11 Minutes

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Speaker 5 Did you shoot your parents? No. Either one of them.
No, you're not a murderer. I'm not a murderer.

Speaker 7 Madison Holton, high school senior, accused killer.

Speaker 8 I literally got chills. This is a huge deal.

Speaker 9 The father had come home and found a lot of drug paraphernalia.

Speaker 10 They were having issues with him. It was hurting her heart to have this happen.

Speaker 7 Distraught parents, a rebellious team. A family meeting explodes into violence.

Speaker 5 That situation goes from calm to murder in 11 minutes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's homicide.

Speaker 11 I didn't hurt either of my parents.

Speaker 12 I don't think anybody's jumping up and down about having to put a 17-year-old boy in jail.

Speaker 8 This was a lot bigger and a lot deeper than what initially we thought.

Speaker 11 They thought they picked out some weak-minded kid.

Speaker 11 They didn't know who they were playing with.

Speaker 7 Two puzzling deaths.

Speaker 5 One riveting mystery.

Speaker 7 I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with 11 minutes.

Speaker 5 The long road of parenthood, always watching as your kids grasp at life.

Speaker 5 You cheer from the stands.

Speaker 5 Do your best to keep them safe,

Speaker 5 hoping they make it through this world in one piece.

Speaker 5 Madison Holton was born a handful.

Speaker 5 His parents, April and Michael, could barely keep up.

Speaker 10 Madison was always the helpful kid.

Speaker 5 Tanya was Madison's mom's best friend. She says Madison was always sweet and a little different.

Speaker 10 I remember we had a birdhouse that my mom had brought over and she was going to put it in my backyard. The other kids run, go, play, have fun.
You know, oh, mom needs help, whatever.

Speaker 5 Not available.

Speaker 10 Not available. Madison's like, hey, do you want me to help you you do it

Speaker 5 school was a battlefield madison was picked on the scrawny kid and a bit of a loner he was always doing his own little thing everything changed by madison's senior year of high school he sprouted to almost six feet and had less time for dad and mom madison was very social he had a lot of friends

Speaker 5 Hannah Trailer and Madison grew up in the tiny town of Eclectic, Alabama.

Speaker 8 He was always like the class clown, like really goofy, trying to make everybody laugh, like, you know, always like he might get in trouble for talking too much in class.

Speaker 5 As Madison crossed over into the land of teedom, his parents found themselves without a map.

Speaker 8 They're in senior year. People are turning 18.
They're about to graduate high school.

Speaker 8 You know, he was just like any of the other kids that thought like, oh, I'm about to gain freedom and I'm just going to like push my boundaries a little bit.

Speaker 10 Madison had started hanging out with a group of friends, but I feel like too, that group of friends kind of opened a door to marijuana and partying and all that stuff.

Speaker 5 They opened a door and Madison walked through it.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 5 April worried about where this road might take her son.

Speaker 5 So she begged her brother Chris, a police officer, to talk some sense into Madison.

Speaker 2 And I sat down with him and I had a long talk with him and I said, look, this is not the lifestyle you want to choose.

Speaker 5 At the same time Madison was going through his teenage rebellion, his parents, April and Michael, were separating. They were united in their message to Madison.
Mess up again and you'll go to jail.

Speaker 5 He had one chance left and on September 11th, 2016, he blew it. While his dad was at work, Madison.
threw a house party.

Speaker 2 Someone else called Michael and said, my kid came home from your house under the influence of something and I want to know why. So Michael's embarrassed at that point.

Speaker 2 Michael calls April and says, you need to get to my house. We got to deal with this.

Speaker 5 Chris has a twin brother, Mike, who thought Madison's dad had good reason to be embarrassed. Michael Holton had a reputation to protect in eclectic.

Speaker 2 He was the former mayor, the former fire chief, very well known. How dare you embarrass me in this community.

Speaker 2 So I'm sure he was pissed. I don't blame him.
I'd be pissed too if my child had thrown a party.

Speaker 5 When Michael Michael Holton walked into the house, he found the remnants of a teenaged party. Homemade bonds were scattered throughout the house.
A box that smelled suspicious.

Speaker 5 That was it.

Speaker 12 And what he did, he called the sheriff's office, and we sent a deputy up there.

Speaker 5 Bill Franklin is sheriff of Elmore County, and the deputy sent to the house that day happened to be his son. When Deputy Franklin arrived, Michael had something to say.

