Ride or Die

Speaker 1 An all-new 2020 starts right now.

Speaker 3 Good morning, everyone. It's Friday with our temperature today high of about 78.

Speaker 2 The morning of October 2nd, 2020,

Speaker 2 we were at a diner here in Carrollton having a little meeting breakfast with our sergeants.

Speaker 3 This was on a Friday, so that was one of our regular days off.

Speaker 3 I occasionally will work off-duty jobs. I happened to be working at a bank that morning.

Speaker 4 I had my very first mammogram ever that morning. You have to put everything in a locker and lock your things up.

Speaker 2 It was during that meeting that we got a radio that there's just a shooting at the Greentree apartments in Carrollton, Texas.

Speaker 3 I was just down the street from Greenree to get a call from my sergeant. He asked me to come help.

Speaker 5 My phone went off.

Speaker 6 It was a Facebook notification and the exact words were, is it true? I just heard about Alyssa. What happened?

Speaker 9 911, what is the address of the emergency? It's 1120 McCarthy Drive. I need an ambulance immediately.
Okay, I'm going to get some help out of that way. Now tell me exactly what happened.

Speaker 9 Someone came up with just side, my assistant manager.

Speaker 10 I need someone here immediately.

Speaker 11 Don't touch anything, okay? This is an active crime scene, okay?

Speaker 5 Who else in here?

Speaker 12 Just me and my corporate.

Speaker 13 We were just getting our day started.

Speaker 14 I came in at nine o'clock. I was in the computer working, and then Tony comes in around 9.06.

Speaker 14 When suddenly we heard like a car, like really close to

Speaker 14 the parking lot.

Speaker 13 And we're like, what the hell is he parking like that?

Speaker 14 And then we just heard a booming sound.

Speaker 14 I'm right here in the spray

Speaker 16 You were watering the plants.

Speaker 16 And then what?

Speaker 17 Y lo que viste.

Speaker 18 Ví que llego un carro y á trad del caro yego otro más car robera. La muchacha y va salir, pero no pudo salir porque el llego y pump pung.

Speaker 11 This is a crime scene now. We gotta tape it off.

Speaker 19 And you want the chop, you know. The chop in I say, I look and wait, what happened?

Speaker 18 She's here with us.

Speaker 19 Only one chop, okay.

Speaker 20 Is she awake?

Speaker 21 She's awake.

Speaker 20 Okay, how old is she? She's 24 years old. Do you know who she is?

Speaker 10 Yes, she's my sister manager.

Speaker 5 Okay, so first up.

Speaker 4 Growing up, she was very headstrong, but she also had like the heart of gold.

Speaker 4 We had our times, right? Like mothers and daughters do. But I can say she's the one who...

Speaker 4 Anytime I needed anything, she was there.

Speaker 15 I am Alyssa's sister. We're six years apart, I I believe.

Speaker 15 She was always the cooler, older sister that I always looked up to. For my 18th birthday, my mother did this huge party and she actually got Alyssa to make a video.

Speaker 7 Hey Taylor, happy birthday, 18.

Speaker 23 Now that you're getting into adulthood, we're going to become best friends and we're going to make lots of new memories.

Speaker 15 We can do everything together now that you're older. And so that was like really awesome for me at that time.

Speaker 25 Me and Alyssa became friends in the sixth grade. I was kind of getting bullied.
And she asked me to ride the bus home with her. And we were inseparable ever since.

Speaker 6 She's always been like a mama bird.

Speaker 25 And she was bold and strong and had to teach me kind of how to stand on my two feet.

Speaker 6 She gave me my braveness. There was not a room that she could walk in that her presence wouldn't be known.

Speaker 4 Whenever she got pregnant, it was very out of the blue. She was very very scared, but determined she was going to go through with it.

Speaker 15 As soon as her baby came, she was all mom mode.

Speaker 6 I think that the most beautiful part of Alyssa's life was when she became a mother to Willow.

Speaker 26 We support her for changing her whole lifestyle for that kid.

Speaker 6 You have this beautiful 24-year-old mom who is trying to make a life and just was one of the absolute best moms.

Speaker 3 Shortly before 9 a.m. on October 2nd, Alyssa Briquette pulled into the parking lot of the Greentry Apartments where she worked as an assistant office manager.

Speaker 3 She was likely sitting in her car when an assailant dressed in all black approached her car from the driver's side.

Speaker 2 The assailant, he pulled right here and he got out and he shot her through the driver's side window.

Speaker 2 And he got back in, started to back out, thinking that he had done his job.

Speaker 13 I heard that pop.

Speaker 17 I turned around, I knew it was a gunshot.

Speaker 5 So I was like, what the?

