Barbara Holder

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Speaker 2 For this long married couple, their life together was nothing short of a dream come true.

Speaker 11 The typical American neighborhood like Andy Griffith.

Speaker 12 The neighbors all knew each other. I played with the neighbors' kids.
Every day we'd go play in the streets.

Speaker 2 But this picture of perfection is shattered by a gruesome midday discovery.

Speaker 13 A woman across the street came home and found a body in their kitchen with the blood all over the walls.

Speaker 11 We got hit with this mess.

Speaker 11 I mean, it was a war zone.

Speaker 14 The ring finger had been cut off and the wedding band was missing.

Speaker 2 To find out who executed this brutal crime, investigators must first sift through gossip and lies.

Speaker 3 Neighbors had observed some rough-looking people coming and going all hours of the night.

Speaker 6 She said that he was two different people. When you're not here, then he's this way.

Speaker 15 And when you're here, he sweets, talks, and all that.

Speaker 2 In the end, they uncover a cold-blooded plot built on lies and motivated by greed.

Speaker 3 He says that he had met her some weeks earlier at a rehabilitation facility.

Speaker 16 She tells him this tale of woe and these two guys killed her husband and she had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 4 What seemed to be randomness now seems to be more planned out. There was an actual conspiracy here.

Speaker 17 You're in a bad situation right now.

Speaker 15 I know what took place here, and I know you've been lying to me.

Speaker 2 On the outskirts of Houston, League City, Texas offers residents a sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of big city life.

Speaker 3 Kind of a suburban community with a lot of people residing there that worked at NASA or in Houston or in Galveston.

Speaker 2 With its swimming pool, tennis courts, and children playing in the streets, the sprawling South Shore subdivision is nearly flawless.

Speaker 11 It's a typical American neighborhood like Andy Griffith.

Speaker 2 But just before 7 p.m. on May 30th, 1997, a call comes in to 911 from a South Shore resident.

Speaker 2 A call that quickly breaks the humdrum of suburban life.

Speaker 6 We have an emergency.

Speaker 13 A woman across the street came home and found a body in their kitchen with blood all over the walls.

Speaker 13 Found what? A body. Try to talk to her.
Yes, her name is Barbara Holden.

Speaker 6 Holder, H-O-L-D-E-R. Here.

Speaker 2 A panicked, 38-year-old Barbara Holder gets on the line.

Speaker 18 Yeah, there's just a lot.

Speaker 19 There's a lot.

Speaker 19 You can't tell who it is.

Speaker 3 There's like blue plastic bags over the top of the...

Speaker 18 I saw his body and there's blood all over the

Speaker 19 kitchen.

Speaker 13 But it's just a bunch of plastic bags and it's in their kitchen?

Speaker 19 They're blue, like, trash bags.

Speaker 13 Was anybody at your house today?

Speaker 19 Or anybody supposed to be there, like, giving kids or anything? My

Speaker 18 husband, there shouldn't be anybody else there, but healed.

Speaker 16 She thought it might be her husband, Curtis Holder, but the man had a bag over the top of his body, so she wasn't completely identifying him.

Speaker 2 Within minutes, League City police officers arrive at Barbara's home and see several neighbors trying to comfort her.

Speaker 11 She was crying, very emotional. She had tears coming down her face.

Speaker 2 The responding officers cautiously enter the holder residence.

Speaker 11 We got hit with this mess. I mean, it was a war zone in there.
The body was laying down on the floor.

Speaker 11 And he had a blue plastic bag over his head and part of his chest and over his waist.

Speaker 3 He was stripped from the waist down, including his underwear. The body contained multiple knife wounds.

Speaker 3 There were a number of shoe impressions on the floor in the blood.

Speaker 2 The entire scene is shocking.

Speaker 2 But there is one act of brutality that's unlike anything they have seen before.

Speaker 11 I reached down, checked his pulse, and I didn't find a pulse, and that's when we called for backup.

Speaker 11 His ring finger had been cut off and was laying over in the corner.

