CHAPTER 51

For the investigators and the prosecutors in the district attorney’s office, the year 2000 brought stepped-up activity in the planning of Randy Headrick’s prosecution. Rhonda Jackson and Jimmy Phillips were still not satisfied with the evidence against Shane Headrick, and many trips were made from Henagar, Alabama, to Chamblee, Georgia. All likely routes were taken and carefully timed, with the results compared with Shane’s verified contacts and phone calls on July 7, 1995. It was beginning to look like Shane could not have had enough time to go from Chamblee to Henagar, help to commit two murders, then return to Chamblee within the time period he was unaccounted for.

Attorney Randy B. Brooks filed a Withdrawal of Motion for Mental Evaluation with the DeKalb County Circuit Court on January 4, on the grounds that Headrick was not raising any defenses of mental disease or defect. Brooks said he’d had several meetings with Headrick and had not had any difficulty in communicating with his client, and that Headrick was fully capable of cooperating in his defense.

The following day, DA Mike O’Dell filed a motion of his own, a Motion to Continue. The motion gave several sound reasons to continue Headrick’s case.

Headrick had arrived in the custody of Sheriff Cecil Reed’s office on October 1, 1999, and had not been able to consult with his newly retained counsel, Randy Brooks, at that time. O’Dell pointed out that there had not been a criminal court docket in the county since Headrick’s arrival, and February 14, 2000, was the first available trial week.

The primary reason for the Motion to Continue, however, was the scheduling of another capital-murder trial that had been set for the same date. A young Fort Payne man, John Betton, was arrested for murder on November 23, 1997, and had been in jail awaiting trial since that time. O’Dell maintained that the Betton case should be given priority due to the lengthy delay induced by Betton’s appeal of his juvenile court transfer.

O’Dell also stated that Headrick’s federal sentence was continuing to run and would be completed on February 11, and after that time, his presence would not be required in the federal prison system and he would merely be an Alabama inmate. John Betton’s long-awaited trial for capital murder, Headrick’s recent arrival in the county and a complete lack of prejudice to Headrick would be ample grounds to grant the continuance, O’Dell said.

“Wherefore the premises considered, the State requests that this Court, for good cause shown in open court, grant the State’s requested necessary and reasonable continuance to a date beyond February 14, 2000.”

The continuance must have certainly suited the purposes of Brooks, who began to prepare a long and winding stream of motions with which he would assail the Circuit Court of DeKalb County.

In early January, Rhonda Jackson had requested information on Randy Headrick’s military service, particularly any training in specialized areas. She was certain that his many claims of Ranger training and instructing, and heroic, bloody Vietnam action, were false, and she wanted proof for the district attorney and his staff before Headrick’s trial date, which had been scheduled for February 14, 2000. The irony of Headrick being tried on Valentine’s Day for murdering his wife, who had loved him and his mother-in-law, who had supported him, was not lost on the prosecutors. It made them even more determined to bring justice for the family of the two women, and the continuance that was later granted in the case would allow more time to pursue several routes of interest.

When Headrick’s military service records arrived, Rhonda Jackson’s suspicions were confirmed. She already knew that he reportedly enlisted in the Alabama National Guard on November 16, 1973, at the age of sixteen, by lying about his age. He underwent basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and Fort Knox, Kentucky, and was transferred to the Texas National Guard, reportedly being listed as on active duty for one year with the 111^th Armored Division at Fort Worth, Texas.

The records showed that during his time in the National Guard, Headrick qualified as a marksman with the M-16 rifle in February 1974. His military occupation specialty, or MOS, was as a motor transport operator. His specialized training was as a tracked-vehicle mechanic, with training in wheeled-vehicle maintenance and tracked-vehicle maintenance, and he’d had a course in race relations.

Military personnel records indicated that Headrick entered the U.S. Army on November 3, 1975, and received a discharge under other than honorable conditions on May 30, 1980, due to conduct that could be tried by court-martial. According to the records, he was in foreign service for one year, six months and twenty-eight days, and his highest rank was SP4. Headrick claimed he received his discharge because of going AWOL when his wife left him while he was in the army. They later reunited and remained married until September 1986.

None of the military records indicated that Randy Headrick had been involved in any way with the Rangers, Special Forces, or any other such specialized groups, or had received any training of the sort. In fact, his military career was unremarkable to the extreme. All Headrick’s many stories about his military exploits and special training in combat, explosives, and killing methods were like so many of his other claims . . . total falsehoods.