Unbelievably, a 48-year-old man from Arkansas who was already serving a life term for a horrific murder is now being charged again in connection with a long-standing unsolved case. In a 1991 case, the Arkansas State Police have accused Rick Headley, a prisoner in the Varner Maximum Security Unit, with Sabrina Underwood’s first-degree murder.
When Sabrina Underwood’s mother let her off in Boone County, close to Bear Creek, in January 1991, the terrifying story started. From there, Underwood intended to take a rideshare to see a prisoner at the North Central Unit in Calico Rock. She was reported missing to the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, nevertheless, since she never showed up.
A hunter discovered some of Underwood’s personal effects in the vicinity of the Gum Springs Cemetery in Fulton County some months later, in April 1991. The young woman had sadly lost her life, as proven by the later finding of human remains. These unexplained incidents remained a perplexing riddle for more than thirty years.
However, in July 2022, a fellow prisoner is said to have made a startling admission, asserting that Headley had acknowledged the ruthless murder of Sabrina Underwood. Following the inmate’s tip, the Arkansas State Police reopened their investigation and officially charged Headley with first-degree murder in relation to the 1991 crime.
Headley gave investigators gloomy information about what happened on that terrible day in 1991 during an interview. He acknowledged that he picked up Underwood on the way to Mountain Home in Bellefonte, Arkansas. Headley claimed to be convinced that Underwood was trying to coerce him into paying money because he “knew he could not let her ruin his life.” Sadly, Sabrina Underwood was fatally stabbed as a result of this thinking.
Headley covered up her corpse, threw away the murder weapon, and went back to his Mountain Home apartment to try and cover up the evidence. He had a shower and threw away his bloody garments behind a mall.
Interviewed in August 2022, a second witness confirmed Headley’s admission and said he just wanted to get the horrible secret “off his chest.”
Prior to being sentenced to life in prison without the chance of release, Rick Headley had entered a guilty plea to capital murder for stabbing his estranged wife, Kristie Headley, to death in March 2018. November 13 is the day of his court appearance about the new charges pertaining to the 1991 murder of Sabrina Underwood. This will be a significant turning point in this unsolved and terrifying cold case.
