Suspect in Laurel Slaying Has Been Jailed in Frederick

A pregnant woman stabbed to death behind a Laurel city swimming pool on Memorial Day was killed by an older male friend who has been behind bars on unrelated charges since hours after the killing, police said yesterday.

Yesterday, Laurel police extradited Robert Milton Headley, 48, from Frederick County to face a first-degree murder charge in the death of Christen Hawkins, 21.

Hawkins, a Jessup resident who grew up in Laurel, was seen getting into her mother's SUV with Headley on Memorial Day. She was found stabbed the next morning by walkers on a path along the Patuxent River and behind the Laurel Municipal Pool. She was three months pregnant.

Early that morning, before the body was found, Headley was arrested in Frederick and charged with failing to yield when entering a highway and driving on a suspended license. He was in jail hours later when Laurel police issued a bulletin that the SUV he was driving -- a Ford Explorer owned by Heidi Hawkins, Christen's mother -- was stolen and was sought in connection with a homicide.

Jim Collins, a spokesman for Laurel police, said detectives visited Headley that day in a Frederick jail and took DNA samples from his clothes. The department recently received test results confirming a DNA match, he said.

"He was one of several persons of interest, but he's kind of been our number one since day one," Collins said. "We have a DNA match, and that's one of over 100 pieces of evidence we have in this case." Headley has been held since May on various outstanding charges.

The Frederick County public defender's office declined to comment yesterday, and the Prince George's County public defender's office said Headley was not yet in its records.

According to Maryland court records, Headley has been convicted of a string of misdemeanors dating from 1998 to this year and at times has been listed as homeless or as having no fixed address.

In 1999, the mother of his child accused him of assault and obtained a restraining order, and he was later charged with violating that order, according to court records. In 2002, the woman asked that her court records be sealed to keep Headley from learning where she lived.

Headley was friendly with Christen Hawkins, but detectives have not established a motive in the killing, Collins said. Headley was not the father of Hawkins's baby, he said.

Collins said Headley has refused to talk to investigators. He said the department is extremely glad that on the day Hawkins was found, Headley was in custody and DNA tests could be done.

"We put out the information, and low and behold, Frederick City PD called and said they had just pulled that vehicle over. . . . That's unusual."