Speaker 2 Detectives arrive at the scene to find Barbara desperate for answers.

Speaker 11 She kept saying over and over again, is that Curtis? I know it's Curtis. Is that Curtis?

Speaker 20 They knew Curtis lived there.

Speaker 4 They're looking for some form of identification, and they couldn't find that.

Speaker 3 So they sent identification officers to the scene to assist.

Speaker 4 It took a good hour before they actually got the information that the victim was Curtis Holder.

Speaker 2 Curtis Holder was born in 1949 to Henry and Anna Holder in Houston, Texas.

Speaker 2 Growing up, Curtis was one of five siblings. And from a young age, he always stood out as one of the good guys.

Speaker 21 Curtis is the type of person that if you're a mother, you would be proud to call him your son.

Speaker 2 Curtis had clear ambitions in life. He wanted a good job and he wanted a family.

Speaker 2 At 22 years old in 1972, he secured a job at the Xerox Corporation.

Speaker 12 He worked on a copier that was actually on NASA. It was like this million-dollar copy machine that nobody else could work on but him.

Speaker 2 In 1978, 29-year-old Curtis met a fun-loving 19-year-old, Barbara Shaw.

Speaker 4 It was a mutual friend that introduced the two of them. They seemed to hit it off right away.

Speaker 2 Despite their age difference, Barbara's upbringing forced her to grow up fast and she felt ready to settle down when she met curtis

Speaker 4 her mom was battling alcoholism and there was not a lot of stability within that

Speaker 21 the only thing that i ever heard about barbara was her mother said that they were raised in house to house and she never really had a permanent home.

Speaker 14 So at the age of 19, she meets this older older man, 29-year-old Curtis Holder. He's got a good job.
He's a man who's going to give her that sort of all-American dream life.

Speaker 2 In June 1980, Curtis and Barbara tied the knot in a simple courthouse ceremony.

Speaker 2 In the years that followed, Barbara gave birth to two children. Christopher and Leslie.

Speaker 12 My mother did not work.

Speaker 12 So my mom wasn't the disciplinary. She would more say, you know, whenever your dad gets home, this is when we'll deal with it.
And so he worked and took care of me and my brother, Chris.

Speaker 12 I was definitely a daddy's girl. My dad was definitely loving, and he loved me.
He loved Chris.

Speaker 2 Curtis continued to advance in his career, bringing in a paycheck that allowed the couple to purchase a beautiful home in the League City neighborhood of South Shore.

Speaker 12 The neighbors all knew each other. I played with the neighbors' kids.
Chris had his friends. After school, every day, we'd go play in the streets.

Speaker 21 Barbara was a fanatic when it came to that house. That was her house, and that was her pride and joy.

Speaker 2 But on May 30th, 1997, this portrait of suburban success is destroyed when homicide detectives discover a horrific scene at the Holder home.

Speaker 3 The scenario is that Barbara Holder entered her home and found Curtis laying in her kitchen with some blue bags over him.

Speaker 3 There was an amputation of the left finger that was a very bloody area around the kitchen.

Speaker 3 His throat was cut.

Speaker 3 He had multiple stab wounds to his entire body, blunt trauma to the head, so tremendous trauma to his body.

Speaker 2 Detectives check in with Barbara, who has taken refuge inside a neighbor's home.

Speaker 2 They break the news to Barbara that the body is, in fact, her husband, Curtis Holder.

Speaker 11 Barbara Jean was very upset. She started crying.
She says, oh, thank God, thank God, thank God.

Speaker 11 My daughter didn't go in with me. She had seen her daddy on the floor dead like that.

Speaker 22 Barbara said that she saw Curtis off to work that morning and that then she continued throughout the day to run a lot of errands.

Speaker 11 While she was out running her errands, her husband calls her up and tells her to go pick up her daughter from daycare, who was five years old at the time.

Speaker 2 Barbara did as Curtis requested.

Speaker 4 So Barbara has her daughter with her, but she said her son, Chris, her eldest, is off on a camping trip at the time.

