Grace Madeline Headlee

 

 

 

 

 

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Remembering Grace

Grace Madeline Headlee was four years old. She was the daughter of Mark Headlee and Rebekah Amaya, and the big sister of five-month-old Gabriel Amaya. Unlike Gabriel, Grace had already had four years to begin becoming her own little person. She had reached an age filled with questions, imagination, opinions and independence. She should have been approaching kindergarten, with an entire childhood still ahead of her.

Her father, Mark, was a Lamar police officer. When Grace died, he was away from Colorado performing military duty in Utah. After learning that his daughter had been killed, he returned home to Lamar.  Much of what survives publicly about Grace now concerns the terrible circumstances of October 16, 2003.

But those circumstances are not who Grace was.She was Grace first.

A four year old daughter, granddaughter and big sister whose family should have had decades more memories with her.

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Grace's Story

October 16, 2003, Grace was home in Lamar with her mother, Rebekah Amaya, and her five-month-old half-brother, Gabriel. According to the arrest affidavit, Rebekah later told investigators that a spider had crawled across her hand. Although she was normally afraid of spiders, she said that this time she felt peaceful. She interpreted the experience as a “sign” to “set her children free.” Rebekah then took her children to the bathtub.

According to her statement to investigators, she first placed five-month-old Gabriel face-up beneath the water and held him underwater until he stopped breathing. Then she did the same to Grace. Grace was four years old.

Both children were left dead in the bathtub. Later that day, Gabriel's father, Leo Amaya, returned home from work and discovered the children. He also found Rebekah unconscious after she had cut her wrists in an apparent suicide attempt. She was hospitalized in Colorado Springs. Grace's father was hundreds of miles away.

Mark Headlee had been performing military duty in Utah when his daughter was killed. He returned to Colorado after receiving the news. Grace and Gabriel's deaths devastated Lamar, a small community of approximately 8,700 people. Contemporary reporting described their deaths as the city's first homicides in more than a decade.

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Grace and Gabriel

Grace did not die alone. Her baby brother, Gabriel Amaya, was only five months old when he was killed alongside her. They had different fathers, but they shared a mother, a home—and ultimately the same terrible final day. Funeral services for Grace and Gabriel were held together at Lamar Christian Church on October 21, 2003. Contemporary photographs from that funeral still survive in news archives today. Their names belong together in the history of what happened: Grace Madeline Headlee and Gabriel Amaya. A four year old big sister and her five month old baby brother. But each was also an individual child, and each deserves to have their own name and their own memorial preserved.

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Justice for Grace

After being released from the hospital, Rebekah Amaya was arrested and initially charged with two counts of first-degree murder for killing Grace and Gabriel. She was held without bond. In March 2004, Rebekah entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. The legal case eventually centered not on whether Rebekah had physically drowned the children she had told investigators that she had but on whether she was legally sane when she did it. Three psychiatrists ultimately agreed that Rebekah had been legally insane at the time of the killings, including a psychiatrist evaluating the case on behalf of prosecutors. The prosecution concluded it could not establish beyond the required legal standard that she had been sane when Grace and Gabriel were killed.

On January 31, 2005, Rebekah Amaya was found not guilty by reason of insanity. She was committed to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo for an indeterminate period.

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Person responsible: Rebekah Amaya

Relationship to Grace: Mother

Original charges: Two counts of first-degree murder

Legal outcome: Not guilty by reason of insanity

Disposition: Committed to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo

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Years later, the case resurfaced.

In January 2008, a judge permitted Rebekah to have temporary supervised outings from the hospital, after mental health professionals reported that her illness was in remission and believed community contact would benefit her treatment. By 2009, she was seeking expanded privileges that could include periods outside the hospital without supervision. Members of the Headlee and Amaya families publicly opposed that request.

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Forever Remembered

Grace's story shares its darkest chapter with Gabriel's. But Grace deserves to be remembered separately from both her brother and her mother. She was four years old when she died. She had a father who received news no deployed parent should ever receive and returned home to Colorado without his daughter waiting for him.

She was Gabriel's big sister. She was a granddaughter whose name continued to appear in her family's memorials almost two decades later. Her grandfather's 2022 obituary still named Grace Madeline Headlee among the loved ones who had died before him. Abuse Angels remembers Grace Headlee whos life should have extended far beyond October 16,2003.