CHAPTER 13

When Headrick’s former coworker at Earthgrains told the investigators about a friend of Headrick’s who lived on the river and was a taxidermist who collected guns, the officers set out to identify the man and arrange an interview. On July 25, they arrived at Boggie’s Taxidermy in Dutton, Alabama, just over the county line into Jackson County on the river near Scottsboro. John Boggie was willing to talk, but didn’t have much useful information to share at that time. He told Rhonda Jackson and Jimmy Phillips that Headrick used to come by his taxidermy shop, usually about once a month or sometimes more often.

“I would give him hides, bones, teeth and stuff,” Boggie said. “He was into the Indian artifacts, and I would give him the items to keep from having to bury them.”

Boggie said that Headrick never made any statements to him about paying someone to kill his wife.

“The only thing he said was that him and his wife both made these Indian artifacts,” Boggie said. “He mentioned two or three times several months ago that he had a girlfriend over in Section that supposedly had a kid by him.”

On their way back to the sheriff’s department from Boggie’s interview, Jackson and Phillips stopped along the way to interview a couple of other people. Leonard Knight, who lived in Flat Rock on the Jackson/DeKalb county line, told the officers that he attended the Ider Church of God and had dated Dora Ann Dalton three or four times. Obviously saddened by the loss of his friend and her daughter, he told the investigators he didn’t drive and had to have someone take him wherever he went.

“I went down to her house a couple of times on Sunday and ate dinner with her and Carolyn and Randy,” Knight said. “I hadn’t seen Dora Ann in a couple of weeks before they were killed.

“Dora Ann told me Randy was high-tempered,” he said, “and from Carolyn’s actions when I was around them, she seemed frightened of Randy.”

After leaving Knight’s home, the officers stopped by the home of Jim Travis on the outskirts of Henagar. They were astounded when they walked inside the small, tidy house and looked around. Inside the Travis home, they found themselves surrounded by a veritable museum of the very highest-quality Indian craft work, the walls and shelves filled to overflowing with all manner of objects that were all extremely detailed and authentic, and all done entirely by Travis himself. He was a highly respected, skilled artisan, very proud of his Iroquois heritage, and he was every bit as intelligent as he was talented. Travis, an older gentleman who lived alone, was open and cooperative, and didn’t hesitate to tell the officers about his dealings with Headrick.

“I’ve known Randy Headrick for about two years,” he said. “I met him at the flea market up on I-fifty-nine at Hammondville. I showed him how to make some Indian artifacts, and he would come over to my house and work in my shop.”

Travis had no use whatsoever for liars, or for any type of deception or dishonesty, and was obviously displeased when he learned that Headrick had told him so many false tales about his past.

“Randy was a sarcastic, bully-type person,” Travis said. “He never told me about being in prison. He told me he served in Vietnam in the war, and said he was in the Green Berets.”

Travis said he never witnessed Headrick acting violently toward anyone, and said the last time he saw him was at a powwow in Huntsville. Headrick was there with his brother-in-law, Travis said.

The officers asked Travis if he owned any .22 pistols that anyone had borrowed or stolen.

“I have two .22 pistols, both revolvers,” he said. “No one has borrowed them; I’ve had both of them for a long time.”

The investigators left the home of Jim Travis knowing that, after all their interviews of people who were supposedly of Native American descent, they had finally had the privilege of meeting someone who was the genuine article, a man to be much admired for his talent, as well as his ethics.

The following day began early for Rhonda Jackson. She left her office with a handful of subpoenas for various records from Earthgrains, Builders Supply and the Bakers and Confectionery Union Local #611. When she contacted Farmers Telephone Cooperative, she was told that the additional phone records from July 1 through July 14 on the Dalton residence and Headrick’s parents’ home and business were ready to be picked up. She added a trip by the telephone co-op to her list of stops to be made.

A new tip had come in from a bank security guard, who said that a postal employee had mentioned to him some comments Randy Headrick had made to her, so Jackson stopped by the bank in Henagar to get further information from the man. She wanted to arrange an interview with the postal worker as soon as possible.

After returning to Fort Payne, Jackson contacted Shenandoah Life Insurance Company about a $12,000 policy on Dora Ann Dalton and was told that it was a group policy that was only in effect from October 1985 to October 1989, and then had been terminated.

Jackson then phoned Etowah Steel Workers Credit Union, but was told that Headrick was not a member of that credit union, therefore he had no loans or bank accounts there.

Later that afternoon, a young man arrived at the sheriff’s department for an interview. He had information that would serve to contradict the statement given the previous day by Boggie, the taxidermist. The man told Rhonda that he, a young woman, and Boggie had been at a house in Scottsboro around July 15, and said that Boggie had told him at that time that Headrick came by the taxidermy shop usually about twice a week. Boggie had told him, he said, that Headrick had made the comment that he was going to have someone do something to his wife.

“Boggie was not drinking at the time,” the man said. “This was the first time I had ever seen Boggie.”

The young woman who accompanied him to Scottsboro was standing nearby when Boggie made the comment, the man said, but she wasn’t paying attention to the conversation.

Jackson made a note to reinterview Boggie; it seemed that some important details about his dealings with Randy Headrick might have slipped his mind at the time of their previous conversation.

Jimmy Phillips had been busy gathering some additional information on Headrick’s past while Rhonda Jackson served subpoenas and made phone calls. He contacted a detective in Fort Worth, Texas, to see if he could locate the man who was arrested along with Headrick in the pipe bomb incident. He also asked the detective to obtain subscriber information on three phone numbers that showed up on Headrick’s parents’ home telephone bill: the calls were placed to Fort Worth and Arlington, Texas.