Speaker 17 So I turned around, I peeked out the window, I see a Ford Explorer. It's like a black, navy blue, something like that.

Speaker 2 There is a video that is inside that shows the leasing office, and it shows the two coworkers that were here.

Speaker 14 We digged down, me and Tony. We got down and then we ran to the other window.

Speaker 14 to take a close look of the truck and I noticed that it was a black one and he was dressed everything in black, like everything.

Speaker 17 The bastard came out,

Speaker 29 he was trying to pull away when I saw him. He knew when I saw him, so he tried to run off after he popped her.

Speaker 2 Okay. And they hear the gunshot, and then they're trying to figure out what to do.

Speaker 14 Me and Tony, we ran. I was like, he's gonna try to do something to us.
So I ran and I told him to call the cops.

Speaker 30 He tried to go into his car.

Speaker 17 He was pulling out, but he noticed that she stepped out, so she was still trying to live.

Speaker 16 So she was shot, and then she comes out of her vehicle.

Speaker 18 See it.

Speaker 2 He realized that Alyssa had gotten out. She was fighting to get into the leasing office where she knew her coworkers were.
He stops, sees her, comes back, runs out with a knife.

Speaker 3 The suspect got out of his vehicle, followed her up here along this path.

Speaker 2 Drops the sheath over here on the sidewalk, and then catches up to her on the stoop of the leasing office where he proceeded to stab her multiple times.

Speaker 11 Hey guys, I'm gonna start taping stuff off.

Speaker 33 Did you see him holding the knife?

Speaker 19 Uh yeah, in the hang. You saw him holding the knife? Yeah, I know.

Speaker 32 We couldn't help her obviously.

Speaker 31 If he's strapped, what the hell am I gonna do?

Speaker 3 Okay. So then I wanted to call the police.

Speaker 20 Where is the shooter? He's gone. He left in his car.
Okay, how long ago did he leave?

Speaker 20 He literally left a second ago. Okay, what did he leave in a vehicle? Yes, he left in a vehicle.
What's the color and type of vehicle Do you know? Is this a black ornamental one?

Speaker 20 I didn't get a good look at it. Was she shot in the chest or in the

Speaker 5 arm? I can't tell.

Speaker 5 There's blood all over the place.

Speaker 16 How badly was she wounded?

Speaker 7 A lot of blood.

Speaker 16 She was still breathing.

Speaker 20 Is she still conscious or has she gone completely unconscious at this point?

Speaker 32 She looks unconscious, but she's fired.

Speaker 4 As I'm coming back out to get my things, my phone is just ringing non-stop.

Speaker 33 And I'm like, what is going on?

Speaker 4 It was my supervisor calling. She's like, I'm calling about Alyssa and you need to go to Greenree.

Speaker 1 According to the witnesses, nobody actually saw it happen. They just heard the pop.

Speaker 23 It was just call after call after call.

Speaker 26 I got a phone call. It was my friend, and all she said was, he stabbed her.

Speaker 33 I said, who? What's going on?

Speaker 12 Girl, it's over there, but the guy.

Speaker 4 And then I remember her saying she was shot.

Speaker 22 See what that one?

Speaker 5 Is it black guy or why is it black guy or something?

Speaker 15 It was really just a scramble of trying to figure out what happened and who did it.

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Speaker 26 October 2nd.

Speaker 26 Unfortunately, it is the day that I replay a lot.

Speaker 7 The whole world was spinning.

Speaker 5 I felt my heartbreak that day.

Speaker 4 I remember pulling up. I see all of the lights, the ambulance, the police.
And I remember asking, she didn't make it, did she?

Speaker 4 And he was like, no, she didn't. And then I remember just

Speaker 4 losing it from that point on.

Speaker 5 Oh my God!

Speaker 15 I just didn't want it to be true that Alyssa had died and that they didn't know where Willow was.

Speaker 3 We're in the parking lot of the Greentree apartments. This is where we were for the murder investigation of Alyssa Briquette.

Speaker 3 When I arrived, it was the most brutal scene I think I'd ever been to. You could just see the rage and the hate that was in the killer's mind and heart.

Speaker 11 Don't touch anything. This is an active crime scene.

Speaker 3 We knew we had a lot of evidence. We had Alyssa's car.
That was a crime scene in and of itself. We also collected the knife sheath that was here on the sidewalk.

Speaker 3 The sheath of a knife laying over here in front of the car. That the suspect had dropped.

Speaker 4 We heard. We heard a talk.

Speaker 3 We want to talk to everybody that's on scene.

Speaker 5 Y'all come with me, please?

Speaker 1 Were you here when everything happened?

Speaker 3 Yes. All the witnesses had very similar descriptions.

