulger, was launched after a 1949 wire-service news story on notable toughs wanted by the bureau generated so much public interest that FBI head J. Edgar Hoover decided to codify things.) A brief history of girls gone really, really wild.
