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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Mom on a Mission - a Killer's Confession · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Bodybags. But Joseph Scott Morgan, you know, there's something about
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the love of a mother. I'm not saying that fathers
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: don't love their kids, but it's almost like this intuitive
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: thing that mamas have. You know, It's amazing a mother
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: can look at her child and just know something is wrong. Today,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about a case here on Bodybags that
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: involves a mother, and not just any mother. We're talking
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: about a mother who actually did the job of a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: detective and solved the murder of her very own daughter.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks. Well, good
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: to be with you again, brother Dave. I spent some time,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of meditating on this case a bit,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and I you know, I reached back in time and
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: was thinking about the things that my mother understands about me.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: And even at this stage in life, I can give
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: her a phone call and if there's something going on
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: in my life, she will say before I ever say
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: it or make reference to it, what's wrong. And there's
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: just something I do that with Noah too, with my son.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: But the relationship that Kemmy has with with with Noah
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: is completely different. There it's almost like a sixth sense
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that mamas have about things. And and that's why it's important,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I think, to talk about this case today because there
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: are a lot of people out there that have no
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: support system in their life. They're kind of cast adrift
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: in in you know, on this on this ocean of
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: pain and misery in this journey. But even in this
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: case goes this case goes to how far a mother's
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: love extends even beyond the grave. Dave Well.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: A lot of times when we have this story about
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: a suicide, a reported suicide, oftentimes family members have a
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: difficult time understanding what happened. They didn't see it coming,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: or what have you. And in this particular case, show
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: when April Holt, twenty nine year old woman is it
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: dies and it's ruled a suicide, and her mother was
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: privy to information that others weren't because they had one
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: on one conversations that were not open discussions in front
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: of other people, and so mama knew that there was
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of unhappiness in the relationship. Mama knew that
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: April had tried to leave the marriage previously, and two
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: weeks before had actually told her husband, Donovanholt, that she
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: wanted a divorce, it was over. And so with mother
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: having all of this information and knowing things again that
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: even friends didn't know that was happening, when her death
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: was ruled a suicide, Mama didn't. It wasn't just the denial.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Mama had actual evidence in her heart and her head
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: pointing to a different reason for her death. And so
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: when when the mother took her own feelings and then
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: matched it up with the evidence, she just couldn't get
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: from here to there because she's not a detective. So
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: she learned, and it was through her her process of
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: learning what detectives do and what kind of forensic evidence
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: they need, that she was able to actually put together
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: a case for murder against Donovan Holt, a very convincing case,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: and even though it still took time, eventually it was
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: the work of April Holt's mother that actually caused her
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: death to not be ruled a suicide. In this case
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: with April Holt and Donovan Holt, a lot of it
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: was very nuanced in that not everybody knew what was
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: going on in the relationship. But April Holt's mother did know.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Her name is Jamie Dickerson, and she was not silent
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: about what she knew. She was very careful, very smart lady,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: and she's the reason her daughter is getting some form
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: of justice, if that's possible.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and again we're going to touch on that too,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: because huh, many times justice is relative, and in this
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: case that's a hit scratcher in and of itself. We
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: begin to kind of compartmentalize the narrative that we have learned.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: But I want to go back to the circumstances relative
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: to this case, because Mama has had this. This case
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: first popped off in July of twenty twenty three. And
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: you know, one of my favorite, one of my favorite
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: lines in Shawshank Redemption is when Morgan Freeman is narrating
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that movie and he says, he makes reference to this
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: idea of time and pressure. You know, it takes time
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: to form rocks. Because the protagonist in the movie Andy,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: though he's an inmate, he calls hisself a rock count.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: He loves to look at geology and pick up stones
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: in the prison yard. And it's about patience and understanding
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: time and understanding the pressure. Can you imagine the pressure
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: that a mother is under when she is you know,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: kind of that lone voice in the wilderness calling out
