Mother solves Nashville murder case of daughter, initially ruled a suicide

A mother’s instinct leads to a murder confession in a cold case in Nashville. The Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) initially ruled it a suicide.

Those confessions led police to obtain his own confession and arrest the accused man in Texas, then transport him to a Davidson County jail.

The victim’s mother said that although her daughter’s death was initially ruled a suicide, she found in a 47-page cold case supplemental report what she needed to get her son-in-law to confess that he killed her.

April Holt was a young mother of two and the wife of Donovan Holt. MNPD said April was found nearly lifeless in their Antioch apartment on Cane Ridge Parkway with a plastic bag tightly taped around her neck in July.

They said she later died at Southern Hills Hospital.

Her mother, Jamie Dickerson, was torn. “I would do anything to get her back, no matter what, she’s my baby,” Dickerson cried.

Nothing could bring his daughter back, but Dickerson could bring her justice.

FOX 17 News asked Dickerson what led her to believe Donovan killed April and that it wasn’t a suicide.

“I knew April was unhappy. She had filed for divorce two weeks before and she was dead two weeks later,” Dickerson said. “She had bruises on her wrists, neck, ankles and thighs and none of that was taken into evidence.”

Dickerson spent months conducting her own investigation after she said police refused to believe her.

The key element of the police investigation report, she said, was that only Donovan Holt’s fingerprints were found on the bag and duct tape, not April’s.

“That’s when I confronted him (Donovan) and he confessed everything to me and that’s when I went to the police,” Dickerson said.

MNPD investigators then interviewed Donovan and obtained a confession. He was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, last week. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter, making a false statement and tampering with evidence, following a grand jury indictment.

MNPD told FOX 17 News it consulted with the district attorney’s office and the medical examiner’s office whose initial autopsy report listed suicide. It was later changed to homicide.

The Metropolitan Police also said there was “no evidence to contradict the explanation given by Holt in interviews during this period”.

“I feel like they let my family down. I had to fight while grieving for my daughter,” Dickerson said.

Although Holt was charged with reckless homicide, Dickerson believes the charge should be more serious, such as first-degree murder.

We will continue to follow this story.

Visit April’s Go Fund Me to help support her family in her memory.

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