Speaker 31 You come out right there and you were like, you did a car, black car, black S, you

Speaker 3 The one consistent thing that I remember is them describing him as an African-American male with a beard.

Speaker 31 It was a look like a black guy.

Speaker 13 Alyssa had this feeling that someone was watching her. After Alyssa is murdered and the police are examining her car, they find a tracker.

Speaker 3 It seemed like there was something else that we were missing pretty early on, and we were. It's kind of murder 101.
I mean, you always start with the closest circle to that victim. Then you work out.

Speaker 4 Alyssa had told me that she had met someone, they had been dating a little bit.

Speaker 4 When we met, I just thought, you know, oh, okay. He seems like he's this nice guy, and okay, we're good to go.

Speaker 16 Alyssa and Andrew met online in 2018. He was 10 years older than her.
And he told me on the phone that at the time they met, he was well established. He owned his own house.

Speaker 16 He had a great job selling power tools. And he even owned his own airplane.

Speaker 5 She seemed like a very caring, funny, loving person.

Speaker 22 Andrew wanted eventually to settle down and have children. He was this warm, giving, loving man that put others first.

Speaker 6 I knew that she was seeing someone and it wasn't like anything serious. And then she, you know, found out that she was pregnant with Willow.

Speaker 5 I just asked her straight up okay well

Speaker 5 do you want to go look at a place and move in and she looked like she was very relieved for that. So I said okay well let's do that.

Speaker 22 They found a beautiful home on the lake in a suburb of Dallas. He envisioned that they would raise their daughter there.

Speaker 26 I know she felt very uncomfortable about it. I was like, well, are you going to move in there with him?

Speaker 26 And she was like, well, the deal was he was going to help her like go to school and all of these things.

Speaker 4 Everything had to be on his terms and his way and she was just like, no, this is this is not the deal for me and I don't want to do that.

Speaker 27 Which is why she moved out like two weeks later.

Speaker 22 When Willow was born he was at the hospital.

Speaker 5 Holding Willow was probably one of the most fulfilling moments.

Speaker 5 From the beginning, we absolutely had the full understanding that we're just going to be co-parenting.

Speaker 4 She wanted it to be fair. She wanted him to have time with Willow, a relationship with him.
So

Speaker 4 that's what she agreed to.

Speaker 6 She was always team co-parent. And if we can be civil, that's in the best interest of Willow.

Speaker 4 After they had come to this agreement and mediation, everything was fine.

Speaker 4 And then Holly came into the picture.

Speaker 7 Well, get your fishies.

Speaker 4 That's when everything went south.

Speaker 5 I've loved two women in my life, and Holly was one of them.

Speaker 22 Holly's a big personality. She exudes

Speaker 22 energy and passion. Turtle.

Speaker 7 She's a turtle.

Speaker 22 Their relationship was really intense because it was COVID and they were spending 24-7 together from the moment they met.

Speaker 5 She was jumping into almost like a stepmother role, it seemed like, right off the bat.

Speaker 22 Andrew and Holly met with Alyssa and her guy and it was all very amiable and very, gosh, we should, you know, why wouldn't we just get along? Let's do that.

Speaker 1 Andrew seemed to like some of the things he was hearing, but Holly didn't.

Speaker 1 She really took that as her launching point to tell Andrew, look, you got to be a man about this, almost belittling him on a routine basis.

Speaker 16 What started off as an amicable co-parenting scenario quickly turned into a bitter custody battle.

Speaker 6 I always tell people that Alyssa used to have a really bright light, and then all of a sudden her light was gone.

Speaker 7 Something was wrong.

Speaker 2 I had worked a case a month before for an anonymous drug tip that involved Alyssa.

Speaker 2 The drug tip came from here at Greenree.

Speaker 20 911, what is the location of your emergency?

Speaker 38 I like to report

Speaker 3 someone selling drugs in my apartment complex, also doing them.

Speaker 16 The call seemed very unusual to me. This was very specific.
It was Alyssa Burquette.

Speaker 16 It was

Speaker 16 marijuana. It was hand-to-hand transactions.

Speaker 2 Where they did find drugs in the trunk of her car.

Speaker 16 Just a box with some marijuana, a little bit of money, and a gun. Ms.
Burquette insisted that she had never seen that before.

Speaker 2 Shockingly, there's no fingerprints whatsoever. The pistol, the sear number was etched out.

Speaker 16 There was always something not right with this call.

Speaker 4 She's scared to death at this point. It's like, what is next?

Speaker 13 One month after that 911 call, Alyssa would be dead.

Speaker 2 I was there when we get word that Teresa was on scene. And she's in so much pain and she's so angry.
She knew about the anonymous drug tip of my prior.