Speaker 11 She comes home. Daughter goes over to the neighbor's house instead of going in with her.
She walks in, sees a dead body on the floor.

Speaker 2 Detectives give Barbara some time to process the tragic news. They turn to Sylvia Yates, a neighbor, who tells them that she saw Curtis come home that day around 4 p.m.

Speaker 23 I was coming home from school and I stopped at my mailbox. I looked up the street and I saw Curtis.

Speaker 11 She saw him enter at about 4.10

Speaker 11 and the call for us was approximately two and a half hours later.

Speaker 2 Sylvia has another bit of information to offer.

Speaker 22 Two days before, Sylvia Yates had been burglarized.

Speaker 23 Wednesday when I come home and I see the light on in the master bedroom. So I walked further into the room and saw the closet door was open and there was clothes strewing about the floor

Speaker 23 and all my jewelry was gone.

Speaker 11 If you have burglaries in the neighborhood, it leads you to believe that maybe this was a burglary.

Speaker 4 And for detectives, that's also a clue. They have to determine if it was a burglar who'd been surprised or a home invasion or that type of case.

Speaker 2 Coming up, a new clue takes the investigation in a surprising direction.

Speaker 16 Now, they were going down that path thinking maybe the person was his burnt lover.

Speaker 2 And detectives start to sort fact from fiction.

Speaker 23 When you have an affair with Curtis, absolutely not.

Speaker 2 May 30th, 1997.

Speaker 2 Authorities in League City, Texas have positively identified the body found inside a quaint suburban home as 47-year-old Curtis Holder.

Speaker 16 I've been doing this 30-plus years, and I've never seen a case where they both covered the face and exposed the bottom half of the body, which is also kind of odd.

Speaker 16 Now, sometimes when a person is killed by a loved one, that person covers up the face or head to make it seem more dignified, but this was the opposite of that.

Speaker 2 After hearing from the Holder's neighbor, Sylvia Yates, about her recent home burglary, investigators wonder, did Curtis interrupt a robbery in progress?

Speaker 22 Most of the rooms in the Holder home were ransacked,

Speaker 22 but there were no broken windows or anything else that showed forced entry into the home.

Speaker 2 But amid the mess, detectives make note of an odd pattern.

Speaker 3 Not all of the drawers were pulled out in some of the rooms.

Speaker 22 Drawers seem to have been undisturbed, which was unusual.

Speaker 16 There are a lot of valuables that were left. The officer's experience in working burglaries told them that's not how burglaries work.

Speaker 16 That indicates that someone is working to mislead their investigation.

Speaker 2 Investigators take their attention to the kitchen where the murder took place.

Speaker 3 The general crime scene in the kitchen painted a tremendous struggle that took place. There were things knocked over in the kitchen.
There were dents in some of the appliances.

Speaker 2 Detectives don't spot a murder weapon, but they do find a clue as to where it might have come from.

Speaker 16 They did find a block where the family kitchen knives were, and the biggest knife in that block was missing.

Speaker 2 Curtis's body reflects the brutality of the scene.

Speaker 16 Curtis had contusions around his head where he was hit with something like a wrench.

Speaker 11 He was stabbed 93 times in the face and chest.

Speaker 22 His left ring finger had been amputated and thrown across the room.

Speaker 2 The medical examiner notes that after the murder, the killer continued the assault on Curtis's body.

Speaker 16 They had taken his clothes off. They took his pants off and his underwear.
And they took a blue bag and they put it over the top part of his head, covering his head, which is also kind of odd.

Speaker 2 Investigators have a strong hunch that this killing was personal.

Speaker 14 It's unusual to find that level of of injury and that much trauma to a face and neck exclusively.

Speaker 14 The fact that the ring finger is missing and he was stabbed to the point where he was almost decapitated really starts to speak to that there was some intimate relationship and maybe even a romantic relationship.

Speaker 2 Detectives and crime scene technicians find something in the master bedroom that sticks out.

Speaker 11 It was a greetings card sitting on top of Curtis Holder's dresser, and it said,

Speaker 8 Have a nice life, love Brent.

