Man sentenced for teen’s killing
He pleads guilty in ’91 death
SALEM — A man already serving a life sentence pleaded guilty Monday in the death of a Huntsville teen who went missing in 1991.
Rick Allen Headley, 48, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Fulton County Circuit Court in the 1991 death of Sabrina Underwood, according to a news release from the Arkansas State Police. He was sentenced to 40 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections.
“We will never give up on finding justice for families like the Underwoods, who still suffer the pain of Sabrina’s absence,” State Police Col. Mike Hagar said. “Today, we pray for peace for those who remember and love Sabrina.”
Headley was charged in October after he confessed to the killing, the release said. At the time of his confession, Headley was already serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to capital murder for the March 2018 stabbing death of his estranged wife, Kirstie Headley, in Mountain Home.
Underwood’s mother, Loretta, told police she dropped off her daughter on Jan. 20, 1991, near Bear Creek in Boone County. Sabrina Underwood planned to hitchhike roughly 70 miles east to Izard County, where her boyfriend was incarcerated at the North Central Unit in Calico Rock.
Underwood had made the same trip a week earlier on Jan. 13, according to a police affidavit.
Underwood’s boyfriend called her mother asking why the teen didn’t make her scheduled visit, and Loretta Underwood filed a missing person report with the Madison County sheriff’s office on Jan. 24, 1991.
On April 8, 1991, about 140 miles from Huntsville, two turkey hunters found a suspicious bundle of clothing near the Gum Springs Cemetery in Fulton County. An investigation of the area by the Fulton County sheriff’s office and state police found human hair, a pair of panties, human bones and an earring stud.
The remains were identified as Sabrina’s because the clothing matched what she had been wearing when her mother dropped her off. In an April 25, 1991, Arkansas Democrat report, state police investigator Tommy Cleveland said a medical examiner couldn’t determine the cause of death because only “slivers” of bones were left.
In July 2022, state police Special Agent Justin Nowlin received a tip from the Madison County sheriff’s office a local attorney had a client with information that could lead to identifying a suspect in Underwood’s murder.
In an interview in mid-August, the witness provided investigators with a confession letter given to him by Headley with details of Underwood’s killing.
On Aug. 24, 2022, Nowlin and Fulton County sheriff’s office investigator Dale Weaver questioned Headley.
Before he was told the purpose of the meeting, Headley was shown a photograph and asked if he knew who was in it, according to an affidavit. He said it was Underwood and admitted to writing the confession letter, the affidavit says.
Over the course of the interview, according to the affidavit, Headley said he remembered her name “because you never forget the person if you’ve ever killed someone.” Headley also claimed he had never seen any news reports or been told by anyone about Underwood’s murder and no one had put him up to making his claims, the affidavit says.