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: because of her deceased daughter, and she's had time to
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: think about this, and I'll go ahead and kind of,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: you know, give something away here. You know, this case
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: involving Mishold has in fact been adjudicated. That's one of
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the reasons, you know that you and I wanted to
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: talk about it. And it's quite amazing. There was actually
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: an arrest affected in September of twenty twenty four. But
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: it's all about the efforts of the mother, you know,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: you think about, you know, those things that going behind
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: closed doors. My wife talks to her mother just about
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: every day. I think I talked to my mother, you know,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know two or three times a week. And
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: there's there's things that happen during that period of time
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: when information is conveyed, and some of this some of
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: this information is stuff that you know, parents don't want
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to hear necessarily, not that they don't want to hear,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: but they would they would prefer that their child be
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: in a happy, secure, loving relationship.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: So I was going to say, Joe, it's like, not
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: like we don't want the truth, we just want to
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: hear that everything's hunky dory and you're having the time
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: of your life. You know, that's what we want as parents.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: That's because that's what we want for you as our child.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: But the truth is oftentimes a lot different. I'm very
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: curious Joe, as to a scene that when police walk
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: into it. And I've asked you about this before because
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I'm it's not something I've ever done from this standpoint
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: of police come into a scene, and how much weight
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: do they give to the person that they're talking to
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: at the time. In this case, you have a nine
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: to one one call that is made, and so you
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: have some information from the husband, Donovan Holt. But when
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: police are coming in and they're looking at what is
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: in front of them, do they immediately start making mental
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: notes that this doesn't really add up or seems like
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: that could have happened. I mean, what's going on in
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: that process until you actually get there to break it down?
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Because she was I don't want to get too far ahead,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: but she wasn't dead. She did not die right away. Yeah,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: the victim here, April Holt, actually did live. So as
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: we back it up and set it up that it
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: was an apparent suicide, is that not how it was
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: brought about? By police when they got on the scene.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. And one of the big problems that
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you have with cases is the report. You know, that
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: individual that we've discussed before, that role that is played
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: at the scene regarding you know, subjects that either find
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the body. And again that's another category that we talk
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: about finders finders.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: And you know, until we started doing this that never
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: occurred to me. Well for a while, you yeah.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Come up with these little uh uh names or categories.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Where's the finder, where's the finder?
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, where's the finder? And that's and that that is
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: in the common vernacular at the scene. Most of the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: time you will hear say things like, uh, who's the
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: finder of where's the finder? And then who's the reporter?
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Because they can be two different people. But as you know,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: when you have these intimate relationships where people are, you know,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: living beneath the same roof, there's high probability it's going
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: to be an intimate you know, like spouse and this
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: is no different. So back to your question though, it
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: is and I would say this to anybody, those that
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I instruct and those of those in our audience that
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: are interested in becoming investigators or perhaps forensic scientists. I
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: can't urge you strongly enough to not believe everything you
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: see and not to believe everything you hear, because you
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: ever seen seeing a picture of a bull with a
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: ring in their nose, and that's you know, so they
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: can be led around and unfortunately, instead of being in
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: control of the scene, individuals, investigators many times allow themselves
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: to be led around by the nose, by the finder,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: by the reporter. And that's a very dangerous position to
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: be in because you make these wild assumptions. You just
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: just assume that what you're seeing is actually a suicide,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: or what you're being told is actually a suicide. And
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: that is a very very slippery intellectual slope day because
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: once you start down that path of assuming that something
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: is in fact a suicide, that scene begins to be
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: handled completely different than, say, for instance, if it was
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: a homicide, because first off, the population inside of a
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: death scene reduces dramatically if it's a homicide. If it's
