2018/10/24

North Jersey Record October 22, 2018: Medical examiner: Denville man's death ruled a homicide by heart attack

Bill Henning died of a heart attack as his 1996 Oldsmobile rolled into guardrail on Route 80.

Moments earlier, his friend Jared Clackner laid a heavy beating on him, slugging Henning several times in the face as the two drove home from a ZZ Top concert. 

Was Henning’s death an unfortunate accident? Or was it manslaughter, a crime of which Clackner — of Denville — now stands accused. 

The question was one of many before a jury in Hackensack as Clackner’s trial finished its third week of testimony, and the peculiar details of what transpired that night in March 2015 slowly unraveled. 

Dr. Jennifer Swartz, the former assistant medical examiner for Bergen County, who performed Henning’s autopsy, determined that he died of “homicide by heart attack,” she testified on Wednesday. It's a forensic term used to explain death from an arrhythmia that is induced by physical or emotional stress provoked by criminal activity. 

Provoked, in this case, by Clackner, she said. 

Henning "died of the cardiac arrhythmia brought about by the physical altercation that increased stress to the heart,” Swartz testified. more