Speaker 14 The card reads in a manner and tone that might suggest it's a final goodbye from someone who is romantically involved or sexually involved with Curtis.

Speaker 4 So detectives first have to determine who is this person.

Speaker 2 Hoping to learn more about Curtis's personal life, investigators ask Barbara to come to the station for a formal statement just after 10 p.m.

Speaker 22 And they want to try to get anything else that is pertinent to their relationship and to any relationships that Curtis may have had.

Speaker 2 Barbara tells detectives that while her husband was a well-liked guy, they faced their share of obstacles in their nearly 17 years together.

Speaker 3 The picture that was painted was that it was very dysfunctional.

Speaker 22 They had financial problems that Curtis blamed on Barbara.

Speaker 6 He had actually moved away from the house a year before and separated from her.

Speaker 12 My dad moving out was explained to me basically that they just needed a break.

Speaker 2 However, after nearly a year, Curtis returned home.

Speaker 3 He came back about five months before his murder back into the home, and most of the neighbors and friends attributed that to his love of his children, not his love or relationship with Barbara.

Speaker 14 Barbara talks about the relationship she had with Curtis, and she begins to paint for police a very different human being, a husband who's controlling. It put her into a very deep depression.

Speaker 14 She described to the police that she was depressed and suicidal.

Speaker 2 In fact, Barbara tells them that the stress from it all lingered. And 15 days ago, she sought help at a local mental hospital.

Speaker 4 While she was in the hospital for, as she had put it, her mental breakdown.

Speaker 2 Barbara says that much of her stress was rooted in a suspicion that Curtis was unfaithful.

Speaker 14 When Barbara is interviewed, one of the things that she draws attention to is this belief that Curtis was actually gay and not straight and was closeted about his sexual interests.

Speaker 2 Barbara doesn't know who he had an affair with, but she gives detectives two names, Brett Wilson and Jerome Rapp.

Speaker 2 Detectives immediately recognize one of the names from the card found at the holder home.

Speaker 16 Now, they were going down that path thinking maybe the person was a spurned lover.

Speaker 2 Investigators dive into this theory.

Speaker 2 And less than 12 hours after Curtis's body was found, they find 42-year-old Brett Wilson and bring him into the station for an interview.

Speaker 19 Let me answer this.

Speaker 17 How do you know and what is your relationship with Curtis Holder?

Speaker 6 I Don't even know the fellow.

Speaker 17 There was a card in his residence, and we know that you know him. Plus, it's substantial than his wife, Barbara.
And I know you know Barbara.

Speaker 13 Barbara!

Speaker 2 The mention of Barbara's name seems to clarify things for Brett.

Speaker 17 Oh, yeah, I know Curtis. I know that, Curtis.
I know that, Barbara.

Speaker 14 It was actually Barbara he was friends with and that he met Curtis through Barbara.

Speaker 24 How did you end up meeting her the first time?

Speaker 17 Through Jerome at a party at his house. And I met Curtis a couple of times.

Speaker 17 Curtis is dead.

Speaker 8 Oh my God.

Speaker 2 But Brett continues to insist that he never sent Curtis a card.

Speaker 23 Were you having an affair with Curtis?

Speaker 12 Absolutely not.

Speaker 10 Then why do we find a card supposedly sent by you?

Speaker 10 And it's pretty explicit as to what's going on.

Speaker 17 Oh, well,

Speaker 23 it's a forged.

Speaker 17 It's a forgery, absolutely, officer. There's no question about that.

Speaker 2 Brett is cooperative with investigators. And before they wrap up his interview, he provides an alibi.

Speaker 14 You have a home that looks on first glance like it's been burglarized, and yet things about how the home's been ransacked suggest it's been staged.

Speaker 14 You have a birthday card that now potentially is a forgery, which means it may also have been staged. They have now walked away from their interview with Brett with more questions.

Speaker 2 Coming up, the rumor mill churns.

Speaker 21 She was spending money on drugs, booze, and boyfriends.