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: a suicide, you'll have if you go with that assumption,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: you'll actually have people that are coming and going out
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: of the scene and they're not treating it in a
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: secure manner, and that's a very dangerous position to be in,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: because all of a sudden you lose sight of what
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the goal is determining specifically what happened in a particular case.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Do not predispose yourself to intellectual dishonesty, I think, and
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: ignoring any kind of physical evidence that might be there.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: And I got to tell you the physical evidence that
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: was found at the scene of the death with miss
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Holt and also at the autopsy. But in addition to that,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: what miss Holt's mother observed is a tale that only
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: she could tell. I was not the greatest investigator in
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the world. I am quick to admit that. I think
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: you see people in media many times that try to
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: portray themselves as being the individuals without measure. In the
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: world of investigations and even in forensics, I was chief
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: amongst sinners as far as failure goes. And one of
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: the things, Dave that always haunts me as now a
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: college professor. I wonder how many I missed. I wonder
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: how many times I predisposed myself to these wild assumptions
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: where I ran with it and I begin to be
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: part of the narrative, you know, I'm painting the story.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: For instance, the police that are there and eventually where
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the remains are going to be or where they are
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: going to wind up to be examined by the forensic pathologists.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Keep in mind, the forensic pathologist is not at the scene, okay,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: it's the emmy investigator of the corner investigator that's doing
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: what my former job was. And I wonder how many
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: times I miss something because there's all kinds of crazy
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: things you see in the field. And I think, if
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: memory serves me correctly, it was the mid nineties and
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden the world of death investigation opened
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: up in many different ways. But also we had a
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: manifestation of cases that were referred to as final exit cases,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: which are bizarre. It's a different type of investigation. And
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I got to tell you, Dave, initially what I was
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: hearing about Missus Holt's death really made me, you know,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: kind of go back in tom and think about think
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: about final exit cases.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: So this is something that you and I have covered
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: a couple of times on body bags thus so far,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: where something appears to be a suicide but isn't. And
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I think, I actually, you know what, in two of them,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: it was police officers or a highway patrolman somebody in
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: law enforcement that actually staged the murder to look like
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: a suicide. Now, in this case, we're not dealing with that.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: So I'm wondering when you arrive on the scene, investigators,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: forensic and others, that you whereas April Holt was not dead,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: she actually was transported to the hospital on life support
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: and lived for a few days. If I'm not mistaken,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: and I hate being wrong about that. It's just my
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: head's little cloudy with this right now. But when how
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: much evidence did they lose in that process of here's
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: she's found, she's taken down. Well, first of all, let's
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: go back to how she was found. What did Donovan
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Holt say Aprilholt's condition was when he found her or
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: when his son found her.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what he's saying is that when he observed her,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: she was found with actually a back over her head.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: And anytime you hear that, it's generally many times it's
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: kind of a a theatrical device. You'll see it in movies,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: you know, where people will take a bag, a plastic
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: bag and put it over an individual's head and suffocate them.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: But one of the reasons I was making reference to
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: final exit is that Final Exit is a book that
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: was written, you know, a couple of decades ago by
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: a fellow who had watched his wife language with bone
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: cancer and he made the decision to create a how
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: to guide of how to take your own life. And
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: it's referred to as Final Exit by many that are
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: in that world. They consider it to be the ultimate authority, painless.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: They don't call it suicide. They call it self deliverance.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: And one of the methodologies, and literally, Dave, the most
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: common methodology that I came across as a death investigator
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: was the utilization of a plastic back to take one's
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: own life. And he had suggested and kind of laid out,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: you know, Humphreys, this guy that wrote this book, that
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: an individual would take medication bag over their head and
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: just kind of slowly drift off and go to sleep
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: as a result of oxygen deprivation and being so knocked
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: out by the drugs that are on board that they
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: would not have an awareness of. As a matter of fact,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: he even went so far as to talk about putting
