The first time Stephen Headley wound up in the Burlington County Jail, he'd been charged with kissing and fondling an 11-year-old girl at a skating rink.

Headley, 28, of Florence, Burlington County, was back in the jail yesterday to face murder charges in the stabbing death of Nicole Ayres, a well-liked, former softball star from Deptford whose body was found near a soccer field on Sept. 13.

Ayres' family members held hands with her longtime boyfriend in a Mount Holly courtroom yesterday as Headley appeared on a video monitor from the jail to face the charges. Headley had been in the hospital since the day of the slaying, after which he confessed to his mother, ran into the street when she called police, and was hit by a pickup truck. Yesterday, he was calm and expressed concerns about an attorney, his $750,000 full cash bail, and a grandfather whom he said depended on him.

"He's in the hospital right now," said Headley, a convicted sex offender stemming from the skating-rink incident.

More than a week after the slaying, investigators still aren't sure how Ayres, 22, and Headley met or how long they had known each other. Last week, Headley's mother said the two had met through mutual friends.

"We know it was more than a few days," Assistant Burlington County Prosecutor John Brennan said after the hearing.

Investigators know that Ayres drove to a Wawa on Route 70 in Medford Township in the early- morning hours of Sept. 13 and met Headley there. A few hours later, she was dead, stabbed multiple times in the head and neck with a knife. Headley, Brennan said, then took Ayres' car to an apartment complex in Medford, where his grandmother lives.

Headley hasn't spoken to investigators, Brennan said.

Victoria Rogers, one of Ayres' closest friends, said Ayres had been with her boyfriend until about 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 13. She doesn't believe that Ayres and Headley were in any type of relationship.

"If she was talking to someone on the side, I would have known," she said.

Rogers said Ayres and two friends met Headley at a party "a few months ago."

Headley formerly worked for a tool-rental company and was once a volunteer firefighter with the former Ewansville Fire Department in Burlington County. Brent Burns, the former fire chief there, said Headley was a troubled and temperamental teen when he joined the department but overall good kid. At times Headley was "possessive" of his girlfriends, Burns said, and he was kicked out after the incident at the skating rink in 2004.

"It kind of shocked me he would murder a girl. Well, maybe it didn't shock me, but it surprised me," he said.

Headley pleaded guilty to child endangerment for the skating-rink incident, was sentenced to probation, and ordered to register as a sex offender.

Ayres was a dominating pitcher for Deptford High School (Class of 2006) and was named the 2007 Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year at Fordham University. She left Fordham after two years and was recently enrolled as a sociology major at Rutgers University in Camden and was planning to play on the 2011 softball team.