Speaker 2 And a call comes in to a neighbor that raises a red flag.

Speaker 16 The neighbor noticed that the call was was not coming from the police department. The call was coming from the motel.

Speaker 14 Hi, I'm here to pick up my son Milo.

Speaker 12 There's no Milo here.

Speaker 8 Who picked up my son from school?

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Speaker 2 I'm gonna need the name of everyone that could have a connection.

Speaker 16 You don't understand. It was just the five of us.

Speaker 7 So this was all planned.

Speaker 3 What are you gonna do?

Speaker 2 I will do whatever it takes to get my son back.

Speaker 7 I honestly didn't see this coming.

Speaker 19 These nice people killing each other.

Speaker 22 All her fault.

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Speaker 2 Detectives investigating the brutal murder of Curtis Holder have just interviewed Brett Wilson. One of the men Barbara Holder named as a potential love interest of Curtis.

Speaker 16 The police explored that, and the police were not able to find anything that indicated there was a homosexual relationship between Curtis and his friend.

Speaker 2 After detectives confirm Brett's alibi checks out, they move on. And just a few hours later, they locate the other man Barbara mentioned, Jerome Rapp.

Speaker 2 He agrees to come in for an interview.

Speaker 14 When Jerome is interviewed, what's clear to the detectives is their stories are consistent. Neither of them really knew Curtis.
They knew of him, and they knew of him through Barbara.

Speaker 14 They partied with her.

Speaker 2 He tells police that he spent the entire previous day in Galveston with a friend.

Speaker 4 So you weren't in League City yesterday? No.

Speaker 2 Jerome says Barbara often confided in him about her marriage, claiming more than once that her seemingly mild-mannered husband had a dark side.

Speaker 6 And she said that he was two different people. When you're not here, then

Speaker 6 he's this way.

Speaker 15 And when you're here, he's sweet, talks, and all that.

Speaker 2 Sometimes Barbara claimed Curtis's dark side was outright abusive.

Speaker 24 Just the, he was occasionally mean to her physically.

Speaker 24 You know,

Speaker 6 and I never saw it.

Speaker 2 Detectives find no evidence that either Brett or Jerome had a romantic relationship with Curtis.

Speaker 11 They were completely illuminated. They had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Speaker 2 Investigators head back to the South Shore subdivision.

Speaker 16 This was the kind of place where neighbors did know each other and know what was going on.

Speaker 2 Neighbors shed more light on the couple's separation that took place less than a year ago.

Speaker 3 Oh, it was.

Speaker 23 Yeah, that was the talk of the neighborhood.

Speaker 2 Neighbors say the reason for the split wasn't that Curtis was having an affair.

Speaker 20 With Curtis and Barbara, finances were always a struggle.

Speaker 21 She came to my house one day and said that she had just picked up Curtis's paycheck and had all that cash in her purse.

Speaker 21 She pulled in her driveway, got out, ran in the house, and she was only in there a minute and she said, so somebody had stolen all of Curtis's paycheck.

Speaker 3 Now,

Speaker 21 I didn't believe that.

Speaker 21 I think she was spending money on entertainment, on drugs, booze, and

Speaker 11 boyfriends.

Speaker 12 I can remember, you know, my mom just was spending it on the wrong things.

Speaker 3 Neighbors also had observed some rough-looking people coming and going from the house at all hours of the night.

Speaker 2 Neighbors say that Curtis was outraged when he got word of his estranged wife's behavior. He felt he had no choice but to return home.

Speaker 23 From what we understand, we heard through the rumor mill, was that his attorney told him to go back.

Speaker 21 Barbara said they weren't getting divorced, but Curtis was definitely definitely divorcing her.

Speaker 2 While Barbara's behavior garnered plenty of attention, Curtis never raised any eyebrows.

Speaker 21 There's nobody ever going to be able to convince me that he abused her in any shape, fashion, or form, and he never abused those kids.

Speaker 21 I thought Curtis was an excellent person, but his wife was a different subject.

Speaker 2 Two days after the murder, investigators get a call from neighbor Cindy Clehan.