Speaker 12 I knew that it was him when the drugs didn't work in the car for him to get the baby. She even said, I think he's the kind of person that's going to try to kill me.

Speaker 5 If he did, if he did.

Speaker 5 Oh my God.

Speaker 2 Two sinners screaming at Sandrew and knowing that from the witnesses accounts that it was a black male that we're looking for, in the back of my mind, it wasn't really adding up.

Speaker 16 While police are talking to Alyssa's mother, they find out that Andrew had custody of baby Willow that day.

Speaker 5 I want Megari and baby away from him. You know what Kat Gari draws?

Speaker 12 He has like a whiteboard trick.

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Speaker 17 Like, freaking out, what is going on?

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Speaker 2 Andrew and Holly live together at the Flamingo address in Rowlette.

Speaker 2 So we had Rowlett Petey out here to survey the house while we had our own resources in Rowlett and Detective John Meyer and Matt Burnham.

Speaker 30 The call we got, they said they saw Andrew and Holly leaving and possibly had luggage with them.

Speaker 30 We happened to be pulling onto the street at the exact same time that Andrew's truck was coming head onto us.

Speaker 28 So Matt hit the lights on his truck.

Speaker 30 We were in an unmarked Cobra vehicle. Andrew came to a stop.

Speaker 30 We had them exit the vehicle separately.

Speaker 5 All right, take a seat.

Speaker 5 Sit right.

Speaker 28 So I'll talk to you about what's going on here in one second.

Speaker 30 Alright, brother,

Speaker 5 something's happened

Speaker 30 right now. That's my record.

Speaker 30 I can't go into details on what it is, but it's pretty significant.

Speaker 30 So there are people right now they would like to talk to. Would you mind going, like, on your own report, but I'm not going to the cabinet?

Speaker 2 I'm like, freaking out. What if

Speaker 30 be honest? So I need an attorney for this, or what is going on?

Speaker 13 When the police pull over Andrew they don't tell him that Alyssa's been murdered and the body cams are rolling and he doesn't seem too surprised but also doesn't seem too edgy.

Speaker 24 Hey Meyer, do they have any kids?

Speaker 4 I knew that he had just gotten Willow from Alyssa and I'm thinking she is in danger and we need to go get her.

Speaker 15 We all knew he had an airplane. That was like a huge concern is that he was going to take off on that airplane and we'd never see the baby ever again.

Speaker 30 So after we got Holly and Andrew out of the car and I observed that Willow, the daughter, was in her car seat in the back seat of the pickup.

Speaker 30 Yes, the daughter's in a car seat in the back seat.

Speaker 27 The AC is on and everything?

Speaker 30 Yeah, I can go double check that. Here's her bottle.

Speaker 15 She should be okay.

Speaker 30 Andrew and Holly have said they've been at the house. They were relaxing all morning.
We're just going to brunch. Chelsea on the way.
Okay.

Speaker 5 What an important report.

Speaker 30 Holly was overly cooperative, too. I asked for consent to search her purse because she wanted some stuff out of it.

Speaker 5 I just made my small

Speaker 33 baton. Okay.

Speaker 7 And she was like, oh, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 30 Can we leave your passport in the truck? Is that cool?

Speaker 15 Because obviously you're not going out of the country today.

Speaker 12 No, no, no.

Speaker 15 I just got back from Mexico a couple of days ago, actually.

Speaker 6 I'm not leaving the country, so as long as I can have it back in the near future.

Speaker 28 Yeah, you'll be able to find it. Yeah, it's going to be in the truck.
We're not taking it.

Speaker 22 I was in Granite Bay in California, and I get a call from Holly. And she goes, Andrew and I got pulled over

Speaker 22 and, you know, it was horrible. They pulled guns and I was like,

Speaker 5 what?

Speaker 30 I'm taking your phone and her phone right now.

Speaker 30 But I will evaluate a call to the Attorney Five. So take it.

Speaker 30 And then if you can leave here and just go straight to the Carrollton Police Department and they'll advise you.

Speaker 2 They were just trying to do everything they could to try to get them back to the PD for an interview so that we can get them in a room and talk to them, kind of figure out what they knew, kind of see if there's anything that would lead us down to a suspect.

Speaker 30 We asked for consent to search the vehicle at the scene and Andrew told us we couldn't search the truck.

Speaker 30 But we had enough developments coming from the crime scene to get a search warrant for the truck.

Speaker 4 How about going to the Riley Police Department?

Speaker 30 I would rather just wait at home than my lady say, you're not going to in your house. Okay, you're telling me I'm not allowed to eat my house because we're about to run a search.

Speaker 2 We told them that they weren't allowed to go back to the house. They wanted to keep it where no one came in and no one went out.