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: ice cubes in the bag so that you would not
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: be rebreathing your own heated carbon dioxide. You wouldn't have
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: an awareness of it. You're still breathing, rebreathing, you know,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: carbon dioxide that you've expelled and now you're taking it
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: up again. But he went so far to talk about
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: ice cubes in the bag because of how uncomfortable that
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: hot area. So just you know, give that a thought,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: if you will, for a second. So, anytime I ever
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: encountered a case with a plastic bag that was adjacent
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to the body or on the body, automatically, and again
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: this is that predisposition that I was talking about, and
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: that's why this is so dangerous. I would automatically be thinking, well,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: this is And we had a term, you know, you
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: say you had said that we have a term for everything,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: and we literally had a classification for these deaths. We
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: call them final exit cases. And of course afterwards you
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: go around the scene and you know, look around the
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: house to see if you can find a copy of
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: that volume around there, you know, where an instructional volume,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: to see if this individual had had exposure to it,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: was reading about it or anything like that. The thing
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: about it is is that with most of those cases,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: somebody had been diagnosed with some kind of terminal event
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: in their life and they didn't have any other choice,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and they wanted a quote unquote painless way to go,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: and they don't I may have mentioned this, but it
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: bears repeating. They don't call it suicide. They call it
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: self deliverance. And so when you know the police are
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: there and you've got Holt that it's telling them that. Yeah,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: when when she's discovered this bag, there's literally a plastic
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: bag around her neck, he begins to drop these hints
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: that this is a suicide, and of course he's he's
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I think it's feigning an attempt, but he's making an
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: attempt to save her life, and I don't know, for
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: whatever reason, that very well may have extended her life.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: You know, where she goes to the hospital, she never
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: regains consciousness, and you know, by that time she's been
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: so deprived of oxygen. She's in you know what pilots
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: refer to as a flat spin. You can't recover from it.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Your brain can't function because it's literally been strangled of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the oxygen. So you you're on a machine at this
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: point in time. And that's that's essentially what looking at
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: And I think that you know, most of the authorities
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: involved in this, for whatever reason, you know, they look
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: at this case or case like this, and I think, okay,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: well we can close the books on this. This is
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: a suicide. But again, this is where Mama comes in, Dave,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and she's she's seen things relative to her daughter and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: then kind of putting two and two together and trying
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: to understand that it just it doesn't make sense. It
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: just doesn't add up. You know.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: The one thing that I actually saw in this with
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: regard to Mom is that when April was found unresponsive
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: with plastic bag tightly taped tightly around her neck tape.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Thanks for reminding me of that, by the way. Yeah,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: there's because that Scott. Can I just interject, please just
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: for a second, the idea that this bag is taped
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: around the bottom and it's they don't describe it as
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: being lightly taped. It's like taped, I mean, like heavily
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: taped around the bottom. I've never encountered a case like
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that where someone is attempting to take their own life
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and they would tape the bag. It's generally done in
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the open. Now, I'm not saying that people couldn't do that.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: What I'm merely saying, though, is that when you see
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: that amount of tension placed. That takes some effort, you know,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: in order to facilitate that. I'm sorry I stepped on you.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Go ahead, Oh you didn't. That's what I was going
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: to ask you. Because for anybody who's ever put on
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: a costume or you know, done something like that, taping
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: something like that on yourself is not an easy task.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Doing it to somebody else is not difficult, you know,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: you wrap the tape around, But to do it to yourself,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: that's more involved than it is doing it to someone else.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: That's part one. Part two is that it was April's
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: mother that actually noticed bruises, because, as I mentioned, April
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: did not die in that shower stall where she was found.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: She was taken down from whatever position she had been placed,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: you know, and her mom said she noticed bruises on
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: her neck and ankles, as well as broken blood vessels
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: on her cheeks. Now, are those common occurrences in a
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: suicide self harm? What have you hanging? I mean, do
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: you get bruises on your neck and ankles?