Speaker 2 Cindy says she has just gotten off the phone with Barbara.

Speaker 23 Barbara had called her and asked her to take care of Leslie because the police were calling her to go back and interview.

Speaker 2 Cindy says that Barbara called her twice more to keep her updated, all the while claiming she was still at the police station.

Speaker 16 But the neighbor noticed that the call was not coming from the police department. The caller ID indicated that the call was coming from a motel.

Speaker 2 Detectives work quickly to locate the hotel in which Barbara has taken refuge.

Speaker 16 Barbara had told one of the detectives that she had very recently checked out of a mental hospital.

Speaker 3 So their primary concern at the beginning was, you know, is she going to hurt herself?

Speaker 2 Around 1 a.m. on June 2nd, authorities gather in the parking lot of the hotel.

Speaker 16 They saw her van outside and they recognized it, but there was no record of a Barbara Holder checking in, so they decided to canvass the hotel.

Speaker 2 Investigators go room to room. At one door, a male voice responds but refuses to open up.

Speaker 2 Authorities draw their weapons and demand entry.

Speaker 3 There was a pause for an extended period, but after that pause, Barbara Holder came to the door.

Speaker 3 They could see in the background that there looked like a male subject also in the room.

Speaker 2 Investigators ask Barbara and the unrecognizable male subject to step outside.

Speaker 2 He identifies himself as 33-year-old Mark Dixon.

Speaker 2 Barbara is quick to offer up an explanation.

Speaker 16 And when they first asked her, who is this guy and how do you know him, she indicated that she had just met him at a bar a few hours earlier, which is pretty weird in and of itself for someone whose husband was just killed.

Speaker 2 Barbara and Mark are transported to the League City Police Department for questioning while detectives search the hotel room.

Speaker 3 They were able to find property that was reportedly stolen in the burglary of the holder home earlier.

Speaker 2 That's not all they find.

Speaker 2 They also locate items stolen from the holder's neighbors.

Speaker 8 They were also able to locate, I believe, a ring that was in a pill bottle.

Speaker 22 It was the class ring of Sylvia Yates.

Speaker 2 Then they locate a final damning piece of evidence.

Speaker 16 They see that there's some knives and the knives seem similar to the type knives they saw at the older house.

Speaker 14 They realize several of those knives could have been the murder weapon.

Speaker 2 Coming up, detectives confront Barbara.

Speaker 11 She did a really good job of playing the damsel in distress.

Speaker 25 The items that you say were stolen were found in your motel.

Speaker 26 If they were in there, I never saw them in there.

Speaker 2 And a new suspect emerges.

Speaker 22 He began to tell the detectives that he had solicited a 16-year-old juvenile to participate and help kill Curtis Holder.

Speaker 2 Detectives investigating the murder of Curtis Holder have just found damning evidence at the hotel room of Barbara Holder and Mark Dixon.

Speaker 16 They do the protective sweep just to make sure and see that there are some knives on the floor that could have been used to stab him.

Speaker 2 Investigators seize the hotel room evidence.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, back at the station, Barbara denies any knowledge knowledge of the stolen items or the knife.

Speaker 25 The items that you say were stolen during the time that he was murdered were found in your motel room.

Speaker 26 If they were in there, I never saw them in there.

Speaker 2 It's clear to investigators that Barbara isn't ready to be honest.

Speaker 2 So they turn their attention to Mark.

Speaker 4 Barbara's telling detectives, I just met this guy today. Obviously, detectives pretty quickly determine that's not true because Barbara's name is tattooed on his arm.

Speaker 22 Mark says that he had met her some weeks earlier at a rehabilitation facility at Mainland Center Hospital, that they were patients there together.

Speaker 16 She had been in there for depression and suicidal ideation.

Speaker 16 They meet in the hospital and they have a romance.

Speaker 2 Mark says that during their time in the hospital together, Barbara confided in him.

Speaker 16 Barbara tells him this tale of woe about her husband had been abusive to her.

Speaker 11 She had a really good job of playing the damsel in distress.