Speaker 12 Mr. Holton Holton actually greeted him in the yard and told him, hey, when you come in,

Speaker 12 you're going to see my son is handcuffed. And he said, I'm trying to discipline my son.

Speaker 5 Sheriff Franklin says he's seen parents discipline their kids in all sorts of ways.

Speaker 12 I don't think that his intent was to harm or hurt the kid.

Speaker 12 He was merely trying to see what he could do to try to get his attention.

Speaker 5 To me, putting a kid in handcuffs says either I'm disciplining disciplining you and I'm serious about this, or I'm afraid of you. Possible that that's what was going on there? Could have been.

Speaker 12 Could it be it?

Speaker 5 The deputy reported April was in the living room, Madison sullen on the couch, his hands cuffed behind his back. Michael asked the deputy how, as parents, they could get the juvenile courts involved.

Speaker 12 He was very, I would say, inquisitive about what could he do to,

Speaker 12 paperwork-wise, to get his child

Speaker 12 in front of a judge so he could talk to the judge about the problems that he was experiencing with the child.

Speaker 5 So maybe straighten him out in his view.

Speaker 12 That's right, that's right.

Speaker 5 Call it tough love if you want. To the sheriff, Michael and April just seemed to be grasping for a solution.

Speaker 12 They pretty much reached their wit's end, one of those things.

Speaker 5 But these were not people who were in the midst of some huge fight. No, no, not at all.

Speaker 5 The deputy left Michael and April with instructions about how to get a copy of the police report the next day, a Monday.

Speaker 12 He leaves and supposedly everything's okay.

Speaker 5 And then 11 minutes later, there's a 911 call.

Speaker 12 That's correct.

Speaker 5 Now, law enforcement was rushing back to Michael Holton's house. Gunshots had been fired.

Speaker 5 Only three people had been in that home. And now one of them was dead.
Another lay dying.

Speaker 5 What had happened? In just 11 minutes.

Speaker 7 When we come back, what would police find inside that house?

Speaker 9 We noticed trauma, what appeared to be blood trauma.

Speaker 5 A marriage on the rocks. What did you see?

Speaker 10 She would just share little stories.

Speaker 7 And bodies in the bedroom.

Speaker 12 I've been in law enforcement for 39 years. I have never seen such a bizarre way to do that.

Speaker 5 Michael Holton's front lawn was a disaster scene, with everyone trying to make sense of what had happened. Inside, two people lay on the bedroom floor, a pistol between them.

Speaker 5 All arriving deputies knew for sure was that the situation had escalated in almost no time at all.

Speaker 9 About 4.48, our deputy leaves.

Speaker 9 At 4.59 we receive another 911 call.

Speaker 5 So whatever happens it happens in 11 minutes.

Speaker 9 That's right.

Speaker 5 Captain Chris Ogden was an investigator on the case.

Speaker 9 Madison left his residence and reported to his neighbor that his parents were involved in a physical altercation.

Speaker 5 Madison told investigators it all started as soon as the deputy who'd been there about the house party left.

Speaker 9 After his parents came back in after speaking with the deputy, they went into the bedroom and became involved in a physical fight.

Speaker 5 Does Madison say what the fight was about or what sparked the fight?

Speaker 9 I believe the assumption was obviously it had to do with Madison.

Speaker 5 On the phone with 911, the neighbor said it was an attempted murder-suicide. Michael Holton was dead by the time deputies arrived.
Madison's mom was unconscious but breathing.

Speaker 5 So investigators' first thought was Mr. Holton shot his wife and then himself.

Speaker 12 From what we had been told, you would think that

Speaker 5 he

Speaker 12 actually shot her, Mr. Holton, and then would have turned the gun and shot himself.
That's what one would tend to believe.

Speaker 5 April's injuries suggested she'd been shot through her hand first, as if she'd put it up to protect herself. And then, as she turned her face away from the gun, she was shot in the head.

Speaker 5 Michael's injuries appeared self-inflicted.

Speaker 9 And we noticed trauma, what appeared to be blood and trauma in his mouth. The first formulated thought is, well, he probably shot himself in the mouth.

Speaker 5 Earlier, they'd seemed like two parents on the same page about their teenaged son. What had happened to this couple in only 11 minutes?

Speaker 5 April and Michael got together in high school. They married after graduation and pretty quickly became the parents of three kids.

Speaker 10 She was all about her kids all the time. I always kind of thought she was like

Speaker 10 this do-it-all kind of mom.

Speaker 5 Made it seem effortless?

