CHAPTER 34
Jill Shrader called Rhonda Jackson again, on July 25, with another bit of information that cast even more suspicion on Shane Headrick. She told Rhonda that around three weeks earlier, Shane had told her that the last time Randy asked him to do the murders was on the Sunday before Carolyn and Dora Ann were killed on Friday. This contradicted Shane’s earlier claims to the investigators that the last time Randy had asked him to kill the two women was in February 1995, prior to the murders in July.
Things were not looking good for Shane Headrick. The young man’s story kept changing, whether from drug-induced confusion or from intentional deception. Shane was growing more and more afraid that he was going to be blamed for the killings, and as a result, his behavior became even more volatile and unpredictable than ever.
On August 1, a letter arrived at the sheriff’s office that astounded Rhonda Jackson and her team. It was from one of the county’s best-known citizens, a high-placed public official whose credibility absolutely could not be questioned. The information he provided was via a third party and could only be categorized as hearsay, but the letter was nonetheless riveting.
The man had been told by a person whose name he said he could not reveal that “Jill Shrader’s boyfriend, which [sic] is now in Texas and whose name is Shane,” had told the person that he threw clothes out over the bridge off Highway 117, and stated that “he was wearing these clothes when he killed them.”
The person then gave the exact location of the bridge in question, and said that the clothes would be in a garbage bag that was thrown from the bridge, and they would be under the bridge.
“Shane is on acid drugs and my source stated that he is very dangerous,” the letter said. The man stated that Shane was now living in Texas, and that his source was afraid that Shane would come back and kill him if he found out that he had told anyone.
Needless to say, the officers sprang into action. The area under and around the bridge on Highway 117 was searched immediately and thoroughly. But after two years, if there had ever been a garbage bag full of bloody clothing thrown underneath the bridge, it was now long gone.
A month later, another amazing tip surfaced, courtesy of a local medical professional. Rhonda Jackson met with the person at their office, and was told that a client had given some information on the murders. The client had said that he knew that Headrick was in debt to drug dealers in New York and claimed that Headrick had hired his brother and possibly two others to commit the murders, and that one of the persons that was there at the scene of the murders might be a “weak link.” That weak link, the client said, didn’t actually shoot the two women, but was present when the murders occurred and was afraid that if he talked, the others would take his life.
The client told the medical professional that the reason the two women were killed was to collect the insurance money to pay the drug dealers. The client said that he had been in the Headrick/Dalton residence and had seen Randy Headrick’s Indian artifacts. He said the mutilation of the bodies with the artifacts was done after the victims were killed.
The medical professional said the client might possibly be willing to cooperate by going to the other person described as the “weak link,” but was not willing to talk to law enforcement.
After checking out this third-party information as well as possible, and learning no further details, it was determined that this, like so many other tips received in the long-running case, was unsubstantiated hearsay and would be of no use to the investigation.
It was a disappointment to the officers, but they continued to pursue the hard evidence they needed to put Randy Headrick, and very likely his brother, Shane, behind bars for murder.