Las Vegas man found with severed head in his truck pleads guilty to murder

The Las Vegas man caught with a human head in the back of his truck late last year has now pled guilty to murder.

Last December, Las Vegas Metro Police attempted to pull over Eric Holland, then 57, driving what appeared to be a stolen Toyota Tundra. When Holland realized police were after him, he swerved into the garage at the Rio hotel and casino and hopped into a Chevy Avalanche, which also happened to have been reported stolen.

After a brief chase, police ultimately apprehended Holland and impounded the Avalanche. They then made a grisly discovery: the severed head and other body parts of a dismembered person stored in various containers in the bed of the truck.

"Eric Holland has been taken into custody after human remains were located inside the vehicle he was driving," LVMP tweeted at the time.

A medical examiner determined that the remains belonged to Richard Miller, a 65-year-old acquaintance of Holland's who lived on a houseboat on Lake Mead. The ME also found several gunshot wounds, including one to the skull. Police then charged Holland with murder.

Initially, Holland pled not guilty, claiming through his attorney that he wasn't responsible for killing Miller. He'd just accidentally stolen the wrong vehicle.

“In order to believe he had knowledge of what was in the vehicle, you would have to believe he intentionally led police to the body,” attorney David Westbrook said. “Why would he do that?”

The dismembered body was not the only evidence against Holland, however. A Home Depot receipt for a reciprocating saw and trash bags, tools likely used in the crime, was found in the Avalanche, as were the tools themselves with Holland's fingerprints on them. Surveillance footage from a Las Vegas Home Depot captured Holland purchasing those items on November 23, 2021.

Police believe that Miller and Holland, who used the alias Bryan Long, had gotten into some kind of altercation in November, which resulted in Miller's death.

Faced with the overwhelming evidence against him, Holland pled guilty to second-degree murder on Tuesday, a crime which under Nevada law, carries a possible life sentence. He will be sentenced in September.

Holland also has other charges issued against him which are unrelated to the Miller murder. In 2019, he was charged with theft and embezzlement of a motor vehicle. Holland is a career criminal with a rap sheet that extends all the way back to the 1970s.