Speaker 30 The decision was made. He's not leaving with the truck.
If he wants to go, they can go to the police department. Yeah, we'll just want you something.
We'll just leave you. That's fine.

Speaker 13 So we see Andrew and Holly leaving with Willow, carrying her in her car seat, and they go to get an Uber because they can't go home.

Speaker 30 The order was given to us, like, hey, stay with Andrew, like, make sure that they don't throw anything out of the car.

Speaker 30 And as we're traveling, they take an exit that we weren't expecting. And it was at that point, and the attorney was on the phone.

Speaker 30 So I don't know if something serious is going on, and they said that we have to go careful.

Speaker 5 They say I can't go home. Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 15 That was going wrong.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 41 I can guess what's going on. His baby mama is mad, and she's now made some false complaints against him again.

Speaker 30 I'll be completely honest with you. Baby mama was murdered this morning at her work.

Speaker 5 Oh my

Speaker 5 Oh my God.

Speaker 3 Andrew and Holly had originally agreed to come to the police department to speak to us. And somewhere along the way, he decided he wasn't going to do that anymore.

Speaker 22 They never went to the police station. They went to an Airbnb.
They had nothing. They had no change of clothes or anything for Willow.

Speaker 3 We knew where they were, we knew where Willow was, but we couldn't take Willow.

Speaker 4 I feel like that was a dangerous person and they knew it at that point. And why would they have left her?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I was upset.

Speaker 2 And our next goal now is we still have the house. So we write up a search warrant, which ultimately gets signed by a judge.

Speaker 16 That same night, officers go inside Andrew and Holly's house.

Speaker 12 Carrollton Police Department search warrant. If you're in there, come out with your hands up.

Speaker 2 We probably have no less than six detectives there.

Speaker 2 And we go through the house room by room by room.

Speaker 5 I got up top queer.

Speaker 30 There's a hallway to the right there.

Speaker 2 One of the first things that we do find was a diamonds direct envelope that had like a receipt for an engagement ring that I presume was for Holly.

Speaker 2 But on the back of that envelope was basically the script for the drug tip.

Speaker 16 Written on that envelope, all the details the caller needed to make that false accusation against Alyssa.

Speaker 2 Here's Alyssa's license plates on here, the address for the green tree, and other information that was needed to make that call. Once we saw that, it was like, okay, we're on the right path.

Speaker 28 The room that was a spare bedroom that was full of junk, had heaps of clothes on the bed, all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 30 One of us found a box for a tracker inside that room.

Speaker 3 These are the tracker boxes and charging stations that we found in one of the bedrooms at Andrew Beard's house. These are identical to the ones that we were able to find under the cars.

Speaker 3 We didn't find the gun that we were looking for,

Speaker 3 but what we did find was what came to be a homemade silencer.

Speaker 2 We started getting the the puzzle pieces together.

Speaker 13 After police are done searching Andrew's home, they start canvassing the area and they find this black Ford expedition that looks a lot like the vehicle that the killer was driving.

Speaker 3 We all rushed over to this area and that's when we found the black expedition parked along the side of the road up here.

Speaker 16 Witnesses reported seeing a black man driving away in that type of vehicle.

Speaker 7 But things aren't always what they see.

Speaker 3 When we searched that vehicle, that was the mother load of evidence.

Speaker 3 Didn't find much in Holly's car, but we found a nice bunch of Easter eggs in Andrew's vehicle.

Speaker 2 We found Willow's diaper bag. Inside were several trash bags and in each one were boots that had been cut up and then doused with bleach.

Speaker 3 The other things we found in that bag were these dark Java-colored makeup vials.

Speaker 16 And inside that abandoned black SUV, they find one last piece of the puzzle.

Speaker 3 This is the beard that we found in the vehicle. This also had DNA from Andrew as well as Alyssa on it.
You can actually still see that discoloration from the makeup on the beard.

Speaker 3 I immediately thought, well, there's our African-American male. I'd never seen someone go to that length to try to paint themselves to look like another race.

Speaker 2 I would say between the truck and the expedition and the treasure trove that was found there, it was overwhelming.

Speaker 3 It was just small pieces of that puzzle that came together.

Speaker 16 All along, it was Andrew in disguise, wearing dark makeup and a beard.

Speaker 1 The ham-handedness of some of the things that they did is just so buffoonish.

Speaker 3 The judge signed the warrant for Andrew's arrest for the murder of Alyssa Priquette.

Speaker 3 We arranged for Andrew to surrender here at the Carrollton Police Department, and he did that mid-afternoon, I think.

Speaker 13 Hey, how are you doing? And you're very angry. Yes, sir.