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: No? No, not not with Well let me clarify. You
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: don't see this with the assocciation with a bag, because
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: you're talking about specific pressure points that are that are
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: taking place if you're talking about say, pressure being applied
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to the neck. But also you know April's mother had
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: in addition to this, she had mentioned that there were
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: facial manifestations as well that she and I found this
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: fascinating because you don't see this a lot, Dave, that
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: she had broken vessels on her cheeks. Now, that's a
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of pressure that would have had to have
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: been applied for a protracted period of time. And the
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: reason it's so it's so profound is that most of
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the time when we're talking about patiki, we're referring to
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: those tiny little vessels and their delicate day they're very,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: very delicate. That that burst in the sclare of surfaces
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: of the of the eyes and inside of the lids,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and they're very delicate. That's not what we're talking about.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: We're talking about, according to the mother, broken blood vessels
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: in the cheeks, which are much more robust. So if
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you have that, then that's an indication that there's a
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of pressure being applied that would facilitate that,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: that would hold the blood in place until the tension
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: in that vessel. In those vessels that are delivering blood
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: supply to the face. The structural integrity of those vessels
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: is so compromised that they even though they're so robust,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: they're going to burst. And you know, it's weird day
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: with Mama. She had this intuition about this. You know,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: how did she know that? You know, how did she
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: know that about if she's kind of doing the calculus
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: here and she's factoring in this idea of an asphyxial
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: death a homicide. You know, she's taking note of this
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: all along. And here's the thing. You know, if someone
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: is on ICU okay and they're being treated by the
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: clinical staff. This is not to insult those people because
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: you know, Lord knows I've been and I see you.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be here, uh if it weren't for those people,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: because they're great at what they do. But Dave, they
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: are not there to do a forensic assessment on anyone.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: They're there to save life, or at least sustain life
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: as long as they can until they pull the person
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: back from the edge. Well, Mama's looking at this in
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: a different you know, in a different light completely, and
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: you know, kudos to her because if she hadn't there,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: you know, we may not have had the conclusion of
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: this case that we've had, Dave. You know how I
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: mentioned that that trait that mothers just seemed to intuitively
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: have where they're going to look at things, they're going
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: to listen, and they're they're going to press until they
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: get the answers they want. It dovetails with what I
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: just mentioned. It's not just that they recognize something. It's
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: that if a mother is on the scent of something
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: that is going on with their child, they don't stop
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: asking questions. I mean, And in this particular case, what's
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: so amazing is that not only not only did mama
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: make her own assessment of her baby girl that is
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: now deceased, she begins to press the husband in this case,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: she's pressing him like she's a detective. She's actually trying
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: to draw information out of him. And dude, she succeeded. Man,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: how many times have you ever heard of that?
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: In this particular case, Joe, I was looking at it
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: to determine, you know, how did she go about getting this?
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: You know, how did she go about doing it? You know,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: how did she get this info from the guy? And really,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: I think you're right, she not wearing him down, but
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I think questioning his answers, you know, following up on
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: what he told nine to one one dispatch, what he
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: told police. You know, there's documentation on all of this,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: and she's looking at it going, I know my daughter
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: was trying to leave. She had tried to leave before unsuccessfully,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: and two weeks prior to this she told him I'm out,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I'm getting a divorce. They did share a son together,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: and so there's a lot going into that, you know,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: when you make the decision to end the relationship. And
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: her mother was aware of all this, and so Donovan Holt,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: the husband, he wasn't going to get by with making
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: a light of this. I mean, he had to answer
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: questions of mom, and I think he felt like he
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: could spin it maybe, But what he didn't realize is
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: that while she was getting information, I don't know where
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: background Okay, I don't know what she assumed going in.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I know what she knew in terms of the basics
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: you know, of her daughter wanting to leave. But we
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: do know that eleven months after her death is ruled
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: a suicide. That missus Dickerson Jamie Dickerson, the mother of
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: April Holt, did a FaceTime call with the husband and
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: got Donovan Holt in this FaceTime call, and she recorded
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: it and got into admit what or I was gonna say,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Admit what had happened? Maybe tell the truth or maybe
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: tell the full truth or a partial truth that was
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: enough to say it was not a suicide. He actually
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: tells Jamie Dickerson because she never believed April's death was
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: a suicide, never ever believed, and he gave her the answers.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: He felt like, what would get her off his back?