Speaker 10 But I knew it wasn't. But yeah, she did.
You know, she was always looked good. She always, you know, put her best foot forward.

Speaker 5 Michael Holton's friend Tony remembers him as a fixture in Eclectic.

Speaker 12 You couldn't go around town without him being recognized.

Speaker 5 He'd worked his way up from paramedic to fire chief. And then mayor.
Everyone knew him, knew him as a leader.

Speaker 10 He was always very nice, very funny, very, very, you know, very easygoing.

Speaker 5 He and April seemed happy. Yeah.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 5 They did seem happy for a long time.

Speaker 5 And then that changed. Yeah.
What did you see?

Speaker 10 She would just share little stories, not much, but just maybe he wasn't as nice to her. He didn't talk to her like he would talk to someone you love.

Speaker 5 Tanya says April felt she couldn't do anything right in the marriage.

Speaker 5 By summer 2016, she was done.

Speaker 5 April filed paperwork for a divorce.

Speaker 10 I think she was at peace with her decision.

Speaker 5 Was Mike at peace with it?

Speaker 10 No.

Speaker 10 No, Mike was not.

Speaker 5 Too late. April had made her decision.
And on September 11th, 2016, April only answered Michael's call because the latest family crisis was about Madison.

Speaker 10 Obviously, Madison had thrown a party, and so they had to talk to Madison about it.

Speaker 10 And And she was like, I'm going to have to go over there.

Speaker 5 Sounds like she didn't want to go over to Mike's.

Speaker 10 No, she did not want to go. She did not.
But she was going to. I mean, she needed to go for Madison.

Speaker 5 So had Michael Holton just snapped in a fit of sorrow and rage? That's what it looked like to investigators at first. So when you finally actually move his body.

Speaker 9 We discovered what appeared like an entry wound to the back of his head.

Speaker 5 So that's the first false note here.

Speaker 9 That changed the dynamics of the investigation.

Speaker 12 I've been in law enforcement for 39 years. I have never seen somebody try to commit suicide in such a weird, unique manner.

Speaker 5 If you argue that Mr.

Speaker 12 Holton did shoot his wife and then turned the gun on himself, why such a bizarre way to do that?

Speaker 5 The next morning, a state pathologist confirmed Michael Holton had a a close contact wound at the base of his head. And to investigators, the angle seemed telling.

Speaker 12 The only way we were able to do that is hold a gun upside down

Speaker 12 and place it upside down

Speaker 12 and then angle it. Because remember, the angle is upward.

Speaker 5 Upside down and using his left hand. The thing about that is...
Michael Holton was right-handed. Normally when men commit suicide, they use their dominant hand.

Speaker 5 not their weaker hand. That's right.

Speaker 5 To the sheriff and his investigators, that made suicide improbable. And the pathologist agreed.
He classified Michael Holton's death a homicide.

Speaker 12 He does not believe that that man would have killed himself or would have been able to kill himself in that manner.

Speaker 5 And so you go forward with a homicide investigation.

Speaker 2 It's not a head scratcher.

Speaker 12 You get a piece of paper that says homicide.

Speaker 5 This was now a murder investigation. And if there were three people in that house and two were victims, that simple arithmetic made Madison the prime suspect.

Speaker 7 Coming up.

Speaker 11 I was like, I need to go get help.

Speaker 7 Madison's dramatic story.

Speaker 5 Will police believe it? He didn't seem that upset. No, no.

Speaker 12 He seemed more concerned about a missing homecoming.

Speaker 7 When dateline continues.

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Speaker 5 April Holton's twin brothers, Chris and Mike, were keeping vigil in the ICU. Their sister had been shot in the head, and there was little doctors could do.

Speaker 2 You see it in the movies with the machine breathing for the person, and this is far more surreal than what it seems like in the movies.

Speaker 2 This is goodbye, and there is no more hellos, there's no more hugs, there's no more phone calls, there's no more birthday videos.

Speaker 5 This is it.

Speaker 10 It was 11 o'clock on September the 12th when they pronounced April dead.

Speaker 5 Worst day of your life?

Speaker 10 To date.

Speaker 5 One person who did not get to say goodbye was April's oldest son. Madison was now a murder suspect.
He'd been questioned that morning at the sheriff's office.

Speaker 5 After one round of the interrogation, the sheriff asked Madison's uncle Chris to join them.

Speaker 12 Here's your reason he's in here. Okay,

Speaker 12 he's got your best interest at heart.

