[S]outh Burlington Police say a vehicle belonging to murder suspect Leroy Headley has been found in Albany, New York, though there is no sign of him, or explanation of how it ended up there.
“We’ve had his car spotted in Albany, but we don’t have anybody who says he was spotted in Albany,” South Burlington Police Chief Trevor Whipple said Thursday afternoon. “Could somebody else have driven it, could it have been stolen and left there? We don’t know.”
A warrant was issued earlier this month charging Headley, 36, with second-degree murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend, 33-year-old Anako Lumumba, on May 3 in a South Burlington apartment where they both lived.
Police say Headley has been on the run since the killing, and the public had been asked to report any sightings of him or his vehicle, a 2017 blue Nissan Pathfinder.
Asked if he believed Headley is still alive, Whipple replied that he is not ruling anything out.
“I’m leaving both options very viable, that he is still alive and just maintaining a very low profile, but I’m also leaving open the option that he is not alive, that he’s taken his own life somewhere,” the police chief said. “I don’t have a strong indicator either way.”
Whipple added, “We don’t know if he has a cellphone now or not. There’s been no electronic activity that we’ve seen. Now, we may not know all of his electronic accounts.”
The police chief said Thursday that his agency received a call May 18 from police in Albany reporting that they had found Headley’s vehicle parked on a city street. Albany is about 150 miles south of South Burlington.
Whipple said investigators from the South Burlington Police Department went to Albany on Tuesday to be there when the Albany Police executed a search warrant on Headley’s vehicle.
The police chief said he is not publicly releasing information on “what may or may not have been” found in the vehicle.
Also, Whipple said, he delayed reporting to the public that the vehicle had been found “so that our law enforcement partners had the opportunity to conduct a thorough search of the area in Albany” to try to find Headley.
“He was not located,” the police chief said.
Whipple said he went with a department detective on Thursday morning to notify Lumumba’s family that Headley’s vehicle had been found.
“We wanted them to hear it directly from us first before we shared it with the public,” he said, adding, “It’s bittersweet. We find the car, but no direct lead to him.”
Police say Headley is considered armed and dangerous, and should not be approached. If seen, people are urged to call 911 and report the sighting to law enforcement.
Anyone with general information regarding the whereabouts of Headley, or the case, is asked by authorities to call the South Burlington Police Department Tip Line at (802) 598-3528.
Meanwhile, Headley’s Pathfinder, Whipple said, remains in Albany.
“It’s nothing that we want, it’s been searched,” the police chief said. “My guess is that if it’s financed, and I believe it is, if Mr. Headley does not continue his payments it will be repossessed.”
Whipple added, “If he wants to pick it up at the Albany PD, they’d love to see him.”