Speaker 5 I just knew, okay, well, the police are going to get me any minute.

Speaker 22 In my mind, this isn't real. My son would not do this.
And I remember one of the female law enforcement ladies saying, you don't know your son.

Speaker 22 And it turns out that there's a chunk in there that I couldn't possibly have known.

Speaker 3 He thought he could beat this up until the day that he decided, I can't beat this. And I think that's why Holly came in the day or so after Andrew's arrest.

Speaker 3 She was using that opportunity to come and get what we had on Andrew.

Speaker 38 I believe that he told you something

Speaker 38 and then told you, don't tell the police that I was gone for a few hours this morning.

Speaker 43 He did not.

Speaker 38 We have video all over the neighborhood and all over the neighborhood to the north.

Speaker 43 And why can't you show me?

Speaker 38 Because we can't show you all that.

Speaker 43 Our investigation is our case.

Speaker 2 We would talk to her about her relationship with Andrew, and she's very adamant. She says, Andrew would never do this.
He's not that type of person.

Speaker 43 I don't believe Andrew is capable of murdering someone.

Speaker 38 And I'm offering you,

Speaker 38 I will walk you down the road and show you the photos of why I know he's a murderer.

Speaker 43 I don't want to see violent things.

Speaker 38 Then you don't care. Then you don't care to know the truth.

Speaker 43 I do want to know.

Speaker 38 You don't

Speaker 38 if you're shutting this out.

Speaker 43 It's only because I am prone to anxiety and panic attacks and things like that. So if I get in a certain frantic way, I'm just concerned about my own actual pollution.

Speaker 16 With Holly not providing much information and police worried that Andrew might be a flight risk, they set his bail at $1 million.

Speaker 13 So while Andrew is locked up in jail, Holly and Andrew's mom become super close. In fact, the two of them are living together at this point.

Speaker 22 Holly and I were linked arms. We're never leaving each other's side.

Speaker 13 This is terrible.

Speaker 22 You know, I was genuinely afraid.

Speaker 13 So Holly is living with Andrew's mother for, you know, a short period of time. And then she decides to pack up and go back home to Michigan.

Speaker 4 I said, said, Holly, Andrew's coming here tomorrow.

Speaker 22 You know, don't you want to be here? And she said, my dad really needs me. She left and never came back.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 22 that told me so much.

Speaker 3 When Andrew bonded out, it surprised me, but it also concerned us because he's got the means and ability to get out of town if he had to.

Speaker 13 So the police contact the FBI

Speaker 13 because when they searched Andrew's home, they found this unregistered silencer. And the FBI says, you know what? That's something that we can charge on federally.

Speaker 3 That gave me some hope that we were going to be able to get him back into custody.

Speaker 16 Police discover that those GPS trackers found in Alyssa's car, technically, they've been operating across state lines.

Speaker 16 So prosecutors pursue the federal charge of cyber stalking, resulting in death, and discharging a firearm.

Speaker 2 You think, well, yeah, he put a tracker on her car, right? But did they ever leave Texas?

Speaker 2 Luckily for, I guess I said, luckily for us, bad for them, is that the company by bought was based out of Florida. And so servers and all that stuff was out of Florida.

Speaker 16 With Andrew's case now turned over to the feds, he's re-arrested on those charges, ensuring that he cannot bond out again. The state murder charge is dropped.

Speaker 16 And as for Holly Elkins, Well, she's no longer the supportive fiancé.

Speaker 16 It was a bit expected because when she was asking for money for some house project, well, I'm in the midst of this, that's when I realized you're not really worrying about what I got going on right now.

Speaker 16 I spoke to Andrew Beard from behind bars. This is the first time he's speaking out about the case.
Your mother supported you the whole time.

Speaker 16 When you decide to plead guilty and you had to call her, what was that conversation like?

Speaker 5 I called my mom with the plea agreement in front of me and I told her that, you know, I'm guilty and I am guilty. And she didn't even comprehend that.

Speaker 22 It seemed surreal.

Speaker 22 And he said the reason that he held out so long

Speaker 22 was because he didn't want to disappoint me and he just

Speaker 22 he had such regret and not

Speaker 22 as you would think regret for being caught. He had regret about doing what he did to the mother of his child and to his child

Speaker 16 Your mother thought that if you had seen her the weekend before this happened, you would not have gone through with it. Oh, hands down, there's no way it would have happened.

Speaker 16 But I hate telling her that because then she feels like she has some responsibility that if only she had just come for her normal visit like usual.

Speaker 4 He was wanting to do a plea deal, and I was in shock because I just thought he would take this to his grave.

Speaker 16 With Andrew pleading guilty to all charges, there would be no trial. He received a sentence of 43 years.