Speaker 2 At that point,

Speaker 2 I didn't know what to think. I didn't know if Madison did it.
I didn't know if he didn't do it. I wasn't there.
I had not seen any evidence.

Speaker 5 Here's what Madison says happened after the first deputy left.

Speaker 11 My dad like signaled my mom to come into the room and she did and he shut the door.

Speaker 12 After about five minutes you say you heard your mom?

Speaker 11 Scream help.

Speaker 12 Scream help. Okay what did you do?

Speaker 11 I jumped up. I ran to the master bedroom door.
I kicked it open and my dad was holding her like this. I was like, I need to go get help.
And then I sprinted screaming help to my neighbor's house.

Speaker 5 Madison said he didn't see or hear what happened next,

Speaker 5 not even the gunshots while he was at his neighbor's house.

Speaker 5 The sheriff wasn't buying that one bit.

Speaker 12 Will you agree with me that there was a gunshot fire?

Speaker 11 I mean,

Speaker 11 as of what I've been told, yes.

Speaker 12 But you never heard that.

Speaker 2 No, sir.

Speaker 5 Investigators thought Madison didn't seem like a kid who was sad about what had happened to his mother and father. Do you feel like any of this is on you?

Speaker 11 I don't know. I didn't heard either of my parents.

Speaker 12 The doctor down there says they didn't cheat themselves.

Speaker 5 I don't care what the doctor says I didn't cheat my parents.

Speaker 5 And Madison's own uncle, an officer himself,

Speaker 5 knew the significance of this moment.

Speaker 2 This will be the only time

Speaker 2 that if your story is any different than what you told me. Just listen to me.

Speaker 2 If it's any different, okay,

Speaker 2 now's the time to tell them. Let's say you walked in there and your dad's got your mama by the throat and you did what you thought you had to do.

Speaker 5 So maybe Madison shot his dad to protect his mom? That sounds almost like you're offering him a story that you know fits the evidence and is also exculpatory.

Speaker 2 Well, at that point, though, I had not seen any evidence. At that point, I had only seen my sister.
I had seen that her hand was...

Speaker 2 Wrapped in gauze, which tells me that something happened to her hand. And at some point, I think somebody told me she was shot through the hand, through the head, which is a defensive position.

Speaker 5 Back in the interrogation room, Madison stuck to his version of events.

Speaker 11 I've already told y'all everything that I know. I've told y'all everything that I know.

Speaker 5 As the interrogation was wrapping up, and the sheriff and Chris were walking out, Madison made a gesture in their direction. To the sheriff, that middle finger came out of nowhere.

Speaker 5 And later, investigators reported Madison was talking about homecoming on the way to take a blood sample.

Speaker 12 He seemed more concerned about a missing homecoming,

Speaker 5 the school, and

Speaker 12 things of that nature.

Speaker 5 He didn't seem that upset. No, no.

Speaker 5 And here's a call that was recorded from jail a few days later.

Speaker 5 What is like all the girls said about it? Like, that's what I wondered. Like,

Speaker 5 the people I slept with, like, what do they think about it right now?

Speaker 5 Like, oh,

Speaker 5 damn, I'm f ⁇ ing murderer.

Speaker 5 That kind of talk didn't prove anything, but it did strike investigators as odd as they continued gathering evidence. They decided to test some elements of Madison's story.

Speaker 5 Madison had said he didn't hear the gunshots. So law enforcement did an experiment, and they recorded it.

Speaker 12 We took the same weapon and the same grain ammo to do these tests.

Speaker 5 Madison's story is that he ran from his dad's house to a neighbor 200 feet away and that he didn't hear the shots on his way or once he arrived. Investigators listened closely.

Speaker 5 Here's what that test sounded like standing at the neighbor's front door.

Speaker 5 To investigators, that made Madison a liar, a troubled kid who had exploded into violence.

Speaker 5 You think Madison saw his parents getting ready to begin a process that might have resulted in him being locked up, and he got angry, and he decided to kill them.

Speaker 12 I don't know what his mindset was there, but could that have, you know, triggered him? Sure, it could have.

Speaker 5 By the end of the week, 17-year-old Madison Holton was charged with murdering his mom and dad.

Speaker 8 Holton's bond is now set at a connection.

Speaker 12 I don't go out here and beat a drum because we were able to put a 17-year-old boy in jail.

Speaker 12 But pretty much, Josh, if it looks, walks, talks, feels, and smells like a duck, we're pretty much going to treat it like a duck.

Speaker 5 Madison says he was no one's sitting duck.

