Cops ruled woman's death a suicide until her mother's persistence triggered murder confession: 'I knew it was foul play'

A heartbroken mother refused to accept the initial ruling that her daughter's death was a suicide because she believed it was something far more sinister.

April Holt — a 29-year-old mother of two — was found by police almost lifeless at her apartment in Antioch, Tennessee, on July 31, 2023. Officers with the Metro Nashville Police Department said they found Holt in the bathroom with a plastic bag duct-taped tightly around her neck.

'And I'm curled up in a ball on a bench next to him, just hysterically crying and just calling out to God to save my child. Even though I knew in my gut that she was gone.'

Holt left behind a 12-year-old daughter, an 8-year-old son, and her husband – 33-year-old Donovan Holt.

The case was later closed after an autopsy officially ruled Holt’s death a suicide.

However, Holt's mother believed her daughter's death was not by her own doing.

Jamie Dickerson, Holt's mother, said April embodied positivity, and it was apparent in her TikTok with 200,000 followers. April previously had taught middle schoolers at Believers Faith Fellowship and recently had opened her own lash studio in Nashville.

Dickerson recalled how she invited her daughter to the movies just before her death.

“We were going to go see the Barbie movie,” Dickerson told WSMV-TV. “She said, ‘Donovan has to work, I can’t go to the movie, but I’ll meet you at church at the Blast classroom tomorrow.’”

Dickerson never got a chance to respond to her daughter.

The next day, she received the call that would wreck her world.

“The phone rang, and it was Donovan, and he was upset — kind of like a panic upset,” Dickerson explained. “He was like, ‘We found April. She wasn’t breathing, and she’s in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.’”

Dickerson told Fox News, "So I jumped in my car, but even right when I got the first phone call, I was like, 'Something's not right. April's in perfectly good health.' An hour and a half ago or so, she texted me perfectly fine. So something's not right. Like I thought maybe she had passed out. Maybe she hit her head because she passed out. I didn't know. I mean, like, why would she just not be breathing? I didn't know anything about it."

"From that second on, when I got into the room at the hospital, he was just like rocking, like pacing," Dickerson continued. "And I'm curled up in a ball on a bench next to him, just hysterically crying and just calling out to God to save my child. Even though I knew in my gut that she was gone."

April Holt died at the Southern Hills Hospital that same day.

Once authorities ruled Holt's death a suicide, Dickerson launched her own investigation.

“They closed April’s case. DA and everyone agreed to close it," Dickerson said. "I got up, marched out of that room and said, ‘I’m not done, I’m going to keep investigating.’”

Dickerson would spend hours each day trying to determine who killed her daughter, but she had one suspect in mind.

Dickerson recalled that April said two weeks before her death, "I'm getting a divorce."

The mother said of her son-in-law, "He had an obsession with April. So the weird part is, is like you see these movies, and they love somebody so much that they're willing to do literally anything. I think that was him because she'd left him before, and he would sleep outside of her apartment. He would sleep in her car if it was unlocked."

"And it's heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking. And so I'm just, I'm not shocked," she said. "I think that when she said that this time she was very serious."

A few weeks after her daughter's death, Dickerson's grandson told her he witnessed a fight between his parents on the same day April died, according to the Independent.

The outlet also reported that Donovan pawned his wedding ring the week prior to his wife's death.

Dickerson told WZTV, "She had bruises on her wrists, her neck, her ankles, her thighs, and none of it was taken as evidence."

The mother filed complaints and eventually convinced the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department to investigate their own investigation. In the 47-page report, detectives said there were “two hits” of Donovan Holt’s fingerprints on the duct tape roll.

Despite the new evidence, Dickerson claimed police told her, "They said they still didn't have enough evidence to convict him."

Dickerson said when she saw that key piece of evidence, she confronted Donovan Holt.

“I told him he had a choice,” she said. “He could tell me what happened, or I was going to go to the cold case department.”

Dickerson said Donovan admitted that he strangled April, dragged her into the shower, and taped a bag over her face to make it appear that she had committed suicide.

Dickerson reportedly recorded the conversation — and then she notified police.

Last month, Donovan was arrested in San Antonio, Texas.

Nashville Police said in a news release that Donovan confessed to detectives with the MNPD's Cold Case Unit in July that he had strangled his wife.

On Sept. 19, a grand jury indicted Donovan Holt for reckless homicide, evidence tampering, and false reporting.

Holt was extradited back to Nashville where he is being held on $75,000 bond in Davidson County Jail awaiting his Oct. 23 arraignment.

"The person you were supposed to love, you killed, and then you put a trash bag over her head and ate lunch? Like she wasn't in the other room dead? And then you sent your son in there to be traumatized for the rest of his life. It's just bizarre," Dickerson said.

Despite her daughter's murder, Dickerson is praying that Donovon Holt's "heart gets right."

"As a Christian woman, I pray that his heart gets right. That's what I would want for him. I know it's what April would want. And even after killing my daughter, that is what I'd want for him," Dickerson said. "And I would want anybody to be able to have everlasting life."

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