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: You know, that's all I can figure.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: And yeah, and in the midst of this confession, I
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: think that it's very important. There is a confession here
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: that he makes to her, according to her, and now
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: this has been adjudicated, so the courts have looked at this.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: He actually tells April's mother that they were in the
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: midst of having sex and he begins to choke her
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: out as part of sex play and it went too far.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: And as a result of it going too far, you know,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: he frames it as though that he freaked out, he
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: didn't know what to do, so it's you know, he
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: goes and he grabs a bag, presumably puts it over
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: her head and tapes it up. Now, these two things
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: are not related. I have to stress this because he
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: eventually admits our stay rather that you know, that this
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: was as a result of a sex act. But prior
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: to that, he said that it was suicide and that
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: he found her with a bag around her head. So
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: you got a guy that's out there staging a suicide
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: that turns out not to be a suicide. And we're
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: getting closer and closer to the truth with the mother,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of pressing him, and she as a
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: result of the pressing he says, oh, okay, yeah, well
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I freaked out, you know, while we were having sex,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: and this is me, you know, kind of thinking about
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: this that the reason she's got these you know, bruises
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: on her, you know, on her face and around her neck,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: is that it was sex play and that I was
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: pressing down her, choking her and deprived her of breath
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and it was essentially he's not admitting to a homicide here.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: He's trying to say that this is an accident. Of course,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: you know, after the mother gets it's this information, he
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: actually heads out, you know this this took place in Tennessee. Well,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: he's actually eventually arrested Dave. I think in San Antonio.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, they lived in a suburb of Nashville, and
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: he was down towards San Antonio when Dickerson got the
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: FaceTime call recorded and took it to police. And that
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: was where the Nashville or the suburb of Nashville or
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: police got in touch with the Texas authorities and they
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: got him in. And the thing is in the process
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: of her actually getting the information to detectives in Tennessee,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Donovan Holt realized what he had done in that admission,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: and so before anybody could really get a game plan
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: in play of based on here's the evidence, here of
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: the facts, he goes right in and admits it. He
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: cops to it right away. Okay, look this here's what
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: really happened. And I freaked out. It was an accident,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: sex play, whatever, and so he immediately became and I
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: don't know how this works because I'm not in that.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I'm not an investigator, I'm not a police officer. But
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: he immediately went in or not immediately. This is September
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: now of twenty twenty four. He confesses, Okay, July twenty
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: twenty three, April Holt is, you know, ruled a suicide.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: June twenty twenty four, eleven months later, Donovan Holt tells
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Jamie Dickerson, April's mother, that she died during sex play
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: and he freaked out and staged it. Then between the
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: time he tells her that in June and the time
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: of his arrest in September, he's able to concoct whatever
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: plan of action he has, whatever story he's going to tell,
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: and he goes to police with that statement, so they
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: don't even have to try him. There's no trial, there's
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: no nothing. He admits to this accidental death during rough sex,
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: and Joe, based on how this was adjudicated, they believe them.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they did believe in but that I think that
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: this is just as big a story as April's death
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: and what the mother did, because to me, it would
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: seem that this is a slap in the face to
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: every victim of domestic of violence that's out there. And
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: here's why. First off, there were other injuries that upon
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: review you could tell that she had been being banged
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: around for some time. She had old, old healing bruises
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: over multiple surfaces of her body. So unless she had
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: some kind of problem with equilibrium, and she's bouncing off
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: of furniture and you know, walls and all that sort
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: of thing because she can't walk correctly, or she has
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: a problem just staying in a vertical position. There's another
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: explanation for that. But here's the thing, Dave, dude, this guy,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: after admitting to the murder of his wife, hold on
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: to your hat here, he is sentenced to only two
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: years in prison. Two years, Dave, two years he is
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: sentenced to. Now he's leaving behind and I'd rather say
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: the mother, April has left behind two kids that are
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: never going to have their mama again forever and ever. Amen,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: he gets out of jail by virtue of the sentence
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: that's been handed down after two years. And then, oh,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: by the way, what a great burden he has to bear.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: He has to be on probation for eight years afterwards.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: But he's still walking around free. You know, he's no