Speaker 11 My opinion is they picked a fight. They thought they picked out some weak-minded kid.
They didn't know who they were playing with.

Speaker 5 You're tougher than they thought you were. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 7 Coming up.

Speaker 11 I asked like three or four times for a polygraph.

Speaker 5 Generally, guilty people do not ask for polygraphs.

Speaker 7 Madison stands by his story and supporters stand by him.

Speaker 5 He didn't do it.

Speaker 8 It's not possible. I knew like he wasn't capable of that.

Speaker 5 There is no more high school confidential. When a senior is is charged with double murder.
That is on every iPhone in class.

Speaker 8 I'm on Snapchat all the time. So when I'm scrolling through Snapchat, and then you see his mug shot pop up on Daily Mail, and you click through, and then he's next to Kim Kardashian.

Speaker 8 That in itself was absolutely crazy for me, for my classmates, like all of us. And I knew like he wasn't capable of that.

Speaker 8 But, you know, a lot of people had opposite opinions, like, oh, well, they wouldn't have put him in jail if they didn't have evidence to lead towards him or he wouldn't be staying in there so long if there wasn't something pointing towards him.

Speaker 5 The sheriff believed that when Madison realized his parents were about to take him to juvenile court, he killed them and then lied about it to investigators.

Speaker 5 The sheriff also believed some time in jail might encourage Madison to come clean.

Speaker 12 There's a lot of people that come to jail and There's a lot of people that profess their innocence and they've been found guilty or later they will pretty much profess their guilt on actually what they did.

Speaker 5 That, however, did not happen. Not as the teenager sat in the county lockup.
Mark.

Speaker 5 And not when he sat down to talk with us. Did you shoot your parents?

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 5 Either one of them?

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 5 You ever have your hands on that gun that day? No. You hear any gunshots when you were on your way over to the neighbors? No, I didn't.

Speaker 5 Under advice of counsel, Madison wouldn't talk specifics about the day of the shootings.

Speaker 5 He did tell us his story of how his family started to fall apart.

Speaker 11 Whenever things started to fall down, it just got worse and worse.

Speaker 5 Could you tell there was tension in the house?

Speaker 11 Yeah, sometimes I could, sometimes I couldn't. Sometimes they would be giving each other the silent treatment.
Sometimes they would be arguing in front of us.

Speaker 11 But most of the time it was more of like behind closed doors.

Speaker 5 He says the Holton house became an unpleasant place to live.

Speaker 11 I wanted to go do my own thing and that included partying and smoking pot and stuff like that. So I mean I couldn't do it at home when my parents were around so I decided to go other places.

Speaker 5 After his parents separated Madison lived with his dad and was present when his father discovered April had a new boyfriend.

Speaker 11 He like freaked out and then he called her and was like going off on her about it.

Speaker 5 Saying what?

Speaker 11 It was like I need you. Like, I can't live without you.
Stuff like that.

Speaker 11 And whenever we got back home, I had never seen my dad cry before, but he was bawling.

Speaker 5 Madison was remembering all of this sitting in jail, months and months, contemplating the past. You wrote people letters

Speaker 5 apologizing in some cases for things you've done. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Dear Hannah, I know it's kind of weird getting a letter from me right now.

Speaker 8 I opened it up and I just remember like, I literally got chills because like it was stamped like Elmer County Jail in like a red stamp.

Speaker 8 And so like I'm reading this letter and you know like in the letter he like apologizes for something that happened like back in ninth grade just because he wanted to like apologize to everybody that he had wronged I guess like he was just reflecting on a lot of stuff but every person I've written I've told the exact same thing I'm not a murderer I don't know if you believe me or not but I'm not I couldn't kill anybody.

Speaker 8 And then like in the end, he put a Bible verse. So like that just showed me like in the midst of like this situation that you're in, like you're trying to encourage other people.

Speaker 8 So it was just like really

Speaker 8 crazy to see that.

Speaker 11 I would just think about the light at the end of the tunnel, you know. My favorite Bible verse, Jeremiah 29, 11, is like, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.

Speaker 11 Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope in a future.

Speaker 5 You still thought you had a future?

Speaker 11 I knew I had a future.

Speaker 5 Madison's present, though, was the four walls of a cell. Time in jail did not motivate him to confess to crimes he says he didn't commit.

Speaker 5 His story never changed from the one he told the night his parents were shot.

Speaker 11 I think I asked like three or four times for a polygraph.

Speaker 5 I just want to be set up for a polygraph test, honestly.