Speaker 3 He learned more about the horrible relationship she had with Curtis and that she wanted him dead.

Speaker 2 To convince Mark to help her kill Curtis, Barbara dangled promises of marriage and money.

Speaker 16 Barbara also talked to him about the fact that there was a lot of insurance money on Curtis, around $600,000.

Speaker 11 Barbara Jean offered to pay him $50,000 for helping murder her husband.

Speaker 2 But Mark had reservations.

Speaker 16 He just didn't the kind of guy that does that. So she asked him if he knew anybody he did.

Speaker 16 Well, he did know somebody.

Speaker 22 Mark Dixon began to tell the detectives that he had solicited a 16-year-old juvenile named Johnny Lopez, who lived in the very same neighborhood to help kill Curtis Holt.

Speaker 2 Mark tells detectives that he and Johnny formed a friendship when the burgeoning tattoo artist inked Barbara on Mark's arm.

Speaker 22 Johnny was promised $50,000 to participate in the murder.

Speaker 16 Mark did talk about doing the burglary next door at the AIDS house to set this up.

Speaker 16 But he indicated that Barbara was going to be luring Curtis there with the phone call and that Johnny was going to do all the killing.

Speaker 2 After speaking with Mark, authorities officially place him under arrest.

Speaker 2 And take one last run at Barbara for a confession.

Speaker 15 You're in a bad situation right now. I know pretty much everything there is to know about what took place here and I know he's been lying to me.

Speaker 26 I don't want to talk anymore. I want a lawyer and I want to know where my kids are.

Speaker 2 With Barbara lawyered up, investigators place her under arrest and set their sights on tracking down 16-year-old Johnny Lopez.

Speaker 2 They locate him the next day and place him under arrest.

Speaker 22 They were able to locate locate him with a girlfriend. Johnny was a juvenile, and he was magistrated in a very cautious and careful manner that is required when we're dealing with juveniles.

Speaker 16 Well, initially, Johnny tells the detectives a few different versions, but in the end, Johnny has both him and Mark attacking Curtis.

Speaker 16 He did indicate that he helped undress the body and that Barbara asked him to do that and he believes that was to humiliate the deceased.

Speaker 2 One thing is clear to detectives. Barbara is the mastermind behind the murder.

Speaker 22 There's no question that Barbara Holder was the person who was coordinating the events. She wanted, according to Dixon, Curtis killed.
She helped orchestrate her children being away from the home.

Speaker 22 She helped orchestrate the other burglaries in the area.

Speaker 2 After comparing Johnny and Mark's stories, authorities piece together what they believe happened on May 30th inside the holder home.

Speaker 16 She goes and she gets Mark Dixon and she gets Johnny Lopez

Speaker 16 and she brings them to the house. They spend some time in the house making it look like it would been ransacked.

Speaker 22 She was able to lure Curtis back into the house at that very time by making making that page or call to him.

Speaker 2 When Curtis arrived, Barbara was waiting for him in the kitchen while Mark and Johnny hid just out of sight.

Speaker 22 And as Barbara would lure Curtis Holder into the room, they simultaneously attacked him. Mark initiated the blows to the head with the wrench.

Speaker 22 but lost the wrench and Barbara Holder picked it up and started slugging.

Speaker 22 And then shortly after that, Johnny jumped up and began to stab him with both knives repeatedly.

Speaker 14 In the process of trying to take Curtis's wedding band off his hand, it got stuck and they weren't able to remove it. And so Johnny simply cut off his finger.

Speaker 2 After the attack, The trio then stripped Curtis and covered him with bags in an effort to throw police off course.

Speaker 16 Mark indicated that Johnny stabbed him. Johnny tells a similar story to Mark, except that he's guided Mark as being the person attacking Curtis.

Speaker 16 Barbara, of course, promotes these new theories where these two guys killed her husband and she had nothing to do with it and she was just an innocent victim and she had no culpability whatsoever.

Speaker 2 Investigators are concerned that having three co-conspirators with conflicting accounts won't sit well with a jury.

