CHAPTER 45

The investigators’ offices were not the only place where hectic activity regarding the case against Randy Headrick was taking place. District Attorney Mike O’Dell and his staff were rapidly preparing to make a major move in the case, and Rhonda Jackson and her fellow officers hurried to get the final pieces of the puzzle in place so that O’Dell would have everything he needed to proceed as he and his team planned.

On September 15, Rhonda Jackson and Jimmy Phillips went to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department and met with the deputy state fire marshal to look through his file and make copies of any pertinent information on the suspicious fire that burned Headrick’s former girlfriend’s home.

Rhonda also interviewed a man who had sold the ex-girlfriend a class ring, which she later sent back for repairs. The man also worked at Earthgrains bakery and knew Headrick and the woman were seeing each other.

“Randy came in and said she wanted him to pick up the ring for her, so I let him have it,” he said. “He didn’t sign anything.”

The woman called later and asked about the ring, but Headrick had it and hadn’t signed a receipt when he supposedly picked it up for her.

The names of two women, both former Earthgrains employees, had been given to Rhonda Jackson, with the information that they were well-acquainted with Randy Headrick and had talked to him often when they worked together. Rhonda met with the first woman at the Rainsville Police Department, where she questioned her about her knowledge of Headrick and what his behavior had been when she worked with him.

“I used to work at Earthgrains during the same time Randy Headrick worked there,” she said. “Randy collected stamps and he brought a few to work, which I saw. He said he and his wife were having problems. He said she didn’t like to have sex. He specifically stated that she didn’t like oral sex. He said he was going to sell his stamp collection and get a lot of money, and then divorce Carolyn.

“He used to talk about being in Vietnam. He would talk about seeing bodies and seeing people die in bamboo traps.

“Randy implied that he thought me and another woman at Earthgrains had a lot of class. He said if either one of us would, he would take us out. I knew that Randy and his ex-girlfriend had an affair. I knew she had an affair with another man before Randy. I know Randy gave another woman at Earthgrains an engraved ink pen. I don’t think she ever went out with Randy. She thought he was strange. I know his ex-girlfriend’s house burned and she thought Randy did it.”

Rhonda interviewed the other woman by phone, since she had moved to Arkansas. She said she had worked at Earthgrains for about three years, starting in 1992.

“I knew Randy and that woman had an affair,” she said. “I tried to warn her not to have anything to do with him, but she wouldn’t listen. I thought Randy was weird, and I was half-afraid of him. He came over to my house several times, and he brought me a hamburger once when I was sick. My husband was there at the time.

“Randy flirted with me, but he never asked me out. I never had anything with him but friendship. He gave me a small green tennis bracelet; it didn’t have any diamonds, and I don’t know if it was real or not. He also gave me an amber-colored decanter and an engraved pen set.

“He talked about being in Vietnam and having a steel plate in his head.”

September 17, 1998, was a milestone in the case against Randy Headrick and brother Shane. District Attorney O’Dell and his staff had made all the necessary preparations to move forward, and on that day a special session of the DeKalb County grand jury was called by circuit judge Randall Cole. The grand jury assembled at the DeKalb County Courthouse at 8:30 A.M. to hear the evidence against the Headrick brothers. Fifteen grand jurors listened as the district attorney’s team presented their reasons why they believed the two men should be held responsible for the deaths of Carolyn Headrick and Dora Ann Dalton. The grand jury’s foreman, Robert W. McCord, was a well-known and highly respected man in the county, a retired teacher who was an outstanding leader and organizer. Within a fairly short time, the grand jury decided that capital murder indictments would be returned against Randy and Shane Headrick.

William Randall Headrick was indicted on three counts, the first being that he intentionally caused the death of Carolyn and Dora Ann by shooting them with a gun, “in violation of the Code of Alabama, contrary to law and against the peace and dignity of the State of Alabama.”

The second count charged Headrick with murdering Carolyn Headrick by “shooting her with a gun for a pecuniary or other valuable consideration, to-wit: life insurance proceeds.”

The third count charged that William Randall Headrick “did solicit, request, command, or importune Waylon Shane Headrick to engage in conduct constituting the crime of murder.”

Randy Headrick had been indicted for murder of two or more persons, murder for consideration or for hire, and criminal solicitation. A writ of arrest was issued, and although he was currently being held without bail at the Etowah County Jail on his federal firearms violation, Judge Randall Cole ordered there to be no bail in connection with his DeKalb County case.

Waylon Shane Headrick was indicted by the grand jury on three counts. The first count stated that he intentionally caused the deaths of Carolyn and Dora Ann by shooting them with a gun, and the second count stated that he caused their deaths by shooting them with a gun for a pecuniary or other valuable consideration. His third indictment was for murder of two or more persons, and murder for consideration or for hire.

The day of the grand jury indictments of Randy and Shane Headrick was the biggest day, up to that point, of Rhonda Jackson’s career in law enforcement. After more than four years of painstaking work to find enough evidence that would bring about the indictments of Carolyn and Dora Ann’s killers, Jackson saw that Randy and Shane Headrick were finally going to be brought to justice. All the nights of lying awake, praying for that critical break in the case, had finally ended, and Rhonda felt she had proved herself to the sheriff, the district attorney and her coworkers. They all could have told her, however, that there had never been a doubt in any of their minds that she could, and would, do the job, and do it well. She had always had their respect as well as their admiration.

There was still a lot of work ahead for Jackson and her team, but from this point on, that work would take on a new focus. The frustration of not being able to prove Randy Headrick’s guilt had now been replaced with the satisfaction of knowing he would finally be held accountable for the brutal, murderous betrayal of his wife and mother-in-law.

There still existed some degree of doubt as to the extent of Shane’s involvement, largely due to the fact that the bulk of the evidence against him had come from his brother, Randy. Randy’s seemingly intentional implication of Shane could quite possibly fall into the same category as his claims of Vietnam heroism and his ability to commit murder and “get away with it.”

On September 18, Rhonda Jackson and Jimmy Phillips flew to Arlington, Texas, where they met homicide detectives from the Arlington Police Department. They arrested Shane Headrick at his home at 4:05 P.M., only fifteen minutes after investigators Mike James and Clay Simpson had the satisfaction of serving the indictment on Randy Headrick at the Etowah County Jail back in Alabama.