Speaker 11 Like,

Speaker 11 as soon as y'all can do it, I want a polygraph test.

Speaker 5 Generally, guilty people do not ask for polygraphs.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I mean, it's a lie detector test. I mean, yeah, some people can find a flaw in that.
Some people can beat it, even when they are lying. But, I mean, I was 17 years old.
I mean,

Speaker 11 I didn't know nothing about it. I just knew it was a lot of tick-or-test.

Speaker 5 That polygraph never happened, and Madison remained a teenager facing two murder raps. Law enforcement was lined up against him.
His mom's family felt differently.

Speaker 5 They saw Madison behind bars as just another tragedy.

Speaker 2 I told him on day one, the only role he played in this case was the fact that he threw a house party. But you don't put somebody in prison for life for throwing a house party.

Speaker 5 Mike hadn't even known Madison well before all of this.

Speaker 11 Before everything happened, I never really even had like more than like a five-minute conversation with him.

Speaker 11 But whenever I got to the jail, I mean, we'd sit there and talk on the phone until the time ran up on the phone.

Speaker 5 And he was pretty solidly in your corner. Oh, yeah, without a doubt.
And Mike was going to make sure his nephew didn't spend his life locked up.

Speaker 5 He had worked as a police officer and was now hunting for anything that might prove Madison's innocence.

Speaker 2 He didn't do it.

Speaker 11 It's not possible.

Speaker 7 Coming up, a former FBI agent joins the case.

Speaker 5 This is the same make and model of gun.

Speaker 6 Same make as the 380, Cobra.

Speaker 7 With some intriguing detective work about the shooting. When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 5 Two life sentences is a long time for anyone. When you're 17, it's unthinkable.
Behind bars, Madison Holton prayed for the light at the end of the tunnel. And in December 2017.

Speaker 2 My wife and I were able to eventually bond him out of jail after like a year and

Speaker 2 three or four months where'd you get the money for madison's bond my wife and i took out a loan and we're still paying for it after um 15 months and seven days the guards he said today's your lucky day pack it up

Speaker 5 madison was out but far from free Now he was prepping for a murder trial with the help of his twin uncles.

Speaker 5 His uncle Mike discovered information critical to Madison's defense when he went through Madison's dad's autopsy report.

Speaker 2 Michael Holton was under the influence of heavy narcotics.

Speaker 5 Michael Holton had a cocktail of tramadol, oxycodone, and hydrocodone in his system at the time of his death. Was pretty much everybody in your family aware that Michael had a drug problem?

Speaker 2 They were. It was something nobody wanted to talk about.

Speaker 5 And it's an embarrassment.

Speaker 2 Right. I mean, he was, at one point, he was the mayor of Ecalactic, the fire chief.

Speaker 2 He's the best paramedic I know. His drug problem got away from him and just down the hill he went.

Speaker 5 Chris speculated that on the day of the shootings, Michael was using the latest problem with their son as a way to win April back.

Speaker 2 It's an opportunity for Michael to say, look, you know, if the two of us were together, this probably wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 5 She says, it's too late for that conversation.

Speaker 5 That ship has sailed.

Speaker 2 And I think at that point, Michael just snapped. I I think Michael killed April and then killed himself.
I think

Speaker 2 Michael couldn't face the world knowing he killed his wife and the only option left for him was to end his own life.

Speaker 5 Mike learned Madison's dad might have thought about suicide in the past. It was right there in the pages of his diary.
To April, he wrote, I just can't go on knowing you were with somebody else.

Speaker 5 And it was either me or the both of us.

Speaker 2 You You read it and it clearly indicates a person who is not in their right state of mind.

Speaker 5 Madison's uncles shared their discoveries with his court-appointed attorney and they worried. The family didn't have money for fancy experts or the things they would need to make a strong case.

Speaker 5 As his uncles stressed, Madison went to church and that's where everything changed in the form of Greg Biggs.

Speaker 6 On Sunday afternoon, we had a prayer meeting. So to get your prayer partner, the pastor put our names in a hat and started drawing our names out.
So he drew my name out and he drew Madison's name out.

Speaker 5 Did you know Madison?

Speaker 6 I had no idea. But I got to meet him that day, and he was a nice kid.
It was only a few days later, his uncle Chris tells me, well, you know, he's indicted for murder.

Speaker 2 And I'm going,

Speaker 5 what?

Speaker 6 Madison?

