ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – Three suspects will be sentenced for killing a Texas woman during a brutal assault they say they committed because they wanted her “to feel the pain of a miscarriage.”
Casey Kennedy, Alexander Lopez and Courtney Whitley all gave open pleas to murder charges this month for the death of their roommate Kelly Holder, 24, and her unborn child. The crime happened in August 2019.
According to court documents, Holder suffered an “extreme beating,” including blunt force trauma to her torso, asphyxiation, and a grotesque sexual assault.
Preliminary autopsy results reveal Holder’s unborn child, conceived about six weeks before her death, only died because Holder was killed. The fetus showed no other signs of trauma.
Holder was found unresponsive inside a home on Aug. 3. All three roommates were quickly apprehended and questioned.
They each denied knowing anything about how Holder was injured, but the documents state that their stories contained a lot of discrepancies, and eventually, authorities pieced together what likely happened.
The roommates told police they were angry with Holder because she allegedly caused Whitley to have a miscarriage and also “let men enter the house while everyone was sleeping so they could rape Courtney and Casey,” according to the documents.
They confronted Holder on Aug. 2, and when she didn’t admit to the allegations, they began beating her, saying they “wanted her to feel the pain of a miscarriage.”
The documents state the suspects admitted to punching and kicking Holder in the chest as well as strangling her.
Whitley also allegedly sat on Holder’s torso while bouncing up and down.
Finally, the documents revealed, Lopez “told them to treat Ms. Holder as if she was in prison and handed Casey a wooden rod.”
Kennedy then handed the rod to Whitley, who used it to sexually assault Holder, according to the documents.
Court officials said the suspects will be sentenced in about 45 days, after their respective pre-sentence investigations.