Man’s shock when he found out his mother was a murderer after googling her name

A man has spoken of his shock when he Googled his mother’s name only to discover she was a murderer.

Travis Holman, 36, had a difficult relationship with his mother Lynda, 60. Travis claims Lynda abandoned him when he was 11, leaving him and his sister Daisy Holman, then 13, to fend for themselves while Lynda moved in with her boyfriend Mark McCollum. Daisy and Travis’ father died of heart disease in 1991.

Raised by their aunt and uncle, the children saw their mother twice a year and spoke to her on the phone. Travis was worried about his mother and was curious to see what results he would find. So he searched her name online, only to discover that she had been arrested for shooting her boyfriend in the chest with a shotgun.

For all the latest news on US current affairs, politics, sports and showbiz, head over to The Mirror of the United States

Lynda was sentenced to 28 years in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder. Travis, a freelance television production assistant from Sacramento, California, US, said his relationship with his mother was “as healthy as it can be”.

He said: “I Googled the names of a few family members I hadn’t seen for a long time. I knew my mother had a history, she had been convicted of manslaughter in the 90s.

“I typed her name into Google and the first article that came up was Lynda Holman’s arrest – I thought it was her previous conviction. But when I looked at the date, it said February 16, 2010, and my mind imploded.

“I went to her court appearance and that was the last time I saw her. This time I could see her from across the courtroom. I will never forget the look on her face. It was a mixture of total happiness to see me, but at the same time, it was shame.”

Travis said they had a complicated childhood because his mother was a “wild child” but she cared for him and his sister. “I remember she partied a lot. Like, she had a sports car and I remember us doing donuts in it,” he said.

“She was a loving mother. She was always told ‘I love you’ and ‘you’re special’ – my sister and I felt that. We felt loved, but she had a difficult upbringing, just as my sister and I eventually had.”

In 1998, Lynda went out on a night out and met Mark at a bar and took him back to the family home in Kendall, Washington, US, Travis said. Mark and Lynda dated for months before she abandoned Travis and Daisy and moved to Deming, Washington, to live with her boyfriend, he said, in 1998.

Travis said: “She came home after being gone for about a week, packed her bags and never came back. We spent four months on our own.

“Even though we were scared and terrified, we were even more afraid to turn to anyone else. When she left, we didn’t hear from her for months, and then our aunt and uncle finally came to get us.”

Travis and Daisy continued to maintain a relationship with their mother at this time and saw her twice a year. Travis said that when he found out what his mother had done, he knew for sure she was going to be gone “for a long time.”

The incident that led to Lynda being put behind bars occurred on February 16, 2010. Police arrived following a call about a shooting at the house where she and Mark were living.

Lynda said, according to court documents, that Mark talked about killing ghosts. Lynda claims she then put the butt of the gun on the ground and put the barrel up to her chin.

She told police that Mark asked her to hand over the gun and that the shot was fired as she was doing so. Mark died instantly. Travis said: “According to my mother, there was a ghost show on TV and she went over to the wall where there was a gun. She ripped it off the wall and said, ‘I’m going to shoot the ghost,’ and she shot Mark in the chest.”

He added: “Sitting in jail, talking on the phone through bulletproof glass, it wasn’t weird. I saw her in her jumpsuit. It broke my heart because I knew she had done something so terrible that they weren’t going to let her out.”

Travis said he “broke down” when he learned his mother had been sentenced to a lengthy sentence. “Even though my mother suffered from alcoholism and probably PTSD from growing up in foster care and the trauma that brought, like I said, she was a very loving, caring mother.”

Now, when the two talk, Travis says there’s a “common theme.” He said, “We’ll update each other on what one of us is doing and what we’ve done. She’ll update me on her battle with breast cancer, this is her second bout with breast cancer since she’s been in prison.

“She had a double mastectomy and is undergoing chemotherapy. Other than that, we joke around a lot. For someone who was locked up for over a decade, she has a great sense of humor. Talking to her, I can tell she regrets what happened.”