Speaker 5 Greg is a former FBI agent and state's attorney. He knew his way around a case file and offered to help.
He says the impressions deputies formed during the investigation were off base.

Speaker 5 But his parents have just been killed and he's, what, talking about homecoming?

Speaker 6 I don't think you can

Speaker 6 put, get yourself in the mind of a 17-year-old to make him out to be a Ted Bundy when he's just a kid. I mean, I did a lot of stupid things when I was 17.
I kissed a dead dog on a road on a dare

Speaker 6 when I was 17.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 6 kids are kids.

Speaker 5 And this was just Madison being a kid.

Speaker 6 Just Madison being a kid, saying stupid things.

Speaker 5 And if law enforcement didn't catch Madison in tears, Madison said he had a good reason and said as much in the interrogation.

Speaker 11 I can't even cry because it hurts so bad because it just keeps replaying in my head.

Speaker 5 Greg says the physical evidence supports Madison's story that his parents had been fighting. April had Michael's DNA under her fingernails.
Michael had scratches on his face.

Speaker 5 And if Madison had shot them during the fight, where was the proof of that?

Speaker 6 No DNA, no blood on Madison. Not on his clothes, not on his hands.
So all the evidence points toward exactly what Madison said. Mom and dad were in the bedroom.

Speaker 5 If Madison had committed this crime, he'd shot both his parents at pretty close range.

Speaker 5 he'd have some blood on him.

Speaker 6 He'd have some forensic evidence on him to demonstrate he had fired a gun at a very close range.

Speaker 5 Law enforcement was never able to lift a full print from the gun, and the only DNA they found was April's on the trigger. And what about that head wound?

Speaker 5 The one a pathologist said made Michael's death look like a homicide?

Speaker 6 I've consulted with a forensic pathologist who said he looked at the wound, and he said that it is more probable that it is suicide than homicide.

Speaker 5 If investigators thought it was difficult for Michael to shoot himself at that odd angle, Defense Attorney Biggs demonstrated for us how easy it could be

Speaker 5 using an unloaded gun

Speaker 5 identical to the one found at the scene.

Speaker 5 This is the same make and model of gun.

Speaker 6 The same make as a 380 Cobra.

Speaker 6 Not impossible, is it?

Speaker 5 Greg said he didn't even need the the forensics to show Madison was innocent. Common sense, he claimed, said it all.
Remember, Madison's dad had handcuffed him behind his back.

Speaker 5 And when deputies arrived after the shootings, they found Madison still in those handcuffs.

Speaker 11 My hands were like this on my back last night.

Speaker 5 I couldn't move them.

Speaker 5 The sheriff's theory? Madison had been able to take the cuffs off using a handcuff key investigators found in the living room.

Speaker 12 Our primary investigator is in his mid-30s. Our chief investigator is in his late 40s.
They were both able

Speaker 12 in about 12 to 15 seconds stand up, slip it below their feet, get in front of them, take a handcuff key that's been placed right in front of them and get out of the handcuffs.

Speaker 5 Wait, wait, wait. That's what you think Madison did?

Speaker 5 You think he took his handcuffs off and shot his parents and then put the handcuffs back on? Yes.

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 5 I think that's what happened. Did you slip out of the handcuffs? No.
And commit murder and then put the handcuffs back on? No. Would you know how to do that?

Speaker 11 No. It was the first time I had ever been put in handcuffs.

Speaker 5 The state was moving ahead. A date for Madison's double murder trial was set.

Speaker 5 They seem pretty determined.

Speaker 11 Yeah, they seem pretty determined, but I was pretty determined myself.

Speaker 7 Coming up, everything's at stake.

Speaker 11 Looks like if this goes downhill, I'll have two life sentences and be in prison for the rest of my life.

Speaker 7 The jaw-dropping news that no one expected.

Speaker 5 Did you have your suspicions about what was coming?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 5 Murder has a way of splitting a small town in two.

Speaker 5 That's what happened in eclectic Alabama after the killing of April and Michael Holton.

Speaker 5 Each side felt they knew what had happened on that September afternoon in 2016. To County Sheriff Bill Franklin, it was clear.

Speaker 5 Madison Holton killed his parents after their threats to take him to court.

Speaker 12 I hadn't missed a minute's sleep at night because we were able to charge that kid.

Speaker 5 Just as sheriff's investigators said Madison could have gotten out of his handcuffs and committed a double murder, the lack of blood on him was also easy to explain.

Speaker 9 It was a small caliber weapon, and a small caliber weapon doesn't cause a whole lot of initial damage to a person.