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: longer you know, in a cell somewhere. I would love
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: to try to understand what level of satisfaction April's mama
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: has over this, because I got to tell you it's
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: got to be absolutely heartbreaking. First off, Yeah, I mean
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: it's heartbreaking. First off, that you're told that your child
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: has committed suicide, and then after you do your own
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: painstaking digging, and you're going back through all of the
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: evidence that you have born witness to firsthand, not to
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: mention anything that the me had said. Remember them agreed
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: that this was a suicide as well. Now she's faced
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: with these two, you know, essentially orphaned grandchildren, and the
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: prospect that their father, who murdered her daughter and their
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: mother at his own hand, is now going to be
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: out free. That's two Christmases, that's two Thanksgivings, that's two Easters.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: It just there's something wrong with the economy of this.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't balance out.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Dave, he was allowed to plead guilty to reckless homicide,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: tampering with evidence, and false reporting. Okay, those are the
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: three main things that they got him. That he pled guilty,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: and based on the law of the land in Tennessee,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: and what he could be charged with pleading guilty or
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: what he could be sentenced based on, you know, pleading
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: guilty to reckless homicide. That they went right down the line.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Here's the sentence for that that case. And sadly, you know,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: all I can tell you is whenever people go through
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: this and they immediately think I would take this into
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: my own hands. I don't know how you process this.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: Her mother is not happy. You know that he's only
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: going to get two years, as you mentioned, two Christmas
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: is really that's all you're going to get. Two years
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: in the slammer after murdering a woman who was trying
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: to get away from you, A woman who had been
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: putting up with abuse long enough that she had healing wounds,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: a woman who two weeks prior to her death, she
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: was You really want us to believe that she wanted
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: to get away so bad and that two weeks before
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: had announced it, not just you, but to others, that
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: she was getting a divorce, that she was done. But
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: then she's going to engage in a sexual encounter with you,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: who she wants to get away from, and is going
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: to play some kind of a sex game. You know,
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: we have to buy into a lot of garbage here, Joe,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: to believe that that is what happened. But the bottom
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: line always the bottom line. He pled guilty to it.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: He was sentenced by a judge. And whether you believe it's,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: you know, a proper sentence, or whether or not the
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: victim here has received justice.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: No, I don't think so either, because you cannot and listen,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: there's not enough times in the joint in the world
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: that's going to replace April. Period. She was a daughter,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: she's a mama, and she would have, I'm sure loved
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: to have been able to live to see her kids
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: graduate from high school or in their cases a junior
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: high school even and then high school and then going
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: with their lives. But she's been she was robbed of that.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: The entire world was robbed of April's presence. And again,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I'd like to reiterate my feelings about this because you know,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: every every woman that's out there that is at the
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: hand or was within striking distance of this person that
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: they live with, that is a victim of sexual assault,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: this is a slap in their face. I think that
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: he he got away to a great degree with this,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: and yeah, he's having to pay a penalty of two
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: years then eight years on the outside. But you know,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: just think about think about if you are a victim
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: of domestic violence and you're in this jurisdiction and you
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: see this in the news, you're looking for hope. You're
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: hoping that somebody will help you, And I would think
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: that that would be a very lonely position to be
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: in now, because when you see, when they see those
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: victims out there, they see that a man can put
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: his hands on his wife, the mother of his children,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: choke the life out of her, and be penalized so lightly,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I would think that that'd be a very very hopeless
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: position to be in. Please keep this in mind. If
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: you are any friend out there is involved in a
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: relationship that involves domestic violence, there there is, in fact
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: hope for you, and I can only in my small way,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: offered this up. Here's the phone number you need to call.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: It's one eight hundred seven nine nine seven two three three,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: or go to the hotline dot org. This is a
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: toll free call. It'll be confidential, reach out, ask for help.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: And additionally, if you know or if you yourself are
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: suffering with thoughts of self harm or taking your life,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: there's also hope for you as well. That number is
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: very simple, and here you go. It's nine eight eight.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: It's that simple, nine eight eight. That's the Suicide and
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Crisis Lifeline. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this in spit