CHAPTER 18

On September 11, a local surveyor contacted Rhonda Jackson and told her about an incident that had occurred around three weeks before the murders, when he had been surveying land on the Dalton estate.

“A nephew of theirs, whose name I don’t know, walked down the dirt road from the direction of Dora Ann Dalton’s house to the rock house where I was surveying,” he said. “The guy was mouthing off about the property. He made some comments about some of the family getting more property than they were supposed to.”

The nephew didn’t make any threats toward anyone’s life or anything of that nature, according to the surveyor, but some of the other people who were standing around watching the surveying got into an argument about the land.

That afternoon, Rhonda Jackson contacted the Texas Department of Child Protective Services and spoke with a caseworker, who was able to give her the address and phone number of Headrick’s ex-wife, Bonita, who lived at that time in Arlington, Texas. Rhonda called the number the following day and left a message on the answering machine, asking Bonita to return her call. The next morning, Bonita Headrick returned Rhonda’s phone call and asked if she could call her back that afternoon after three o’clock.

There was little or no new information to be learned from Rhonda’s conversations with Bonita Headrick, but their talks served to confirm the events that took place in Texas when Headrick and his friend were caught with the pipe bomb that was allegedly intended for Bonita’s trailer. The phone conversations also confirmed something else that both of the women firmly believed—Bonita was extremely lucky to have escaped with her life from her marriage to Randy Headrick.

 

 

Several people, when calling in tips to the sheriff’s department, had mentioned the possibility that the killer was looking for another person with the last name of Dalton, and had mistakenly gone to the wrong house. In mid-September, Rhonda Jackson spoke with the mother of the man who had most often been named in those tips as the possible target. She told Rhonda that she didn’t know where her son was, and said he had left the area in May and had only called home two times since he had been gone.

“He owes child support and had a garnishment on his check, and that’s why he left,” his mother said. “The last time I talked to him was about three or four weeks ago, but when he calls again, I’ll have him get in contact with you.”