Sorry I'm late on this one...
The Ford Essex 3.8L V6 is notorious for blowing head gaskets, I blew both of them on my old Mustang in about 90k miles. There aren't enough bolts to hold the head down for one, and the farthest forward and rearward water jackets on each bank are too close to the cylinder bores (I blew the rear ones on each bank). So don't go beating yourself up over it, this is par for the course on a Ford 3.8L motor.