The mother of a daughter whose death back in July 2023 was ruled a suicide by the police says she got her son-in-law to confess that he murdered her.
Jamie Dickerson, the mother, said that even though the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) at first ruled April Holt, her 29-year-old daughter, died from suicide, there was enough material in their 47-page supplement report to get her 33-year-old son-in-law to confess to killing her, Fox 17 reported.
The instinct of a mom leads to the solving of her daughter’s murder. Hear April’s story and how her mother found out the truth about her death. https://t.co/uwNe5PvZDH pic.twitter.com/F1mOQM3wxW
— FoxNashville (@FOXNashville) September 21, 2024
MNPD discovered April’s corpse in the couple’s apartment with a plastic bag taped around her neck that led to death by strangulation. Dickerson pointed out that according to police’s own reporting only the fingerprints of Donovan Holt, the son-in-law, were detected on the bag and tape.
The aggrieved mother spent months investigating the case before confronting her son-in-law.
“That is when I confronted him (Donovan) and he confessed to me and so that is when I went to the police,” Dickerson said. (RELATED: Teen Allegedly Opens Fire During Brawl, Killing 13-Year-Old Boy)
Dickerson said that her daughter was murdered because she requested a divorce from Donovan due to an unhappy marriage.
“I knew that April was unhappy. She requested a divorce two weeks prior and she was dead two weeks later,” she said.
“She had bruises on her wrists, her neck, her ankles, her thighs and none of it was taken as evidence,” the mother added.
MNPD extracted their own confession from Donovan, according to a Friday press release.
“Holt confessed to MNPD Cold Case Unit detectives in Texas this past July that he was responsible for strangling his wife. He will be returned to Nashville soon,” the MNPD said. Following the confession, Donovan was charged with “reckless homicide, evidence tampering and false reporting.”
MNPD told Fox 17 that they amended the autopsy report to declare that April died from homicide and that there was “no evidence to counter Holt’s explanation given during interviews in that time period.” Dickerson opined that the police should have upgraded the charge of reckless murder to first degree murder.
“I feel like they failed my family, I have had to fight at the same time as [I] grieve my daughter,” she added.