Speaker 11 All three were trying to put some of the blame off on somebody else.

Speaker 2 Coming up, more chilling information comes to light.

Speaker 21 He told her he was divorcing her. She was not going to lose that house.

Speaker 3 She was the primary or sole beneficiary on all of those things.

Speaker 2 And a star witness comes under scrutiny.

Speaker 4 I say, you can't trust that. You can't trust the word of a killer.

Speaker 2 Texas authorities have Barbara Holder, her lover Mark Dixon, and 16-year-old Johnny Lopez in custody for the murder of Barbara's husband, Curtis Holder.

Speaker 4 Now, what seems to be randomness now seems to be more planned out. There was an actual conspiracy here that involved Barbara and Mark and now Johnny.

Speaker 2 Investigators believe Barbara was the mastermind, promising both money and love to inspire her hitmen to act.

Speaker 16 There's no question Mark was in love with Barbara and thought Barbara was in love with him. I have a much bigger question about whether Barbara was sincerely in love with him or just using him.

Speaker 2 Investigators believe that money was Barbara's main motive.

Speaker 21 He told her he was divorcing her. She killed Curtis because she was not going to lose that house.

Speaker 3 Looking at his retirement accounts and his life insurance policy, she was the primary or sole beneficiary on all of those things. And that she stood a financial windfall in the area of

Speaker 3 $450,000 to as much as $750,000.

Speaker 2 Despite the evidence against her, Barbara continues to claim innocence.

Speaker 2 Prosecutors are determined to hold her accountable.

Speaker 16 They strike a plea board in deal. Instead of being charged with capital murder, Johnny Lopez would be charged with first-degree murder.

Speaker 16 But a condition of it would be that he had to testify truthfully at both trials.

Speaker 22 We were able to get his full and truthful testimony against both Barbara Holder and Mark Dixon.

Speaker 2 In August 1998, Johnny Lopez accepts the plea deal and agrees to testify against Barbara.

Speaker 2 He claims that he threw the wrench into a dumpster at the motel, but it was never recovered.

Speaker 2 In March 1999, Barbara's day in court finally arrives.

Speaker 3 The primary defensive strategy was to minimize the testimony of Johnny Lopez.

Speaker 4 And they're saying, you can't trust that. You can't trust the word of a killer.
He's just doing this to get lesser time.

Speaker 2 But prosecutors argue that the mountain of evidence against Barbara cannot be ignored.

Speaker 11 It was an extremely strong case. I mean, she was found with the murder weapon, and she was found with the stolen property out of the house.

Speaker 11 Her two compatriots both confessed and implicated her.

Speaker 2 The jury agrees and finds Barbara Holder guilty of capital murder.

Speaker 2 She is sentenced to life in prison.

Speaker 3 She was obviously, in the eyes of the jury, guilty, orchestrating, organizing, following through with the murder of her husband.

Speaker 2 Later that summer, Mark Dixon is also found guilty.

Speaker 22 The jury convicted Mark Dixon of capital murder. Under Texas law,

Speaker 22 automatic life in prison was assessed as the sentence by the trial judge.

Speaker 2 In exchange for his cooperation, Johnny Lopez is sentenced to 40 years.

Speaker 11 She was a cold-hearted, manipulative woman.

Speaker 20 She used men.

Speaker 11 She was very, very good at

Speaker 11 knowing how to trip the triggers to get a man to do what she wanted him to do.

Speaker 12 I could definitely forgive my mother, but it would

Speaker 12 really just have to be her coming clean to me about everything and, you know,

Speaker 12 just saying that she did it. I just can't forgive her until she does that.

Speaker 12 What I would say to my father is just that I love him and I know he loved his kids and he did the best he could and

Speaker 3 I miss him.

Speaker 2 Barbara Holder maintains her innocence.

Speaker 9 She is currently housed in the William P. Hobby Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Barbara Holder and Mark Dixon are eligible for parole in June 2037.

Speaker 9 Johnny Lopez is projected for release in June 2037. He will be 57 years old.

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