Speaker 22 43 years.

Speaker 5 I'll be dead.

Speaker 4 Everybody tries to tell me he'll never walk out of there, but he might. I mean, I won't be here, but Willow will be.
I don't want her to have to worry about that.

Speaker 16 But it's not case closed. Andrew then reveals to investigators that there's a whole lot more to this story.

Speaker 6 Oh, crap.

Speaker 4 He flipped. So I guess he's gonna flip the script and spill all the tea.

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Monday, January 19th at 7.30 p.m. Eastern on ESPN and the ESPN app.

Speaker 5 This call is from a federal prison. This call is from...

Speaker 5 Andrew Beard. Hello, Andrew.

Speaker 16 Yes, sir. It's John Kiñonis from 2020.
How are you doing, sir? I'm good. I'm good.
How are you doing?

Speaker 5 I'm in prison, so I'm doing as good as you can for that, I guess.

Speaker 16 You have a specific reason to talk to us, and thank you for doing that. But what is that reason?

Speaker 5 For me, it was really just for obvious reasons. I've never spoken to the media or the news, and so the story just kind of went completely one direction.

Speaker 5 I've taken full responsibility and just wanted to basically say, hey, look,

Speaker 5 this has started from custody issues.

Speaker 16 Andrew, this was quite the leap from I want custody of my daughter to I'm going to kill her mother.

Speaker 5 John, it's because I feel you need to know the whole story. I'm not trying to attempt to disparage Alyssa's memory, but yeah, I had growing concerns for my daughter's well-being and whereabouts.

Speaker 16 Did you initially have concerns about committing this crime?

Speaker 7 Killing her?

Speaker 5 Oh, absolutely. It goes against the laws of God, nature, and man.

Speaker 16 Tell me about that morning. What happened?

Speaker 5 For a while, that morning was very hazy. Basically, just

Speaker 5 going to complete this final thing that needed to get done, and everything would be better. That was just, that was the thought in my mind.

Speaker 16 In my conversation with Andrew, he was vague about what drove him to kill Alyssa. But as part of his plea deal, he detailed to prosecutors what he says led up.
to Alyssa's death.

Speaker 45 You say he didn't plan on shooting, but I mean,

Speaker 45 no, again, I know what you're saying, man. Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 45 Every plan was eventually, yeah, you're going to then commit this crime.

Speaker 3 And he gave a full accounting of

Speaker 3 everything from the beginning until the very end.

Speaker 45 Holly was the driver in my mind. We talked about the joking sprinkled in of it would be so much easier if you just offer kind of situation.

Speaker 45 And then it was, well, you know, we're going to plant these drugs. And then now all of this thing happened.

Speaker 16 What was Holly's role in all of this?

Speaker 5 She was basically the mastermind behind it all. She clearly was leading me down the path.

Speaker 5 Anytime I would try to pull back from that path, she would make sure I stayed on it. The end goal was custody and to just be a family.

Speaker 16 You tried to conceal your identity by using dark makeup. Do you think that was a good plan?

Speaker 5 No, no, I thought the whole plan was ridiculous. But you did it.
Yeah, I did. I know I did it.

Speaker 5 So the plan that was made was to dark makeup and make me look not white and essentially commit the crime. And that way, quote unquote, in her words,

Speaker 5 even if they see you, it would be somebody else.

Speaker 3 He explained how he and Holly got involved. He walked us through the details about how they devised this plan to smear Alyssa.
And when that didn't work, the plan was hatched to actually murder her

Speaker 22 I saw a growing need from Holly that she wanted

Speaker 22 Willow to you know basically be her child

Speaker 22 and that's all well and good except there's there's a loving mother involved one text I found that I forgot to tell you guys about was

Speaker 46 she had specifically told me on the 25th I hope you handled it. I'm not coming home to BS right now.

Speaker 46 And she said, this will be a whole different conversation if you ride or die, if you prove that you're ride or die situation.

Speaker 46 And your interpretation of ride or die was what? Of ride or die 100% meant that I'd be willing to commit a crime

Speaker 46 for her.

Speaker 13 Andrew points the finger at Holly, but the FBI needs to corroborate that what he's saying is true. So they need to look at the digital footprint of the communications between Holly and Andrew.

Speaker 13 They need to look at emails, text messages, and where their phones were pinging.

Speaker 3 There was a ton of digital evidence. Not only did we have computers from Andrew and Holly, we also had their cell phones.

Speaker 3 That's where the majority of the digital evidence came from that was used in the investigation.

Speaker 16 Investigators say they later uncovered archived search histories on Holly's computer, including queries for Spy Store and GPS Tracker.

Speaker 16 Three years after Alyssa's death, authorities finally charged Holly Elkins.

