Leroy Headley, wanted on a second-degree murder charge in the 2018 death of his 33-year-old ex-girlfriend Anako “Annette” Lumumba in a home they shared in South Burlington, has been arrested in Jamaica.
His capture ends a nearly two-year international manhunt for the murder suspect who had been placed on the U.S. Marshals Service’s 15 Most Wanted Fugitives.
Authorities said Wednesday they believe Headley had been living in Jamaica, where he was born, since late 2018, working as a taxi driver and using the alias Owen Ewan.
The Marshals Service announced Headley’s arrest early Wednesday afternoon.
“On Sunday, Feb. 2, shortly after 7 p.m., Jamaican authorities spotted Headley in Negril driving a vehicle that was previously identified during the course of the fugitive investigation,” according to a statement from the Marshals Service.
“Authorities stopped the vehicle and took Headley into custody without incident,” the statement added.
Headley, 38, was taken to a court in Kingston, Jamaica, on Wednesday where he agreed to return to the United States and face the charges against him in Vermont, according to Deputy Superintendent Dahlia Garrick of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.
Garrick, speaking late Wednesday afternoon, said she couldn’t say for sure when Headley would be returning to Vermont, though she expected it to be about a “couple weeks” since he is not contesting it. In the meantime, she said, Headley will remain in custody in Jamaica.
Adolphe Lumumba, Anako Lumumba’s brother, tweeted shortly after the news became public Wednesday about Headley’s arrest.
“Faith is not believing that God can, it is knowing that God will.”
He then praised the Marshals Service, the South Burlington Police Department, and others.
“GOD IS GOOD,” the tweet ended.
South Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke said Wednesday afternoon that the department notified Lumumba’s family members Monday of Headley’s arrest.
“This is an affirmative step for holding him accountable,” Burke said of Headley’s capture. “There’s been this hanging cloud of, ‘Where is Leroy Headley?’ with him still on the loose.”
Headley was arrested in the Westmoreland Parish of Jamaica, in the town of Negril, according to Garrick of the Jamaica Constabulary Force. She said Headley was with another man at the time of his arrest, but that man was not taken into custody for any offenses.
Garrick said it is believed that Headley had been in Jamaica since a few months after the killing in Vermont, arriving there in late 2018. Garrick said investigators discovered that Headley had been using the name Owen Ewing and making a living as a taxi driver.
She said that she didn’t know how Headley was able to enter the country, though suggested it may have been through the use of false identification since he was living under an alias in Jamaica.
Garrick described Headley as “cooperative” throughout the arrest process.
When U.S. Marshals placed Headley on its list of the country’s 15 most wanted fugitives in November, they referred to him as a “modern-day Casanova.”
“He frequents dating sites and has a track record of womanizing, which may help him hide in plain sight as he forms relationships with women who do not know his true identity,” the Marshals said in a statement at that time.
According to court records, before fleeing the shooting scene, a call from Headley’s phone number was made to police.
A transcript of a call to Vermont 911 was included in the warrant for Headley’s arrest. “My name is Leroy Headley, I … I just shot my girlfriend, I love her so much,” the transcript reads.
Headley had been on the run ever since.
In the month before the killing, Lumumba told police she feared for her life. She wrote in a Dec. 2, 2017, request for an emergency restraining order, “I am afraid that he physically threatens me because he is in possession of a loaded gun and what he says at times is very disturbing and unsettling.”
Police tried unsuccessfully to seize Headley’s firearms but gave up when the temporary relief from abuse order expired after Lumumba failed to appear in court to seek a permanent order.
The case has prompted questions and conversations in Vermont about how domestic violence complaints are handed by law enforcement as well as the court system.
Headley and Lumumba had two children. She worked as a nurse in the Burlington area.
In addition to the murder charge, a separate warrant has also been issued for Headley in a case filed against him accusing him of sexually assaulting two 13-year-old girls.
Headley had been freed on conditions in that case at the time of Lumumba’s shooting death, but was set to go on trial in a matter of days.
Deputy U.S. Marshal Mike Barron said Wednesday afternoon that there was little more he could add at this time about Headley’s arrest other than the information contained in the release.
“There’s some complexity of him not being in U.S. custody,” Barron said. “I don’t know that I can go into specifics, unfortunately, at this point.”
Barron did say Jamaica had always been an area where authorities believed Headley may be hiding out.
“We focused quite a bit on Jamaica. It was one of those areas that kind of popped up several times throughout the investigation,” Barron said. “Unfortunately, nothing materialized until now.”
Asked why news of his Sunday arrest wasn’t made public until Wednesday, Barron replied, “I think there has to be approvals that are vetted between the embassy in Jamaica as well as the Department of Justice, and then our agency and then locally. So I think there’s a lot of things that we have to do before we can release information.”
Headley’s case was featured last month on the television show, “In Pursuit with John Walsh,” on the Investigation Discovery network.
Barron said he wasn’t sure at this time if a tip from a viewer of that show was the one that ultimately led to the arrest of Headley.
“The show certainly, certainly played a role in helping us publicize it. I think from the show itself. We probably got upwards of 40 tips,” Barron said, adding, “It certainly played a role for sure.”
A $25,000 reward had been put up by the U.S Marshals Service for information leading to Headley’s arrest. An additional $75,000 has been offered by other donors.
Whether anyone would be eligible for that reward money remains an open question at this point, Barron said.
“I don’t have the answer,” Barron said. “ I think we’ll certainly explore that.”
Correction: The alias Leroy Headley was using was incorrect in an earlier version of this story. It is Owen Ewan, not Owen Ewing.