On Thursday, investigators with the Arkansas State Police charged Rick Allen Headley, a 48-year-old inmate at the Varner Maximum Security Unit, with first-degree murder in the 1991 Fulton County death of 19-year-old Sabrina Underwood of Huntsville.
“Sabrina’s family still suffers from the pain of her absence, but we hope this week’s arrest will provide them with some comfort and long-sought answers,” said ASP Colonel Mike Hagar. “We will never give up on finding justice for families like the Underwoods.
In January 1991, Ms. Underwood’s mother told police that she dropped her daughter off near Bear Creek in Boone County. Ms. Underwood planned to hitchhike to the North Central Unit prison in Calico Rock, where she planned to visit an inmate.
She was reported missing to the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.
In April 1991, a hunter reported finding items belonging to Ms. Underwood near the Gum Springs Cemetery in Fulton County. Fulton County deputies asked for assistance from ASP after finding human remains nearby. The Arkansas Medical Examiner identified the victim as Ms. Underwood.
In subsequent years, ASP collaborated with the 16th Judicial Drug Task Force and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office to investigate the case.
In July 2022, a fellow Varner inmate provided information to ASP investigators indicating that Headley, who lived in Mountain Home in 1991, confessed to killing Ms. Underwood. Headley gave details of the crime during a subsequent interview with ASP investigators.
Headley is 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.
Headley is set to appear in Fulton County Circuit Court on November 13, 2023.