Speaker 16 They arrested her at the Miami airport while she was returning home from vacation.

Speaker 16 The arrest of Holly Elkins came as a shock.

Speaker 42 It's bittersweet. You know, it brings up all the hurt of the loss,

Speaker 42 but we're glad that she's being held accountable for it.

Speaker 1 Count one, she was charged with stalking. Count two, conspiracy to stalk.

Speaker 16 Holly Elkins pled not guilty to all charges.

Speaker 15 We always knew that Holly had something to do with it. It was awesome that they finally got her and that they had,

Speaker 15 you know, gotten all the evidence that they did have against her.

Speaker 3 She was not hiding. She was carrying on her life by traveling and doing everything that she wanted to do.
I think she thought that

Speaker 3 that this had passed and that she wasn't real concerned about it.

Speaker 3 I like to think that there was that little part in the back of her mind that kept bugging her about, man,

Speaker 3 I wonder if they're going to come after me.

Speaker 3 I wonder if they're going to find me.

Speaker 16 While in prison, you come forward to police about Holly. Yes, sir.

Speaker 16 Why did you do that? It was the right thing to do.

Speaker 5 I actually had a conversation with my attorney, and he had told me something that hit home pretty hard. What about the next guy, Andrew? He said, you know, this is...

Speaker 5 You could take this fall, but the next one would be on you.

Speaker 16 And now, Holly Elkins heads to trial.

Speaker 27 Elkins says she was aware that Beard and Briquette were in a bitter custody battle over their child, but denies helping him.

Speaker 4 I just couldn't believe some of the things that I had heard, you know.

Speaker 21 Prosecutors used phone records and online purchase history to link Holly Elkins to the 2020 shooting and stabbing death of Alyssa Burquette.

Speaker 1 The prosecution in this case had everything at their disposal. They had every tool in the shed and they used them all.

Speaker 27 Elkins says she was aware that Beard and Burquette were in a bitter custody battle over their child, but denies helping him.

Speaker 1 Holly Elkins' defense. was this was a custody fight and it wasn't her that did this.
It wasn't her who pushed him and prodded him.

Speaker 16 Elkins' attorneys disputed that she was part of the drug planting on Alyssa's vehicle or that she had anything to do with the GPS tracking devices found on the car.

Speaker 16 They rejected the argument that Holly was the mastermind in Alyssa's killing.

Speaker 21 The woman who plotted the attack was convicted after brief jury deliberations.

Speaker 4 I was so relieved, even though I felt like we were going to get the guilty verdict. I just was worried like about the jury putting it all together because it's so much.

Speaker 15 I do feel like in a way justice was served. I mean, he got 43 years and Holly got life.

Speaker 4 I'm happy with it.

Speaker 16 You have a message for Alyssa's family? I do.

Speaker 5 I'm so sorry for my despicable and downright evil actions. Alyssa was an inspiring young woman.
She deserved so much more from life.

Speaker 5 I forgive myself for taking that away from you, and I know there's nothing I can say or do that will fix what I broke.

Speaker 15 I don't think it was genuine. I think if you're gonna take someone's life, you'll never truly be sorry for anything.
You can say to me, as many sorries as you want.

Speaker 15 It's never gonna be enough or remorseful to me.

Speaker 4 There's been times where I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll forgive him one day, but then in my heart, do I really?

Speaker 4 And you have to, I guess, just to be able to move forward. It will never be okay what they did.

Speaker 4 But just for my own self and soul, I have to forgive that and let that go.

Speaker 16 Your message to your daughter?

Speaker 5 Willow, my sweet baby girl, you instantly became our world. I'm sorry for letting you down the way I did.
Maybe one day you can forgive me for that. But I love you with every inch of my heart.

Speaker 5 I truly do.

Speaker 13 Andrew has not had any contact with his daughter, Willow. However, when she turns 18, she will be given the choice, the opportunity to reach out to him if she wants to.

Speaker 4 So Willow is now my daughter. The adoption is finalized.

Speaker 4 They are a spitting image of each other. Even the way Willow walks.
When she turns around and walks off, I see Alyssa walking off. Like it is just, they're that identical.

Speaker 23 We're going to become best friends and we're going to make lots of new memories. And I love you.

Speaker 15 Now that I'm a mother myself, I look at myself all the time and Think, what would Alyssa tell me to do about this situation? Alyssa is watching us. Alyssa gave me this baby.

Speaker 15 She told me I'm ready to be a mom just like she was.

Speaker 13 That's our program for tonight. Thanks for watching.

Speaker 2 I'm Deborah Roberts. And I'm David Muir from All of Us at 2020 and ABC News.

Speaker 29 Good night.

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