Speaker 5 So it's conceivable that Madison was involved in that shooting and didn't get any blood on him. That's correct.

Speaker 5 Even if Michael was physically able to shoot himself, he'd hardly seem suicidal to the sheriff's son, who was that first deputy on the scene.

Speaker 12 The conversation that he'd had with the deputy,

Speaker 12 I don't think anyone would agree that the man, well, is going to go in there and he's fisting to kill his wife and kill himself. He was very clear-minded.

Speaker 5 Did your deputy, in that initial encounter with Mr. Holton, describe him or think of him as being under the influence of any kind of drug?

Speaker 12 None whatsoever.

Speaker 5 And he didn't seem excessively angry or

Speaker 5 no.

Speaker 5 The showdown was set for October 22nd, 2018, the first day of Madison's murder trial.

Speaker 11 This is the start of the war, you know.

Speaker 5 Madison, who'd always been so convinced he would be found not guilty, was worried. He'd found a new girlfriend while out on bond and told her this.

Speaker 11 If this goes downhill, I'll have two life sentences and be in prison for the rest of my life. And I was like, it's okay.
Like, if you don't want to be with me anymore, you can go.

Speaker 11 That was pretty tough. Eventually that, you know.

Speaker 5 In court, attorneys were about to start the last phase of jury selection

Speaker 5 when suddenly the mood in the room seemed to shift.

Speaker 2 People running all over the courthouse back and forth.

Speaker 5 The sheriff was there too, waiting for proceedings to begin. Did you have your suspicions about what was coming? No.

Speaker 5 What was coming was a stunning announcement from the district attorney.

Speaker 2 We don't have proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 5 After two years of investigating, prosecutors had decided they didn't have enough.

Speaker 2 We are ethically obligated at this point to dismiss those charges.

Speaker 5 If this had been a battle, then the DA had just retreated. The murder charges were dismissed, just like that.
In a press conference, the DA explained,

Speaker 5 the pathologist who'd already ruled Michael's Michael's death a homicide was not prepared to say on the stand that he was 100% sure.

Speaker 2 The most they could say was it's more likely than not a homicide, which is not beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 5 And so the answers Eclectic was waiting for never came.

Speaker 12 The son was released not too long ago, and that's about all I know.

Speaker 12 about the case.

Speaker 5 Tony prefers to think about his friend Michael in happier times.

Speaker 12 I want to remember Michael the way he was, you know, smiling, having a beer, kicking back with their guitars, and just playing music.

Speaker 5 Tanya says she thought of April every day throughout Madison's ordeal.

Speaker 10 Finding out that Madison was released and that it was done, I feel like she's finally at peace. She can be at peace because

Speaker 10 for her babies to be in turmoil, that's

Speaker 10 not something that would be acceptable for her.

Speaker 5 For the sheriff, the murder case is far from over. You think Madison's getting away with murder?

Speaker 12 It's an open case. As long as I'm sheriff, that's an open case.

Speaker 5 You could re-file against Madison.

Speaker 12 Absolutely.

Speaker 5 Which is why Madison doesn't want to discuss the specifics of the case. He's not cleared.
He's just not charged.

Speaker 11 From everything that I've been through, I have no doubt in my mind that the sheriff will try to put me back in jail. I don't know why he has such a grudge against me.

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 5 he thinks you're guilty of murder.

Speaker 11 Let him think that. He's going to think wrong for the rest of his life.

Speaker 5 Madison is hoping to live out the rest of his life as a free man. He finished high school and he's joined the Army to help pay for college.
He's even considered becoming a criminal defense attorney.

Speaker 5 You ready to go back in a courtroom? Oh, yeah. Maybe not wearing handcuffs.
Yeah.

Speaker 11 I want to find that kid who's put in the odd predicament that I was put in, that doesn't know what to do, that doesn't know how to act and fight for them.

Speaker 11 It's not about the money for me. Yeah, lawyers make good money, it's not about the money.

Speaker 11 It's about that one life out there that could be saved.

Speaker 5 They are dreams Madison shares with his mother when he goes to visit her grave. She's buried right next to his dad.
I mean, you're visiting her grave, but he's five feet away or less.

Speaker 11 Like, I've forgiven him for what he's done, but I can't come to the point where I'll visit his grave like I do my mom's.

Speaker 5 What do you say to your mom when you go?

Speaker 11 I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 I don't love her.

Speaker 7 That's all for now.

Speaker 2 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 7 Thanks for joining us.

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