Texas woman wrote chilling message before being killed and locked in freezer

Curtis Allen Holliday was arrested for violating his wife’s restraining order. Investigators later found her body

In January 2020, Curtis Allen Holliday was arrested and charged with continuous assault against his wife. He was ordered to have no contact with her.

Months later, his wife’s body was found stuffed in a freezer, her body “frozen with frost on her skin,” according to her autopsy report cited in court documents reviewed by PEOPLE.

Texas investigators then discovered something else: a letter typed by Chi Thi Lien Le before her death: “If suddenly no one can find me, or finds me dead,” she wrote. “Please check on my husband.”

In the letter, transcribed in a notice of appeal filed in 2021, the Houston woman said her husband had threatened “repeatedly” to “kill me.”

The 29-year-old said she was “particularly” fearful for her life because they were in the process of divorcing.

On Monday, June 10, Holliday, now 62, pleaded guilty to murdering his wife in exchange for a 10-year prison sentence, ABC13, KHOU11 and Click2Houston report. (Holliday has already served two of those years, according to ABC13.)

Holliday’s attorney, Dick DeGuerin, told ABC13 they accepted the plea deal to avoid a possible life sentence, but they consider him “guilty with an asterisk” and his client maintains his innocence.

“We think it was actually a suicide, but he panicked after he found her,” DeGuerin told the outlet. “Instead of calling the police, he put her in a freezer and that’s bizarre. And I don’t know if a jury would have really appreciated that.”

Holliday was charged with assault for attacking Le twice — once around the Thanksgiving holiday and again on Christmas Day 2019, according to court documents obtained by ABC13.

Le disappeared in April. She was last seen on April 3, a witness told investigators, according to the outlet, but family members reported her missing in late April after being unable to contact her for several days.

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Prosecutors believe Holliday, who had violated his restraining order with Le, strangled his wife to death and then put her body in a freezer, according to court documents seen by PEOPLE. But by the time his bond was revoked in the domestic violence case, his wife was already dead.

While in Harris County Jail on a bail violation, he was questioned about his missing wife, according to Click2Houston.

The was found the same month, according to ABC13, wrapped in plastic and stuffed in a commercial freezer at Holliday’s company.

Investigators found “an invoice for a freezer believed to be the freezer in which Le’s body was discovered,” as well as “two photographs allegedly showing (Holliday) purchasing the freezer,” according to court documents reviewed by PEOPLE.

The medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide, according to ABC13, and Holliday was later arrested for his murder.

The couple had a daughter together.

“He will be out in time to continue raising his daughter,” DeGuerin told ABC13.

Holliday is scheduled to be formally sentenced on July 19, according to Click2Houston.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit thehotline.org. All calls are free and confidential. The hotline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in more than 170 languages.

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